Are You Ready to Buy a Million-Dollar Domain?

EP16 Million Dollar Domains

[00:00:00] [00:01:00] All right. Welcome to million dollar domains for Wednesday, April 20th. We are coming up on our one year anniversary of million dollar domain names, one year, a million dollar domain names. And, uh, thanks everybody. Who’s joining us here in our live studio audience. Um, I’m going to let a few people come in.

I think I started the room one minute late today, and so let me invite a few people from the usual, uh, viewers who I appreciate and, um, let me have a guest today and let me just invite thank you for coming in. Thank you for coming in. All right. Million dollar domains. Um, It’s been one year since we’ve been doing the show here on clubhouse every Wednesday, [00:02:00] and we’ve talked with million dollar domain name brokers, million dollar domain, name owners, um, people buying names and hoping them to sell them for a million dollars.

My name is page how I have bought and sold over $10 million worth of domain names in the last 20 years, including two domain names, over a million dollars. And the reason I started million dollar domains was to start a discussion both here on clubhouse in a way that we can interact as well as in the people listening to the replays as well as, as a podcast.

So people can now listen to the podcast. Uh, and we put the link on start-up dot club, which has over 300,000 members. Um, and we’ll be sharing that on LinkedIn and throughout the domaining community as we go on this year. But more importantly is to share it outside of the domaining community. It’s to start talking about the common questions and issues that people address [00:03:00] when they spend or in the market for a name that’s one to 10 million or one to 20 million, or they want to get it for under a million, but it’s a type of domain name that would be a million dollar domain name.

And one, this is a lot different conversation than a specific company needing a domain name for a small business. This is a different conversation than investors that are buying thousands of domain names, trying to manage a portfolio. This is a different conversation than people that are making money on traffic.

Although traffic portfolios can sell for millions of dollars. It’s a different conversation than maybe new TLD. Or web three TLDs. Although we talked a couple of weeks ago about a reported sale of a web three T uh, name for over a million dollars. But I think the idea is that for people who are out there in their company, um, if they’re presented with an opportunity to [00:04:00] buy a million dollar domain name, it may be a time sensitive opportunity because a broker or an owner who’s decided to sell is going to be reaching out to multiple people.

And it’s not like someone has four Ferrari’s to sell. So he cast a wide net, gets a lot of buyers and until he sells his four, he’s fine selling to multiple people. Domain name is singularly unique. We had a gentleman representing shares.com this year, if I was selling shares.com and I was talking to crypto.com and I was talking to.

Uh, Merrill Lynch. And I was talking to the New York stock exchange and I was talking to rally road and I was talking to all these companies and one of them says, let’s get serious. What would it take right now? And I say seven and a half million, and they say, will [00:05:00] the seller consider six and a half? And they say, yes, that name is gone.

And if another company was just starting the process of doing a study on it, or getting buy in from their various constituencies or starting to research the market and answer that really tough question, what’s this premium, super premium unicorn ultimate domain name worth. And then how much should we pay for it?

To the buyers out there, the customers are the people who can use million dollar domain names to make multiple millions of dollars. You may not have the time you think, because as much as our industry is a $2 billion a year industry for domain names, the aftermarket is still made up of a large number of individual owners.

And [00:06:00] th they may not be ready to give everybody weeks and months to consider if they get the right offer. So the reason I started million dollar domains is to have people start thinking about what would they pay, think about how to value names. So if the specific name that comes up, they’d be in a position to already have done their homework.

The other reason I started million-dollar domain names is most people that are being presented with million dollar domain names are hearing the educational information about domain names from a representative or the seller of the domain name, and right away, they’re going to see a conflict of interest that if a seller of a domain name says, well, you know, these types of names are going from millions of dollars.

I think the buyer’s gonna look at that and kind of, well, yeah, of course. You’re going to say that, but the reason I want to have a million dollar domain name, discussion here and on clubhouse. And when we do it on the [00:07:00] domain show this year is I want to provide the information where I’m not selling a name.

I’m not presenting a name, let’s put it out there, let’s see why a name could be worth one or two or five or $10 million. Is it scarce? And, and I think that that will put the buyers in a better position to already have solved. Some of the hurdles built up some of the internal support they need within their company, or if you’re a startup.

