A domain portfolio sell through rate (STR) may be a vanity number that holds little importance to most people. The STR is the percentage of domain names that are sold, and it is usually calculated on an annual basis.
Someone who doesn’t rely on domain name sales for their income might have a very small STR, but someone who sells their domain name for a living might have a high STR. Depending the business needs, a good target STR can vary from person to person.
At the end of my son’s soccer game on Saturday, one of the parents came up to the Assistant Coach and asked about the company on his sweatshirt. The Assistant Coach works at the company, and the other parent knew a couple of his colleagues. After their conversation ended and we walked off the field, I asked him if his company uses a .XYZ domain name.
The Assistant Coach looked surprised that I would know this, chuckled a bit, and confirmed that his company was the brand with the .XYZ domain name. Mind you, this is not one of the more well-known .XYZ users, but I happened to know of it because of some research I did in advance of launching Embrace.xyz.
Every day when I wake up, I motivate myself by thinking that today is going to be the day a big sale hits. Domain name sales come in with no rhyme or reason. Sometimes they develop from inbound inquiries and sometimes a bit of outbound marketing yields positive results.
Just about every important domain name sale I’ve closed started on a day like every other day. Maybe I was in the middle of breakfast when the inquiry was received. Perhaps I was out running an errand or playing soccer with the kids when a prospective buyer responded to an outbound email I sent. An average day like every other day turned into a great day real fast.
Today is going to be that day for someone – hopefully that someone is you.
Earlier today on Twitter, Rick Schwartz posted something I agree with and want to amplify – cash is king right now:
When people start buying things other people start buying
When people stop buying things other people stop buying
When people start selling things other people start selling
When nobody is buying & nobody is selling: As I've been saying: CASH IS KING!#Domains #DomainNames pic.twitter.com/vKSBJsMROE
— RickSchwartz.com 👑 The Domain King® 👑 Since 1995 (@DomainKing) September 23, 2022
Despite the high rate of inflation that is essentially devaluing currency, having cash on hand is critically important. I think many people are going to be facing tough times in the months ahead, and having cash in the bank is important.
I am in a fortunate spot, but I have been doing a few things to batten down the hatches and fortify my cash position:
Back in the day, I collected Kenner Starting Lineup figurines. There was a point, I recall, that some of them has some value. Even with the rising value of sports collectibles over the last couple of years, I don’t think Starting Lineup figurines grew much in value. In fact, I gave several of my figurines to my son, who immediately ripped them out of their boxes and began playing with them. There was more value to me in seeing him have fun than there could ever be in the boxes.
In 1991, Hasbro acquired Kenner and has owned the Starting Lineup brand since that point in time. I don’t think the company has produced Starting Lineup figurines in many years though. According to NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski, Hasbro is bringing back Starting Lineup figurines:
This morning I received an inbound offer for one of my domain names. The email address used was a person’s name @companyname.info. I did a Google search for the person and the company name, and there was a match. The person is a senior executive at the company in the email. The .info extension set off an alarm bell in my head though.
A Whois search at DomainTools shows the .info domain name was created less than a month ago. The company where this prospective buyer appears to work operates on the company .com domain name. The .info and .com domain names are registered at different domain registrars. The phone number that was left is not a valid number.
