I was chatting with a business friend yesterday, and I mentioned one of the domain names I recently acquired in the context of the number of registrations with the keyword. He mentioned DotDB.com, and I generally use DomainTools for that type of search, but that is taking things off topic a bit. When I mentioned the domain name to him, he remarked that it was not resolving anywhere. I had a look and confirmed what he was saying. Yikes.
Every morning, I spend around an hour going through lists of domain names that are coming up for auction. When I say every morning, I mean every morning. I do this on weekends, when we are traveling, when we have friends or family over (in non-Covid times), and all those times in between. I review lists from auction platforms, Dropping.pro, and I recently added ExpiredDomains.net to the list of tools I use daily. This is the hunt, and it is probably the most enjoyable part of domain investing.
As I and others have discussed many times, the prices achieved in expiry auctions have grown in recent years. It has become much more challenging to find what I would consider to be a deal, so the hunt has expanded. I never focused much on pending delete auctions, save for the occasional gem, but I have been focusing on that area a bit more.
Most domain investors have faced a situation where they received a solid – or perhaps reasonable offer for a domain name that is either lower than the asking price or just not good enough to accept the offer. One strategy I have used in the past is to use the threat of shopping the offer around as a negotiating tactic to try and close a deal. If that tactic doesn’t work, shopping the domain name around might yield a deal.
Let’s say I have an offer of $50,000 on the table for a domain name I have priced at $100,000. Realistically, depending on the name and circumstances, I might be willing to sell the domain name for $75,000. Perhaps I would even sell the domain name for that $50,000 offer if necessary, but I wouldn’t lose sleep if the offer disappeared. In the past, I have told the other party that I will give one more day to consider the price or I will reach out to other companies that might want to buy this domain name.
It’s the last day of the year. Things tend to be pretty quiet from a business perspective, so I am going to spend a few hours doing some business housekeeping before the end of 2020. I thought I would share some of the things I am doing in case it sets off a reminder for you, and I invite you to share anything you might be doing that I didn’t discuss below:
When it comes to domain investing, people tend to focus on the domain name sales. Outbound sales is a hot topic, and it is an important topic for people who rely on it to sell their domain names. There are various threads covering everything related to outbound sales – from the sales pitch to the subject of the email to the number of times to contact someone about a particular domain name.
Sometimes a person wants to buy a domain name but they don’t have the budget or need at the time of contact. Touching base with a counterparty is a great way to keep the conversation going. People’s wants and needs change over time, and staying in communication is how to get deals done.
Domain investing is.a 24/7/365 activity for many people. This business gives investors the ability to work whenever and wherever, and sometimes inspiration strikes at odd hours. For me, I might be watching a movie with my wife when I think of a great domain name to buy, and I hit pause to send a purchase inquiry. Sending a domain name related email at 9pm on a Sunday may not be effective, so I like to use the Gmail schedule send functionality.
