Last 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…