Maybe I am getting crotchety in my old age, but there are a few things that irritate me when people contact me about their domain names. I understand that people want to sell their domain names (or service) to me because I have a public presence, but there are some things that irritate me and will almost always lead to a deleted email without a response.
I want to share 5 things you shouldn’t do or say when you contact me about your domain name(s) or service(s). I presume this annoys other people as well, so perhaps it’s time to rethink your outbound email strategy:
Add RE: or FW: to a subject line when we haven’t exchanged emails. I am sure this will improve open rates, but if you try to deceive me by adding something to the subject to make me think we communicated about something before, I will almost certainly not respond and will likely flag your email as spam in Gmail.
Ask me to sell your domain name. It should be abundantly clear that I am not a domain broker and don’t sell domain names on behalf of anyone else. Ignoring this on a contact page where it explicitly says “Top Notch Domains, LLC is not a domain broker and does not offer private domain consulting services.” is a surefire way to have your email deleted.
Try to sell me a new gTLD domain name or recently registered domain name. If I want to buy any new gTLD domain names, I will  go directly to the registry and try to work out a deal. I don’t right now, and I certainly won’t be buying any from another investor any time soon. It should be abundantly clear when someone sees the types of domain names my company owns.
Tell me I have a similar domain name to the junk you’re selling. Sure, I own Stallion.com but I definately will not want to buy Stallion-Studio.net (made up unregistered example) from you. This is especially the case when the domain names being sold are either pending delete or are being listed for sale by someone who is frontrunning.
Ask a ridiculous price for your domain name. I like to think I am a pretty savvy buyer when it comes to domain names and my budget can be flexible. However, I am not going to spend $250,000 on a domain name that may be worth $10k wholesale and would be a $250k dream sale. Sometimes I price my domain names ridiculously high when a company inquires. When I am doing outbound sales to other domain investors, I understand that my pricing needs to be at a wholesale level.
Bonus: Don’t tweet at me if you have a terrible domain name for sale. Â I have never bought a domain name after someone tweeted at me, and based on the quality of domain names that have been sent to me this way, I doubt I ever will. The most likely scenario is that I will mute you.
If you can think of other irritating things people do when selling domain names, I invite you to share them in the comment section.
That’d be 99.999% of all incoming emails 😀
Nicely written, Mr. Silver. And, gauging from my own relatively similar experiences I can certainly understand your being driven to create this post. At your invitation, I will in fact add one recent experience.
INSERTED NOTE: I’m sorry this became quite lengthy. Mr. Silver, your post apparently really triggered me about my recent experience! Thank you!
Because my LinkedIn profile states that I am a Domainer, in fact it states that I am an early Domain Pioneer, dating back to 1996. My first registration(s) actually occurred in late 1995. So also operate a humble group on facebook that is (honestly) coincidentally of the same name as your website, minus the dotcom and including a space. So a young lady posted ON MY LinkedIn account a PUBLIC comment accusing me of being inattentive to her email, unprofessional and something about how rude or inconsiderate it is that I haven’t given her email the respect of a reply. I came across this while visiting my LinkedIn page/account one day to check my messages and simply “do as we do” on there. So when I saw it, there had even been a follow-up comment made by someone else ON MY page about her experience with me. Now, a few things: I am not a Domain Broker. I am not a Domain Appraiser as a professional service. I do not [commonly] outright purchase entire Domain Portfolios from others. Although I would consider it if all important factors aligned, like strength of Domains and cost for entire portfolio or to make individual selections. But that wasn’t at issue here. I once owned and operated a Domain Registrar in the last three years of the 90s, but that doesn’t matter either. In all humility, I am an investor with a large portfolio of very strong Domains. I want to sell them, develop a few of them, co-develop A few of them, negotiate partial ownership/operational involvement deals for some of them and sell others outright. Some are big-name companies today. SHE, however, and MOST other people don’t/didn’t know any of that. As I went back to FIND HER EMAIL, she had sent me tons of CRAPPY, unappealing Domain Names that to me, amounted to what must now be for her, a stressful DRAIN of precious household money on odd Domain purchases. Not one would I have ever bought. Reading her email to me – if I shared it with you you would agree – it was inarticulate and she asked, “Do you have any interest in hear names?” Well, the answer was immediate for me and it was NO! So I HAD read her email before, and I had quickly deleted it because I didn’t want to buy her Domains. In our sligfest on my otherwise professional LinkedIn page, she accused me of not providing her with “My professional Value Assessments flr what she should Expect to get from Selling Her Domains, EACH on an Individual basis”. She wanted my APPRAISALS. But she was writing from another country than the US, UK or Canada and she is UNCLEAR in her communications. NOW, I have what amounts to a negative professional review on my LinkedIn page from someone who sent me a random email about Her Domain Names, fully 100% expecting me to provide a FREE service to her that I don’t even provide. NOW I have at least one “enemy” on LinkedIn and who knows where else that I had no involvement in a causal relationship to.
Now, Mr. Elliot Siver, I AM sorry that this became lengthy and became something of a “journal entry”. I guess your interesting post triggered me as an opportunity to share about my very recent experience! Thank you for allowing this forum and for your patience if you’ve read this.
Brian Kann
Thank you for knowing WHAT EXACTLY to do to upset you…
Looking FW (forward) to spending a few dollars in email. to spam the heck out of you..
Of course I have to get really board to do that..or make up a bunch of free gmail account 🙂
🙂
The Domain Gtxwmetr7651.com for sale $35,000 are interested HA HA HA.
Can you add the (You) to my comment.
Although… a couple of times those “are you interested as you have a similar name?” pending-delete emails have come in, I AM actually interested. I haven’t replied of course but I have placed a bid at the drop catchers. So, yes, most of those emails are junk, but just once in a while they are worth it!
When I woke up this morning I did not expect to be reading the word crotchetly, I had to look up the meaning, Cheers !!
I am new to domain selling ,with very little financial resources at my disposal. I am eager to learn as much as I can as fast as I can and have found domain investing a huge source of valuable info.as a Newby I am naïve and have not developed the cynicism that perhaps more experienced domain investors have. I respect Elliott comments and wishes and as always have gained knowledge and insight from them.
Keep up the great. Work
Haha! I think this is the process that keeps on going. Anyway thank you for making note of these points. I hope I will not be doing these.