And you’re the founder of the startup. You’re trying to do things at the beginning of the life of your company to make it worth 10 or a hundred times what it should be acquiring. A great domain name is one of those things, because once you acquired. A unique unicorn multi-million dollar domain name, your company in essence becomes all the power and credibility of that domain name.

And a lot of times that’s better than being a [00:08:00] company that starts out with a longer name, mostly a company that starts out with an undifferentiated domain name that does nothing to showcase the aspirations of the company as a startup. So, anyway, that’s the purpose of million-dollar domain names. Thanks everybody for coming in.

Let me just invite a few more people that see, I have a specific person I wanted to invite, uh, before we get started. I always try to let people share after working on a million-dollar opportunity, if they’re owning a name and not sure what to do with it, um, or if they have some challenges that I can help them with.

Um, I’ve consulted on a number of million dollar domain names. I do things a little bit different than most brokers in that I do consulting for both buyers and sellers, uh, for an annual fee for a month or an annual, [00:09:00] uh, for an hourly fee. And I think that what I try to do is, um, you know, give them a sense that I’m providing them the most impartial advice to give them a realistic sense of the.

Because as Andrew Roessner is one of the biggest brokers of domain names talks about when he tweets another, one’s gone away. Another one I’ll how does he say it? Um, like another one off, basically the idea that there might be 10,000 really good domain names out there. And if one’s taken by a, you know, a large enough company that it’s never going to give it back, the supply of available domain names for all other companies in the world has just shrunk and, and, and it’s, it’s, you know, it means that prices are probably going to go up.

Uh, there’s more scarcity. And if you think about sub-markets like adjectives or marketing [00:10:00] words or animals or colors, you may have a sub market where there may only be 15 or 19 or 23 words that, that accomplish the same purpose. Um, so besides words that don’t have any synonyms, you may have other words where the replacement value, what I call the first derivative for not getting the best name could be half as good.

And the thing that you can’t really quantify in million-dollar domain names is what is the market’s penalty for having a domain name that’s half as good as the best company and conversely, the market value of having a domain name that’s unparalleled. If you have a domain name in the space of your business, if you’re a startup, if you’re an existing company, if you’re [00:11:00] building an information site, many companies have done a great job of building their brand over the years, but they may want an information site about the product or service that they’re selling.

So the people can come and learn about that product or service before they’ve decided who to buy from. In other words, if I own refinance.com, I would be very likely, even if I was quick and mortgage or rocket loans or somebody like that, or if I paid $30 million to buy home.com. And I don’t know if that was the price, but we don’t know what the price was for home.com.

Some say 20, some say more, some say less. I I’m just going to put it up there with voice. I don’t know if it was or not. It’s because if you’re interested in buying a home and you can get information@home.com, you’re probably going to go there. Now, if it was bank [00:12:00] america.com, you’re probably going to think, well, I’m sure these articles are going to say the answer to every question is to go to bank America and get a mortgage of bank America.

So there might be perfect domain names for an industry. And what is the value of having home.com or real estate.com where there’s nothing above it. It’s kind of like being the goat, the Tom Brady, you know, how good is Tom Brady? If he’s the greatest of all time, how much better than everyone else is he?

We don’t know how valuable is he? You can’t say cause there’s no one to compare him to he’s the greatest of all time.

And I think if you have the goat domain and oh my gosh, I can’t believe this. Okay. No one go register. Let’s say [00:13:00] someone’s going to go register it. I know it all a.

Uh, it’s taken. Can you believe that?

Uh, no one else. Get it. Hold on. Okay.

Let’s see if GoDaddy’s working today. All right.

Less, some of you beat me to, it will say I just got to go domain.com. When you’re the greatest of all time, it’s hard to put a value on how good the name is for you. And if you’re selling a domain name and you think for your customer, it’s the perfect domain name. It’s the greatest of all time besides the fact that you’re normally, you know, we really don’t have a good valuation method for domain names, the suppliers to buyers and sellers and brokers.[00:14:00] 

It isn’t like you have a poker chip that you can take it to the window, say cashing, this thousand dollar poker chip cash in this million dollar poker chips has a million dollars on it and you get a million dollars worth. We don’t know what these names are worth. And even if we knew what they were worth, we don’t know how much to pay for them.

