By: RH
Its always great to read the stories of big sales and in depth negotiations on domain sales. The key factor in most of these situations gets glossed over.
You have to be in a position to be able to take part in these types of negotiations. Most domainers are not in the position of a Rick Schwartz for example. Rick has written very eloquently how he handles initial offers, how he does not even reply to some that do not meet his standards, or feel weird.
The average domainer, and even most above average domainers could not turn down offer after offer in the low five figure range. How many domainers could hold out for $750,000 on ireport.com for example ? Its great to say ask for big money but if you are in a position that cannot afford to be wrong, or cannot afford to have someone walk away, it can be a problem for your overall success as a domainer. The notion that every prospect making an offer is coming back down the road is not always true either.
Where you are financially plays a major part in how you get sales done. The average man or woman in domaining cannot afford to let $25,000 slip through and hope the buyer comes back with another offer down the road. Being an unmotivated seller is like being the hottest girl at a party, you have all the options and all the leverage. If you don't sell, it won't affect your lifestyle in anyway, you have plenty of resources and plenty of options.
Secondly, you need skills in negotiating that not all possess, if you are going to negotiate like Schwartz then why not play golf like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson ? Most likely you don't have their shots in your bag, and not everyone has a top domainers negotiating skill in their bag.
Of course from time to time you can get lucky or have some gut feel about one particular domain, you just cannot ask for big money on every domain if a no sale will result in financial or emotional hardship. I have spoken to guys who turned down $40,000 in 2003 for example, and have never had another offer and it has taken a bit of a toll psychologically.
Learn from what they do,but realize that maybe you have to play a few extra shots to get the ball into the hole and save par. If it were that easy to ask for big prices and get it, everyone domainer would be far wealthier than they are.
Great post,nice to see someone keeping it real.
I am not in that position,I prefer sexual positions hehe
I think all depend what type of domain names that you have. If it is one word domain name with a lot of traffic then you can play as hot as you can get but if it is undesirable name than you hope at least to get x10 of reg fee.
Keep posting!
Yes, exactly!!!
There must be much more domainers on earth that rejected first big offer in anticipation of better one (now regretting) than ones who rejected first good offer and became millionaires after waiting for better offer.
Domainer’s need to keep in mind the rate of success when they are waiting for a million dollar offers…
Totally agree with you on this one – great post.
Very important for you to keep cash flow in the business. If it means selling a few domains at lower prices in order to pay some bills and invest in better domains – that’s a good thing.
Thank you for the feedback everyone. Anil I like your line about the number who now have regrets vs the number who became millionaires.