Saturday Update

Well, it’s Saturday and I’m up in Boston again for another wedding. It seems like I’m in a never ending cycle of weddings. I think buying a tuxedo a few years back was the best clothing “investment” I ever made!

Here are a few updates:

  • If you couldn’t tell already,  yesterday’s post was an April Fools’ Day gag. I used every domain name listed in Rick Schwartz’ inquiry article on his blog to weave a story together. I seem to have offended my parents with the post – sorry! That story was probably way cooler than how I got started.
  • Yesterday afternoon, I had a video interview with Mike Cyger of  DomainSherpa.com. We talked for close to an hour and a half, and I hope that it will provide some insight for you. There were a few topics I discussed that I want to write articles about, but I will let you wait to see the video first.  I like what Mike’s doing, and it’s an honor that he asked me to do an interview.
    • I just acquired another large city Hotels.com domain name. It’s a city in Europe with over 500,000 residents and more than 5 million people living in the metropolitan area. I still like this type of domain name if you have them.
    • You know what’s really annoying? Discussing a great domain name with two end user buyers, learning of their significant interest, waiting a few days for the necessary approvals to make an offer, and then receiving two really low offers. It’s part of the nature of this business of course, but it’s frustrating.
    • If Go Daddy ever goes public, it will be interesting to learn whether the elephant hunting video had an impact on the company’s bottom line. From what they are saying, it appears that all the negativity hasn’t impacted business, but I don’t think they have an obligation to anyone to give a real assessment of the situation. If they were to go public, we might be able to see the potential impact.
    • IMO, the people who likely have the biggest moral dilemma with this are the company employees. I know that it shouldn’t be anybody’s business what the president or any other person at a company does in his spare time, but by posting the video, Parsons seems to have opened a can of worms for all of his employees. I would imagine the call center reps are taking a beating on the phones and at home, and it’s gotta be a difficult situation. The silver lining is that I am sure Parsons will reward them this Christmas, as he does every year.
    Elliot Silver
    Elliot Silver
    About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

    8 COMMENTS

    1. – Yesterday’s story was a nice one, but as I commented on the post, you hadn’t me 😛

      – I agree, Mike Cyger is doing an excellent job with his interviews. Looking forward to watch yours.

      – CityHotels.com domains are always valuable ones. BTW, care to share? 🙂

    2. On behalf of all the people who fell for the April Fools joke (I did) let me try to explain why I fell for this piece. And let me say I will use it as a template if I ever have to do the same. It worked in the same way chain letters interject some fact with fiction etc.

      – You started with “probably think this is an April fools joke”.

      – It was very long (which made it harder to spend time thinking about any particular part in detail on a quick read).

      – You said things that didn’t match up with my view of you – but were possible – not totally unbelievable. I was wondering how you had so many names while in grad school but then again you live on the UWS so maybe family money who knows.

      – You said things about Rick Schwartz that were totally believable (I’ve met him one time and I’ve seen all those party pictures etc.)
      If you told me Rick drove a Cadillac Deville that would have made sense also.

      I think the secret sauce really was the fact that you left Rick until the end. By the time I hit the Rick part it so fit with my perception of something he might do and how he might brag to some young person who would gullible totally made me think the whole thing actually happened.

      Great job. Had you put in Parsons for Schwartz this never would have worked. Next year you can do one meeting Parsons on a hunting trip to fool all the people that start reading your blog in 2011.

    3. “You know what’s really annoying? Discussing a great domain name with two end user buyers, learning of their significant interest, waiting a few days for the necessary approvals to make an offer, and then receiving two really low offers.”

      I’ll assume for a second that you’ve figured out that these two end buyers a) have the money to buy it at a price you’d sell it b) you feel it’s a good domain name for the price you be selling it (has value). (And forgetting that I’ve had people start at $2000 and end up at 6 figures etc. so whatever they start at doesn’t always matter.)

      So maybe they simply don’t buy into the fact that domain names are worth that much. (They feel they are getting ripped off or something..)

      Try the rule of “social proof” where you show them that what you are asking is in line with what domain names are worth (and not by showing them some high priced domain) and that others in their industry (or similar) buy domains for similar amounts of money (and they’re smart, right?).

      Other variation that work with end users are (which I’m sure everyone uses, right?) “as a matter of fact someone else just contacted me about this name last week” (sounds like you are probably using this since there are two end users already?). I’m always surprised at how gullible people are about this. Car salesmen and realtors use this all the time. “There’s another couple coming in this afternoon to view this house…” Of course a bluff will only work if the user totally wants what you have.

      An example of social proof is the fact that escrow.com advertises on your site. If we view escrow.com as smart we have to believe there is value in advertising on your site. Kids use social proof “Elliots parents let him go to school in NY…”

      People and companies buy things because they perceive (among other things) that others do similar things so they feel comfortable.

    4. Thanks for allotting the time for the interview. I had a feeling you would be next on the agenda. It will be cool to read the transcript. I prefer to read than to watch videos.

      The interviews are helping domainers to learn about another more in detail. Thanks again.

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