Archive for the ‘David Carter’ Category

Do you have a great generic domain name that would be ideal for an end-user company?

If the answer is “yes”, but to date, despite your belief in that name, you haven’t had a flood of offers coming your way, then you have three choices:

1. Contact a broker
2. Get real
3. Start selling

A broker, if a real domain brokerage actually exists, should at least be able to give you an idea as to whether your name is as desirable as you believe. You’ll know immediately, because they will accept your domain name as a listing without asking you for any money up-front, their commission will be reasonable and they will ask for complete exclusivity over the sale, probably asking you for control over the name servers.

If your domain name broker isn’t so keen to help you without an initial listing fee, perhaps the name isn’t so good.

By domain broker, I mean a specialist who is prepared to pro-actively market your domain name to it’s most relevant audience, creating interest amongst competing potential purchasers in order to maximise the price.

Domain listing sites, parking and the like do not do this and despite their claims, are not what I would consider to be a brokerage.

No domain brokerage service I have personally seen to date, comes anywhere near what I would consider using even for a moment. That isn’t to say they don’t exist, but I think such a service is rarer than an end-user buyer.

That kind of rules out option 1 doesn’t it?

2. Getting Real in the domain name game is also a bit of a big ask for many domainers, who, almost without exception, see all of their names as being super-prime and worth an absolute fortune.

Sadly, very few domainers have super-prime domain names. Not even me, which is a shame, because I’d really like to own just one.

Unfortunately, most deluded domainers have many super-prime domain names. I know this because despite me not being a domain name broker, I get lots of domain lists from people wanting to sell and offering me almost unbelievable commission-only sales deals.

I say unbelievable because it is unbelievable that any names on the list would ever sell, never mind make a commission!

So what’s “getting real” all about?

It means taking an objective look at the domain in question. I say “domain” rather than “domains”, because if you think you’re going to attract streams of end-users to a portfolio or a list, you are wrong. You have to concentrate on one domain at a time, in isolation, if you’re going to sell to an end-user of any substance.

Trying to sell a collection of names to such a buyer is just too big an ask. Even to an educated buyer of names.

But knowing what I know about some who call themselves domainers, getting real isn’t really an option either so that leaves just one option.

3. Start Selling – and that means some hard, dedicated work on the domain you are looking to sell.

First of all, assuming your name is actually generic and desirable and not what the uneducated amongst our numbers call a “brandable” domain name, you must now look at how you’re going to get your domain name in front of the elusive end-user buyer.

As a salesman of many years experience myself, I know most domainers aren’t going to want to see this, but the fact is, that finding a buyer of any description is very hard work.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible though and you might be surprised to know that it might only take a day or two of concentrated effort to set the correct wheels in motion, though it will take considerably longer than this to actually achieve the sale.

You have many options available to you and I don’t necessarily recommend one over  the other. You just have to go with the one that most suits your personality, agrees with your time schedule and is most likely to get you a result.

First off though, I’ll say this. If your domain name is as good as you think, it should be doing most of the work for you.

I bolded that last sentence. Please read it again. It’s that important.

As a bare minimum, you should have your sales pitch on the home page of your domain name, saying that the name is being made available for sale, ideally with a realistic sales price.

A realistic sales price is a price that is affordable to your target audience.

Your target audience is not necessarily the market leader in the sector – so don’t pitch the price at a level only the multi-billion dollar corporation can afford.

Your target audience should be the staff, management or marketing advisors to those corporations.

Here’s a good clue with regard to this. Most larger companies will have advertising or marketing agencies advising them. It’s not hard to find the better advertising agencies, just look at advertising publications like Advertising Age for example.

These guys are in these magazines bragging about who their clients are.

Contact them and sell them the idea. Let them earn some mega bucks too – if you think your name is that great.

Back to the sales page. If your name is that good, you don’t need much more content than:

• The name
• The price
• Your contact details

If you’re having to pitch the idea of a domain name too hard, perhaps it’s not as great a name as you thought.

You might want to promote the name a little. That means wither:

• Telesales – how good are you at reaching decision makers?
• Sales Letters – if you know the right contacts, a letter might work in certain cases
• Email Campaign – if you can stand the rejection it might be do-able
• Search Engines – optimise for your target market
• Pay Per Click – this would be my choice

A good broker miught do all of t his for you. But as I’ve already stated, I don’t think such a broker exists. It’s too much like hard work for most, for relatively small returns.

Nobody is more enthusiastic about selling your names than you are, so why bother with third parties?

As you’ve seen, although I have more than 20 years of professional selling experience behind me (It’s nearer 30 now, because I am an old duffer), I still consider selling domains to end-users to be hard work.

Try an email or telesales campaign and you’re likely to get abusive and rude responses, mainly because people just don’t understand the importance of domain names.

Company contacts are usually salaried people and will resist spending money at any cost. They certainly won’t want to support your efforts to get a good price. Most are small-minded and jealous, just to add to their ignorance.

As you might imagine, in order to sell a domain name to it’s most relevant market, you have to reach the decision maker. That’s true no matter what method you choose.

Therefore, initially, your efforts must be focused on finding that elusive person, whether they are the chief executive or a third party at an advertising agency.

Only then can the real selling start and in the next part of this small series (because the subject is large and complex), I’ll start examining some options in more depth.

