The Data Trade Off

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There are a lot of great tools that can benefit domain investors. Some of these tools are made for domain investors and other tools weren’t specifically created for domain investors to use but can be extraordinarily helpful to us. One issue investors should keep in mind is that any data they input into these tools may be seen by the data providers and potentially associated parties.

I use third party tools for many things. I perform Whois lookups on domain names I am looking to buy and those I am researching. I check various metrics for domain names I own. I do research on prospective buyers for my domain names and domain names I want to buy. I have not built my own tools, so I use third party companies.

Downside of Self-Managed Landing Pages

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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.

The Hunt is Fun, but Validation is Critical

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.

Shop the Offer Around

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.

What I Am Doing Before The End of 2020

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:

Keep on Touching Base

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.