I just returned from a vacation, and it’s nice to be back home. There’s something to be said about getting out of the country, but it’s always nice to return to the US. We had a great time, and it was one of the first trips I’ve taken where I barely checked my email. If you sent me something, it may take me a bit of time to reply.
Here are some updates – some related to domain names and some not so related.
– Thank you again to DudeRanch.com, Godaddy, and Richard Lau for their guest posts in my absence. Their posts raised $1,500 for the Ronald McDonald House organization that helps children with cancer and their families. My goal is to raise $10k this year.
– I tried the Westvleteren 12 beer at a great bar in Brussels called Au Bon Vieux Temps. I’ve heard this is the best beer in the world, and I would not argue against that rating. I could not imagine a better beer drinking experience.
– If you email me trying to get me to buy one of your domain names, please don’t send attachments I have to open in order to see them. I won’t open them and I am sure others won’t either. If you have too many names to put in a list in the body of the email, I can almost guarantee I won’t have any interest in them. If you have a huge list of names, just send me the best 5 to review. If you don’t know what your best 5 names are, I am probably not going to be interested.
– I keep hearing about the market slowdown, but  things have been going pretty well so far. I am confident this year will be the best year for my company financially.
– Here’s the best top level advice I can give if you want to make a lot of money in the domain business: Keep your overhead low, only buy great domain names at good prices, sell when you receive a great offer (don’t be greedy), don’t get caught up in forum/blog drama, don’t develop domain names “just because,” keep your sales and sales prices close to your vest unless it benefits you to release the data, and network with others in the industry, but don’t be a pest.
Have a great week!
Welcome back! Where did you visit?
@ JT
Thanks! Good to be home although I’m a bit jet lagged.
We went to France (Paris) and Belgium (Brussels and Brugge).
Where is your Ronald House page?
Hi Sara
Here it is: https://www.rmh-newyork.org/elliotsblog
Over $3,900 raised and donated so far.
Hi Elliot,
Welcome back, man.
Hey you seem to be good with planning trips for vacations and business conferences. Can you give guys like me some quick tips on how to plan successful vacations and that don’t take too much time.
I think I am one of those typical guys that don’t spend much time planning anything let alone vacations or have the desire to go anywhere that require planning – booking flights, hotels, ground transportation, excursion, etc….and waiting in lines!!!!
That said, my wife love going on vacations..and we go at least couple of times a year – she does all the planning and I just tag along like the third child.
Sometimes, I feel like I want to be the big man in the family and plan a trip and show her how it should be done. 🙂
@ Poor Uncle
Easy… I had my wife plan almost everything. I booked a couple hotels and made some dinner reservations, but she did most of the rest. We don’t really like doing “touristy” things either, so aside from the Eiffel Tower and a couple of museums in Paris, we basically just took it easy and walked the cities.
We did a chocolate tour in Brussels, and that was cool.
So how many pests… err… domain pros did you meet in Europe? Hope you had a fun trip.
Had lunch with one, drinks with another, and bumped into Matt from NameJet on the street.
Does anyone know about this headline grabber ?
Rick Schwartz Closes An Octuplet of Premium .CO; Catches BEST .ME In The World
15 July 2012, 10:17:00 AM from Frager Factor
Congratualtions to Rick Schwartz on a significant .CO sales: Regenerative.co, GoFirstClass.co WestLosAngeles.co, MedPot.co, Shop, Compare.co, VaticanTours.co, TampaMoving.co. And on catching the best .ME drop ever- BlowMe.me (.com is registered o National A-1 and Blow.ME is yet to be release by Brand and Jingles), but National A-1 really MUST have it to inflate their package (no pun intended)
Read More »
Sammy- that post was removed when Rick Schwartz advised me that though the source of the information was trustworthy (and an advertiser on THIS blog),the information itself was dated and misleading. Sorry for any confusion.
Elliot
Very cool. Glad you had a great vacation!
Domain sales got you where your at. Now your relying on less sales and your diversified. Blog. Burbank.com, Dog site and still doing well on domain sales.
Congrats and a record year Elliot! I am seeing a record year as well. Profits. Purchases. PPC income. Everything is a go!
Amazing how many domainers(big guys too) get sidetracked.
@ no one
Domain sales is still more than half of my revenue… Probably a lot more than half but I haven’t dug into those numbers. That said, the other revenue streams make it easier to buy more (and higher value) names, and they enable me to hold them longer until the right offer comes around.
Exactly! You did a blog post and wanted to rely less on domain sales and cash flow! Mission getting accomplished by you. Your focused! Everyone talks there shit about newbies and heck even the big guys are losing focus. It shows as well and there prices on shit leftover domains!
Flipping got you where your at. Congrats. Congrats on the business expansion.
Keep it up!