I am a highly competitive person. Whether I am playing a tennis match against a friend or playing a board game with my family, I always want to win. This competitive drive often shows itself when I am negotiating to buy or sell a domain name. Like when I am playing boys against girls soccer with my family, sometimes it’s better to lose the competitive spirit for the betterment of all.
I regularly find myself in domain name negotiations where a gap exists between the price I’ve set and the “max” price a buyer has in mind. If the gulf is far too great, it’s easy to wish the prospect well and move on to other things. When the gap is more narrow, it sometimes comes down to who gives up first.
My competitive drive comes to the front of my mind, and I try as hard as I can to get the buyer to agree to my price. Sometimes the gap is thousand of dollars and sometimes it’s just a few hundred dollars. Both parties dig-in their heels, and oftentimes, the buyer goes away to find something else or simply decides he would rather not do a deal. Poof, the deal is gone.
For my, I need to get better at not always trying to win. I don’t need to squeeze every last penny from a buyer looking to acquire an inventory-quality domain name of mine. So what if I leave a few hundred dollars or more on the table when the profit margin is super high regardless of where we end up.
I have lost countless deals trying to squeeze more money from a prospective buyer who walks away. I have probably earned the same amount of money I lost holding to my asking price, too. However, many of those lost deals were for names I’d be happy to exit.
One thing I need to work on in 2023 is being a bit more collaborative with buyers rather than competitive to try and secure the best deal for me while risking a good deal for all. As things tighten up with the economic conditions, banking more deals will boost the bottom line.
“In order to gain something, you have to lose something… If you’ve gained something, it means that someone, somewhere has lost something. Even happiness is built on someone else’s misfortune.”