It’s kind of like that show pawn stars where someone will come in and they’ll have a original copy of the declaration of independence. And they’ll have a historian come in and verify its authenticity. And they’ll say it’s worth between 300,000 and $400,000, but then you have the star of the show, the shop owners saying, well, now how much am I going to offer this person for it?

So there’s two parts of a valuing million dollar domain names. There’s what is the domain worth? And then there’s, well, how much, how much do I have to pay for it? Which takes into account a lot of different things. But a lot of times, when you [00:15:00] say, how much is it worth? It’s hard to define because it’s the greatest domain name, uh, for what it does.

And for you buyers out there, if you know what a domain name can do for you and your company, you’re probably going to buy it for less than that amount. And this is the equation we’ve talked about all year million dollar domain name transactions happen. When the benefits of owning the domain name in perpetuity are worth more to the buyer than the money they have to give up to buy it.

And the price of most domain names is simply an imagined number by the seller. Now, great sellers will go to the longest links possible, someone like Rick Schwartz and never quote a price. Even when you think for sure, he’s got a quote, a price, [00:16:00] the buyer saying, listen, Mr. Schwartz, we really want this name.

We’re ready to pay, give us a number. And he’s still saying like, well, I’m not sure you’ve really gone into the investigation to determine just what it could be worth. What would it be worth to you? You know what I mean? But the best sellers will, will go as long as they can. Because once we just invent a number and say, as a seller, I’ll take a million and a half, I’ll take 2 million, I’ll take 3 million, I’ll take 650,000.

I’ll take 350,000. There’s nothing that says, even when we were about to say 350,000 for a domain name that we go. I see how they’re down below, say how great talking to you this name is. And I’m just about to say 350,000, and I go 450,000 and I could make that change in an instant. And, and, and that’s what we’re dealing [00:17:00] with when you’re buying one of these names.

A lot of times the seller is just imagining what they’d take, but if you know that you spend 10 million a year marketing and that your marketing is going to be 5% better every year from having purple.com, as opposed to purple product.com, or it’s going to be better with integrity.com instead of my integrity.

And I’m just making up some solutions. If you think you’re going to be better with, um, with stock exchange.com, as opposed to stock exchange.io, you know, um, and you know that you’re going to spend 10 million a year on March. And this domain name is going to make, you’re going to spend 5% less because people are going to remember the name of your company, because you’re the.com.

Then you know, that name is worth a half a million a year to you. And the seller just said they sell it for three 50. So [00:18:00] now what happens in million-dollar domain names? My opinion is the buyer has to determine, do I want to get the name, or is there an emotional aspect of, I want to get the name and I want to get it for the lowest price possible.

I want to know that if I see that seller, uh, uh, in a yacht club, uh, or in Vegas, uh, and, and I talked to him, he has no idea that I bought the name and he’s like, yeah, boy, when I sold that name, I can’t believe it. But you know, my minimum was 300 and that’s what the buyer bought it for. It’s a lot of buyers that want to feel like they bought the name for.

Just, you know, the lowest possible price or even lower than the person said they would ever go. But I think if you’re out there buying a domain name until you’ve paid the money and until the name is transferred to you, the buyer can really decide that it isn’t going to sell. [00:19:00] Now, if you have a legal contract, that’s obviously going to be different, but in most cases, until you get that name, the seller can still go.

I think I can do better boy. Now that I’m getting this number from you, it makes me think I can get this number from someone else. So sometimes as a buyer, by trying to get every last penny of savings or the emotional victory of knowing that you. Um, you negotiated so well that you got it for the best possible price.

You could end up having the seller walk away with the infamous. I forgot to tell you I had a partner and they didn’t agree to the price, so I can’t sell it to you. And now you have to go back and say something to them. Like, listen, we’ve already put in place our marketing and we need this name. Now think of the pricing, leverage that you’ve given up.

So I think as a, you’re a buyer, there’s some point in time where you have to say, let’s get the name and get it at a [00:20:00] time when the seller is most likely to deliver, this is the best advice I can give to you. If you’re a buyer of a hundred multi, a hundred thousand, a million dollar domain name, and we’ll probably clip this and make it one of the recordings that we lead with, and a lot of our shows.

