One thing that has changed for me during the past couple of years is that I have been negotiating on purchases and sales via text message much more than in prior years. I have closed a few deals on both sides via text message, and it seems to be more acceptable these days than in prior years.
On my Embrace.com price request inquiry form, I have an optional field for the prospect to leave a phone number. Typically, I will send a canned reply via email with the price of the domain name and a bit of a sales pitch. If the prospect left a contact phone number, I will usually send a text message to let them know their request was received and a reply was sent.
More often than not, I receive a reply from the person, and I can discuss the domain name directly via text. It’s a bit more personal and much more instantaneous than email, and I think it is less intrusive than a phone call. In addition, with the influx of robocaller spam, I think most people ignore phone calls from numbers they don’t know, so there is a higher response rate on text messages than on phone calls. If the text message does not yield a reply and the email goes unanswered, I can always follow up with a phone call.
The one thing I do not love about text message negotiations is the lack of a paper trail. When I buy or sell a domain name, I almost always use a purchase agreement (contract) to memorialize the deal. I like to have a record of the full discussion as well, and that is more challenging to retain with text messages. To alleviate this, I sometimes screenshot the text messages and generally send a follow-up summary email when a negotiation is successful or if it falls just short.
Text messaging has become a much bigger part of my business communications arsenal in the past couple of years, and I think it’s a great way to communicate with a counterparty to buy or sell a domain name.
The real question is, do you type the texts, or do you speak them into the phone and then only edit manually as needed?
Depends if I am in the car or not.
I find text to be a great way to keep record since I can print them and keep them or forward them to my self and keep them in files on my computer. That way I have the records.
I find it easier via text because then they can reply at their pace and people open up more via text then on the phone.