I don’t really use Google Adwords or other pay per click advertising in my own business and generally don’t click on sponsored listings when conducting searches, unless the advertisement is spot-on for what I’m looking for.

In fact, I’m almost blind to the sponsored listings, as I just naturally veer towards the natural search engine results.

This morning though, I was looking for something very specific. A consultant to help me get my asbestos company an international quality standard.

The standard concerned is called ISO17020 and it’s more specialised than a simple quality standard like ISO 9002.

So, I did what anyone would do and made a very specific search for “ISO 17020″ and “consultant” – specifying that both words should be included in the search results. Here’s the screenshot:

Click the image and you’ll see it full size in a new window.

Only one of the advertisers in the premium positions mention ISO 17020, yet all of them have placed bids on those keywords.

The one that does mention the standard is selling a pre-written quality manual, which doesn’t interest me, but even so, it is placed last in the search result.

The rest are bidding on the term I used simply because they probably figure that anyone interested in a quality standard will also be interested in the other standards that they offer.

I don’t know if that’s a good strategy or not, but every one of them paid the idiot tax today in the cost my click – but I didn’t find what I was looking for on any of their sites.

I did find it in the natural results though, which is why natural search engine optimisation is still vital to anyone selling services on-line and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Like users of search engines, Google wants the ads on their system to be as relevant as possible to the search terms entered. It makes more money that way and users keep coming back, because they trust the system.

Today, all I saw, was more evidence to not trust the sponsored listings, but that’s not Google’s fault, it’s ignorance on the part of the advertisers who use a broad brush approach instead of accurately targeting their visitors.

This happens in all sectors. I was only surprised not to see an automated ebay or Amazon advertisement in there. They’re on every other search I do.

If you’re buying Adwords and you want to avoid paying the idiot tax, I suggest you take a look at Superlever – it’s a complete Adwords system designed to reduce costs and increase visitor numbers through the correct implementation of pay per click. It’s the system I recommend to my web clients.

Being a domainer has to be one of the most frustrating occupations of all time.

If you’re anything like me, you have tons of names covering a wide range of markets and niches, all ripe for development of course and all names that could really dominate their market, given some time and some investment.

And that’s the problem.

Where to start…

The next problem is knowing when to stop.

So here are my thoughts on the subject, after spending a couple of years trying my best to focus on what I know and what I want to do.

Before embarking on any development project now, I ask myself one question, which is simply, “Is this core business”?

Thankfully, because of the way I operate these days, that is an easier question to answer than it once was, because my core business is not domaining as such.

These days, if asked, I would say my core business is more about commercial property.

To me, that means just about everything to do with selling, letting and managing commercial property, because that’s the market I find myself most attracted to due to the building and asbestos surveying work I’ve done during the past 6 or so years.

It’s odd really, because it was domaining and my on-line efforts that took me along that path.

Why specialise?

Because domaining is more like an addiction and distraction, rather like gambling, so in order to succeed, I knew that I had to concentrate, if only to help keep my sanity.

It was no good me looking down a list of domains to see which one needed my attention on a particular day, only to be forgotten again  the next day.

Looking through the sites I have built over the past couple of years, I believe I have managed to more or less stick to my goal of focusing.

It’s been incredibly difficult, since the distractions are many and varied. But that’s only every day!

Here are the early steps that helped me combat my addiction:

• Buying Domains – I no longer watch the news or read newspapers and think, “Ooh, I must register a name about this subject.” Spontaneous registrations are history.
• Domain Forums – I no longer participate in domain forums – they were sucking my time away.
• Auction Sites – I rarely visit domain auction or sales sites – unless I’m selling.
• Portfolio Reduction – I’ve been steadily selling or expiring non-core names for 18 months.

This combination of actions has helped me a lot.

My business is now almost exclusively about commercial property and that in itself, is a huge sector with endless opportunities, so again, I’ve had to reign in my enthusiasm and concentrate on things that I am knowledgeable about.

I know my market, know the people and most of all, I know what they are looking for and I can adapt my offernings accordingly.

Since focusing more on core business, I’ve been able to develop a large number of sites that each concentrate on a specific element of the commercial property market.

Each one has its own target audience, since the content is written especially for that narrow group. I’d rather have  40 visitors a day finding a specialist site than have hundreds or thousands of uninterested visitors.

So here’s a flavour of the sites I’ve been working on this past two years:

Asbestos – well, this industry has been good to me. I’m qualified, it’s specialised and I enjoy the work. I have a lot of asbestos sites.

Surveying – I bring in a lot of enquiries for building surveys and I have an immediate outlet for them. I also do the on-site work, which I enjoy immensely.

Property Portal – strictly commercial property. The site is done, but there’s a long way to go in terms of traffic development. Selling a free service is HARD, but I’m working on it and my efforts are beginning to bear fruit.

Training Portal – I’m starting with asbestos training and moving towards construction health and safety. All Internet based of course.

All of these sites are connected and presents many lucrative, cross-marketing and up-sell opportunities.

It’s no good my getting distracted and setting up my much-wanted tribute act directory, no matter how great an idea I think it is – it’s simply not relevant to commercial property and my longer term goal. It’s been shelved indefinitely.

I won’t be selling the name though!

That doesn’t mean I’m no longer a domainer, it’s just that times have moved on, just as I thought they would and if anything, the opportunities to make money is better than it’s ever been, especially if you can develop your domains and actually provide services.