Getting the price when it’s not the absolute lowest for the seller, you have a much higher likelihood of closing that transaction. Then when you actually got it down to the bare minimum, and there’s more chance that they’re going to find a reason to not fulfill again, I’m not talking about when you have a legal contract, I’m talking about just when it’s, Hey, we opened desks grow, and then you sat on the phone or through an email or through a text that you’d sell it.

And you know, whether people want to enforce that as a contract, I’ll leave it up to you. But you know, really sometimes you want to buy it when you’ve achieved some victory on price, [00:21:00] but more importantly, you’ve got to leverage where the seller is motivated. They’ve got a good number. They felt like they didn’t get a completely, you know, mowed down on their price.

And I think you want to get that name on. Because boy, if you don’t and you start thinking about what it could be worth over the years, I think you’re regretted. So I think that’s, that’s uh, secondly, I can tell to the buyer now, as a seller, you have to decide to, is it about the money or is it about winning the negotiation?

So you’ve had a name that you’ve maybe owned for 20 years. That names become a part of you. Um, when I own seniors.com and I started going to a lot of the domain conferences back in 20 0 6, 20 0 8, the kind of the thing that evolved for most people was you would put maybe instead of the name of your company, you would put your best domain name on your badge.

And, and so for me, Even [00:22:00] though I was new to the community. I could put seniors.com. Now some people thought it was a good name. Some people thought, oh, high school seniors. Oh, that’s terrible. But anyway, but it started the discussion, you know what I mean? And it started with discussion with the idea that that’s, that was the best name, my portfolio.

Now second, best day of my portfolio was a long way down, but that’s okay. So I’ve, I’ve lived with, I had lived with that name for five or six years when I ended up selling it and sometimes as a buyer. And then if you’re a seller, I just want to rent there’s you have a lot tied into that. You know, you may have dreamed at different times that name was going to be worth 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 30 million.

You know, there were a domain name, sales taking place, uh, you know, Mani con talked about a lot of them yesterday. And whenever I have them on the domain show for one and two and five and $10 million back in the two thousands. And if you think that if you saw those names going for 2 million, then, [00:23:00] well, gee, 20 years later, they should be worth 40 and 50 and a hundred.

So, you know, people are going to have high expectations. So as a seller, you have to ask yourself the same question. Is it about the money someone’s offering me 1,000,002 for this name you really have to start thinking about, is it about the money? It’s really about what are you going to do with that million too?

Because a part of you, isn’t going to have this asset that might be worth five or $10 million anymore. You’re going to have topped out, got your million too. And you won’t have a chance to make any more, unless you do an earn out or take stock or things like that. Is recommended a lot of times, but I think you have to decide the negotiation.

Is it just about the money or do you want to feel like you want to win the negotiation against the buyer? And you know, you can hear people say, you can picture him saying this well, I’d rather [00:24:00] lose. I’d rather ask for 2 million and not get it, then sell the domain name for less than it’s worth. And a lot of people, even when you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, they’ll have that feeling.

Now, of course, in negotiating, you want to have that feeling to try to get the best price, but I would just encourage you. If you’re a domain name owner, the million dollar domain name, you can have your outside story of what you represent to the buyer, what you represent to your broker. Because a lot of times the broker.

As much as I love our brokers in the industry, they would like to see a transaction. In most cases, not all cases believe me, that the brokers in our business, I do believe walk alongside their sellers. Um, and, and, and many times try to do what’s best for the seller. Even if the seller doesn’t know it. So in general, I am 99% [00:25:00] positive on the brokers in our business, but just like your real estate agent is usually going to try to move toward having a transaction where they get paid, but you’ve got to decide yourself, what’s your number?

Um, because you could get caught up in trying to win the negotiation and you don’t know what’s happening on the buyer’s side. Their company could have a financial shortfall. Or their company could have a financial windfall where they say, wow, as long as we’re going to pay him $2 million. We just found another domain name that when we told our CFO that we were spending $2 million, he spent a week looking for replacements and he found one that’s better for 2.2 million.

