Dropping The Domainer – What Worked In 2011
Published December 15, 2011As we approach the end of 2011 and get ready for the works Christmas party (tomorrow as it happens), I thought I’d take a quick look back at 2011 and see whether things got better or worse and define what worked.
Two of the best pieces of software I have used this year have been Yoast’s SEO WordPress plugin and Gravity Forms. Both of these plugins have made my online life a lot easier and have definitely added positively to my bottom line. Those links are clean and are not affiliate links. If you’re not using WordPress, wat’s wrong with you?
Dropping the idea of starting my own domain development service in February helped me gain some focus after seeing some of the crap I was being asked to get involved with. No offense people, but honestly, 99% of the names that were put forward as being “premium”, I would not have paid registration fee for.
I realised at that point, that my development skills were best kept for my own sites, promoting my own business.
Finally getting my UK commercial property portal up and running properly in April helped a lot. It’s only now starting to have a real affect on the business and is getting noticed by some very useful people. I have resisted ALL temptation to accept any kind of paid advertising or links on the site and will continue to do so through 2012.
Buying a van was a unusual thing for me to do in June, but again, that relatively small investment helped me focus on the business more than anything else. It’s a van for business and I feel now like we have a proper one. For years, I’ve been saying that I don’t work because I enjoy what I do so much. Having a van adds a strange sense of working class somehow in a way that turning up to client sites in a Mercedes doesn’t. I think it’s because it makes my partner and I look less like sales people and more like doers – must be the ladders we have on the roof rack.
Honestly, it’s horrible to drive, but gives us an edge that others in the same profession as us don’t have and can’t convey.
Profession. There’s a word. I belong to a profession now. Not an “industry”, though for the life of me, I can’t understand what industry there is in my previous life of domaining, nor recruitment which I wasted more than 15 years doing.
Yes, dropping my “domainer” tag in july turns out to have been the most important thing I did back in July 2011. I still have my domain holdings and will continue to hold them, it’s just they are a lot more focused now. I am an end user of domains, the bloke that domainers (including myself) have been searching for all these years.
Dropping the domainer tag has enabled me to focus exclusively on my surveying business and the results in the last half of the year have reflected that. Seriously, if you want success, concentrate on a niche you’re comfortable with to the exclusion of everything else, business-wise of course. Try it for 6 months and see what happens.
My “saying no” experiment that I began in August, whereby I switch off all computers and mobile telephones at 5:30 and weekends has worked. I never needed those distractions. Emails can wait and they do. Did you know that if you don’t read an email the moment it comes in, that it’s still there the next day? It’s taken me more than 12 years to figure that one out.
So those are things that worked and continue to work. They are what I shall be taking into 2012 without too much further meddling on my part.
Our staff (even those in my partner’s other business) all have work wear now – branded with the name “BuildingSurveys.com” and for the first time ever, we are using proper printed stationary and business cards. It all feels real because it is. What started out as another domain name acquisition is now a fully fledged commercial operation and you know what? It has credibility and gets us to the top table in the commercial property world.
Domains are not the be all and end all. Developed correctly and applied in the right manner, they are a wonderful tool, but in all honesty, they are just the start of the journey.
So what didn’t work out as I’d have wished in 2011?
Only two things really. My new iPhone4 – I sold it on eBay after two days and didn’t even look at the 4s. And then there was my iPad. Yes, it works, but what’s the point really? I took it to Kenya thinking it would be useful, only to discover that a notebook is far more relevant. I haven’t used it since. It’s going on eBay I think. What a waste.
Happy Christmas if you celebrate it and if not, then happy 2012. I won’t be around again now until then!
Update Note: It took precisely 32 minutes after posting today’s entries for me to receive TWO offers from people wanting to know if I’d be interested in buying and developing their domains. I didn’t want to be rude about the names in question, but not only can’t these people read, but they also need to do some research about what makes a name suitable for development. (Clue – it’s not the domain, it’s the business behind it).
Playing With The Big Boys
Published December 14, 2011Last week, I had the pleasure and privilege of sitting with some very smart commercial property investment people from a specialist company that puts together and manages high-end commercial property investments such as industrial estates and shopping centres, usually worth several million pounds upwards.
Part of their business is to help their clients bid on lots of commercial property portfolios that come onto the market. It’s a real cut-throat business as there is lots of competition. There is also an awful lot of money involved.