So you run some risk as the seller of a buyer, seemingly looking like they’re ready to go. And then they may walk away and you may not know why. Um, so anyway, I think the only thing I want to encourage people when they’re the buyer or the seller of million dollar domain names [00:26:00] is try to differentiate, is it about the money or is it about winning negotiation and then, you know, proceed accordingly.

So, anyway, that’s kind of a short, I’m trying to keep my, uh, soliloquies here, my monologues to about a half hour for the podcast. So that’s all I’m going to deliver with. I thought we might have Krista here today. To tell us a little bit about stud.com, but I don’t see her, uh, Rick Schwartz, his long awaited stud.com was announced.

I think on Monday with an unclickable screenshot hinting at a direction, much different than many of us thought. Although if you’ve listened to me on Monday domains, it’s an exactly in a spot that I think is needed. Um, and he seems to be delving into the world of services to try to put together people who might have the skill in developing [00:27:00] one word, domain names with people that own high value domain names.

That’s what I read in to looking at the unclickable pre beta vision of what he wants to be. And there’s a chance that that vision will take longer to develop. We’ll find out tomorrow. I think Rick has a show with Chris. In the afternoon, whether the marketplace, which is maybe the easiest thing to do will come first and or whether the matchmaking of owners and services will come first.

Um, so I don’t have the time I thought we would do that. Let’s see if anyone else wants to talk million dollar domains. If you’ve got a question and you want to put it in the back channel, if you don’t want to come up, I will probably stop the recording here. Um, so even though replays are on, people will be able to hear you on the replay for the podcast recording.

I’ll stop it here, [00:28:00] but let’s see who’s in the chat. Let’s see off the market forever. How being, being, being, being that’s exactly it. Thank you. I had asked what Andrew’s statement. I don’t know if he invented it or not. Uh, what he, what he tweets when a good domain name is taken off the market for forever.

I love it.

How I like it, domain appraisals. I like it. And then I guess it wouldn’t be appropriate to have today go by without acknowledging for 20 day. Uh, there’s a chance clubhouse, uh, celebrated for 20 day. Twice. Last year was 1700. Uh, there was a little, there was a little, uh, damn, I can’t think of my metaphors today.

There was a little, uh, people were a little full, so I think we only have one for 20 oxygen tonight, I think Mamba, but, um, [00:29:00] we’ll see what happens. Hey Kenny, how you doing? I know you and I, I still owe your conversation, but, uh, how’s your domain world going and thanks for sharing. Did I, did I press any buttons with what I shared today?

Are you working with. I actually got some indirect, uh, advice from you last night when I was talking with, um, it wasn’t with Colin, it was with John, uh, John Serafin. And, uh, yeah, I got some great news. I did have a question for you and yeah, I always love hearing your shows. Honestly, I feel like you have one of the best, uh, you know, uh, sessions of, of clubhouse, but I’m curious, you’re somebody that has names, you know, mid five figures, six figures, way above seven figures.

I’ve found that a lot of the mid fig mid five figure names are not responding to offers around like 25%. I’ve had three domains specifically are about 25% of the, of the [00:30:00] asking price. I just wanted to see as a seller. And I’m on the buyer side this time. Where is that threshold? Do you feel like maybe just you personally.

But where do you feel like that threshold is for you to be able to respond? And, and have you ever thrown out a number first or is the seller always, always is I come from a world of first person to talk loses, right. Or say the price. So what’s that threshold look like in your experience? Um, and when do you respond to a decent offer?

When is that a decent offer? Uh, compared to your asking price is curious. Yeah. Good question. Uh you’re right. I probably do top out at six figure names. Uh, and, and even though I had been successful selling million dollar domains, um, I thought our industry was going to grow more in the lower level names.

And, uh, and I didn’t anticipate a huge domains coming in, so I probably bought more, uh, lower names than, than [00:31:00] high names. But for me, I guess the, the thing I would say to you is just like anything. You know, start with a clear, and I’m going to date myself, yellow, legal pad, and spend the time learning about your seller.

Now, some of them, it’s just a person who’s owned the name forever, but offense, a portfolio owner. I think you’ll be able to find out pretty quick, you know, are their names listed at buy it nows. And after Nick say, do, and Dan, and then as an opportunistic buyer, you want to find the one that has the lowest buy it now so that your lo your offer looks the best compared to their buy it.

Now, um, second thing you might want to do is, is fine. If they have one on payment somewhere to either take it down on payments or make an offer with payments in mind to do some price discovery. Um, you know, and I think that. I don’t think the, [00:32:00] uh, my dog ate my homework and I have a paper due. This was for a school project.

Works that well with anybody. Um, but your comment about, you know, you want to buy a name, you think it’s worth five figures, you’re offering 25% of what the person’s asking. I would try to crop if you really want the name, uh, they asking prices are going to go up. You know, the, the name I talked about on Monday, go pink.com going for 210,000 and go daddy reporting.

They’re two orders where there’s more to worders in the hundreds of thousands now than ever before. Um, if you can catch a seller, who’s still pricing everything at 29 99, 39 99, 79, 99, 99 99. I think there’s probably more opportunity. Um, but it’s a good question. I’m going to try to think about it for a second, rather than just throwing out an answer.

What would motivate me if I [00:33:00] had a new. Like I have a name, fifties.com and it’s, I like it as much as it’d be like the fifties decade. I like it for people in their fifties. You’re not really retired. You can with social security. Uh I’m in my fifties. And so I liked it for that. And so I think I’m asking 125,000.

And if someone said 25,000 and they had researched me and saw that I owned 11,000 names, and most of them were for sale between two and 4,000, they probably would be inclined to offer that low. And I probably would respond. Let’s say I wasn’t saying they had everything at, by it. Um, I think you have to tell yourself that it’s going to be a two to three months process.

You’re going to have to throw out a number and then you’re going to have to cut yourself off. You’re going to have to cut the cord from that offer. And instead of thinking, wouldn’t it be great if I offered 25% and they come back at this and then I do [00:34:00] this, and sometimes I know I want to fix it. You want to picture the whole transaction before you even started.

And before you’ve even seen your adversary in the flesh, you know what I mean? And I just think sometimes you have to tell yourself that even if over the next 60 days, there’s a one in 10 chance that the seller may decide one day, you know, I should go back. And some of those offers, I need to raise some money.

And then what you’re hoping for is that email that says at the time you inquired, uh, have some, uh, family emergency, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever you can tell right. When they come back to you and you can tell that they’re trying to light the fire again. And I just think it’s worth it to wait. You know, if you have a long-term horizon on that name, um, to maybe get that reply.

Thank you so much, Paige. Yeah. Cause I feel like we get a lot of tips on the sales side and how to sell our domains, price, our [00:35:00] domains, but on the buyer’s side, um, I feel completely clueless a lot of the time with some of these bigger names, uh, being first time on, you know, on the side, I think, you know, the old certified offer service was really interesting.

Network solutions for years had something called the certified offers. And you could send an offer to a seller back when we had the, who is information. And you could actually say, you know, I’m, you know, I’m offering you $12,500 for the name. The money is already on. You know, with network solutions, we’re still at a prestige name, you know, from being the original registrar.

And sometimes the seller’s motivation is going to be different. They may feel a lot of pressure to do the right thing. You know what I mean? Like, oh my gosh, what if I sell too low? What if I sell too high? Um, they may, they may own the name. They may be the administrative contact, but it may be [00:36:00] part of an old company that if they sell it, they’re not going to get any of the money.

Um, this was more back in the, in the, the, oh, the odds, the decade, the first decade, you know, we had the internet bubble crash. Um, so I think that, you know, exploring, you may even go with without a number I’m trying to see if you’re the right person to talk to. Without a number, maybe because then you’re going to maybe find out that it’s a partnership.

Um, they really can’t sell the name no matter what you offer. Um, so what would get them to reply back? Um, you know, like you said, I had expect it I’d expected to three month process at this point, every time, especially being in the buyer’s seat. Cause you gotta play ball. Right. And throw that, throw that offer out and cut the cord, you know, wait a little bit.

And then, you know, obviously at that point probably going to have to bump it up if it’s really, like you said, if there’s no long, you know, if you’re [00:37:00] trying to sunset or trying to lock that name in, there was no time. Yeah. The only other thing you could do, I was just thinking, I haven’t put a lot of thought into this.