As I’ve been involved in the commercial property market, though from a different angle, I was able to sit my less than adequately educated self at the table and join in the discussions about how deals are structured and how entire estates are managed, because I was there as an advisor.
Those who know my immediate background might think that I was there to advise on marketing or on how to get their business on the web. But no. I was there in the capacity of advising on the state and condition of a property portfolio that was being acquired by one of their clients for around £25 million.
The point of this post isn’t to shout about being involved in such a big deal. In fact my part in it was worth only a fraction of that amount, but I was still at the table where the big boys play and, I was their as an equal.
They had engaged our surveying practice to help provide detailed information about the property portfolio on offer, which involved a lot of UK travel and a lot of headaches. But it was good to be involved in something big and it’s certainly helped my application to gain “chartered” status.
As we were enjoying a particularly sumptuous lunch, the subject of discussion around the table got to marketing and promoting services, mainly because somebody commented on our name “BuildingSurveys.com” and asked how we came to get it ahead of the large practices.
That started an altogether wider discussion about marketing professional services on line and of course, we discussed how that might be relevant for their type of business. Make no mistake, these old-school investment people aren’t ignorant of the net. Far from it. But they don’t know how to make things happen yet.
For years, domain name professionals have been eager to attract the attention of real investment people in the domain industry and have invited them to shows, seminars and the like in an attempt to spark their curiosity, when all that was probably required, was a few real life examples of how a generic name can help promote real business in their own environment.
They are not interested in how to sell widgets. They couldn’t give a stuff about how a name could be worth millions with some proper investment. They are interested in, is how to promote their own business and just like any business people, it’s them first, everyone else second.
So how do you bring big investment people to the domain table?
Quite simply, you demonstrate with real-life, relevant examples, how domains can promote their business. When you’ve done that, the magic will start to happen, because these boys network and are extremely well connected.
Personally, I’m just working my business. I have no domain drum to bang anymore, so wasn’t out to sell anything and you know what? They liked that.
Now, what can I do with investment-property.co.uk…
Metamorphosis In Final Stage
Published November 1, 20112012 will be my 10th anniversary of quitting my full time career in the IT recruitment business, when I left to follow my interest in the Internet and domaining and work from home.
Since the day I took that decision an awful lot has happened in my business life and most of it can be attributed to the domain names I invested in over the same period and prior to leaving. (My interest in the subject of domains started way before I left recruitment behind).
In 2004, I took a course and qualified as an asbestos surveyor – to help a friend out. A couple of years later and I was an equal partnber in an asbestos surveying business.
At the same time, I was helping out the same friend in marketing and promoting his chartered building surveying business and received more than adequate compensation for my efforts.
My acquisition of BuildingSurveys.com earlier this year demonstrated my focus in this profession, but of course, in order to become chartered, you need a professional qualification. The route in is not easy, unless you want to go back to college, which at my age, is the last thing I want to do.
But, my methodology in bringing business into the surveying practice has been exactly the same as when I began doing asbestos surveys. Unlike any other online marketer I know of, rather than just bringing in the sales, I actually go out and do the work too, all over the UK and beyond.
This isn’t because I’m some sort of workaholic, it’s simply because after a career that I never really had any pride in, I found a vocation that interested me and challenged me more than anything I’d ever experienced previously. In short, it satisfied me.
I now work about 50/50 on building surveying and asbestos surveying and within both of those roles, I have specialist areas of knowledge that exceeds that of many qualified individuals. I know because I’m getting the jobs in those specialist areas and I’m being called regularly by other surveyors for advice in these specialist areas.
So, it seemed only logical to take things a stage further and today I joined RICS (The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), as an Associate member, with a view to gaining full status when my experience dictates. The Associate membership recognises the experience I have gained in the profession to date, but that doesn’t make it an easy route in. It’s early days, but it’s something I feel I have to do because my goals for BuildingSurveys.com are so grand.
What looked on the face of it to be domain development is something far greater.
Those who talk about domain development as though it’s some fantastic new invention haven’t a clue what they are on about.
I’ve worked my vision for almost 10 years. Along the way, there have been so many distractions and blips that I have lost count. Since resolving to focus this year, I have been undeterred from my path, even though it’s cost me a great deal financially.
These days, I rarely visit domain or Internet Marketing forums and I don’t attend domain shows. Instead, I’m building a network of contacts and clients that suit my interests. It’s as liberating as leaving your job in the first place and highly recommended.
If you don’t like what you’re doing, it’s never too late to change.