Sometimes I just randomly say things. No surprise. But uh, the other thing you could do is you could tease your low ball offer with a cash or. Which might hint, you know what I mean? That, that you’re a more substantial buyer than you are. Right. But I am, if you can afford to offer 15 grand and you have that much in crypto, you know, that that may make you look better or even T’s equity.

You know what I mean? This is twice the buying power to him. You’re just making a statement like, Hey, I have twice the buying power kind of. Exactly or, or, or that he feels like if I, if I, uh, draw out this lead, you know what I mean? That maybe there’s more there that maybe there’s more there. So I would say that that’s, and then the other way is just be authentic.

You know what I mean? And just [00:38:00] say, you know, this could be a total shot in the dark. Not sure what you’re thinking. I looked you on leg looked you up on LinkedIn. Can’t believe your Ohio state fan. You know what I mean? Uh, oh, Wolverine. You know what I mean? Just really anything, you know what I mean? To try to build that relationship.

Yeah. Yeah. I think one of them is Seiger, so wish me luck. Oh boy. Yeah. I think you better start with, is this a typo, right? Or something? Something to get them to chuckle, but anyway, well, thanks Katie. Good luck page. Boy, when I think about the art of the offer and the art of the interplay between buyers and sellers.

Hello, David Roth. How are you? My dear friend. How are you? What a pleasure. I actually saw your message. Hi everyone. Eh, when you started the room, but, uh, I was about to go on [00:39:00] a zoom actually with Kenny and his partner and he got delayed. So I say, well, I got my, my, my coffee. And I went into the room and, and, uh, divine Providence can, is talking here.

So I, I don’t know what’s going on, but eh, from a small perspective, when Kenny said that one of his, uh, domains may be owned by Michael Michael Seiger. So that’s already. Everything you may think as the negotiation of a beginner or sorry, as starting of, beginning of negotiation is off the table because Michael knows very well, how much he paid for the name and what’s the least he would get for the name.

Now, [00:40:00] if we’re talking about other domains that are not owned by Rick Schwartz or, um, or Andrew Rosner or, or, or some of the, the great single words that page has then number one, personally, I wouldn’t contact the seller direct number two, once the negotiation has progress and you know where we are, you start talking about Bitcoin because the moment you stay.

They see you as someone that you’re professional, maybe you bought Bitcoin at $400 and it’s sitting at, uh, I dunno, 40,000 or 46,000. So you got plenty of money. So now I can ask from you a lot more than I was expecting. Now, I actually am on the process of negotiating a name [00:41:00] to be used with the business God willing with, with Kenny and his partner.

And it’s a very big domain, was registered in 2003. And it happens that what would you consider a better domain that actually is not, is listed at CDOT, make an offer above a hundred thousand, but eh, the guy is not asking that much. And I’m not talking that I’m going to pay 25 or $30,000. So I am negotiating and the negotiation should probably end on Monday or Tuesday, but I also was able to buy two single word domains in English dictionary words.

Eh, I didn’t get the Cingular. The single art is owned by a [00:42:00] fortune five fortune 1000 company. And they do not respond. They are not interested in selling that name. So I was able to buy the plural and I was very happy to buy the plural negotiated with the person. So to end what I’m trying to say, the first thing that I was, I would try is to start the negotiation.

If the name is listed in any of the markets. So now the guy has no idea. If you’re coming from Belgium, if you’re coming only see that tells you what country, but you, you don’t want to start with a big conversation. Now, if that’s a name, you know that for sure, the guy already has had offers of $20,000.

Then you can start with 5,000 or 6,000. I would start with 10,000 to show that you’re serious. And then let’s see what he [00:43:00] comes back with. He may come back with 70,000 or 50,000, but now without giving a lot of information, you know, where he stands, but I would not reach out to them directly within email with giving information none whatsoever.

And I don’t like people that just make up an email Donald dock, um, 2022 and, and send it out because I have no respect for the kind of people. And I even don’t respond to those emails. So that’s, that’s what I had to say. But, uh, yes, eh, negotiating a cell is also an art when you’re trying to buy great domains that are out there and, uh, and trying to get the best deal.

And David, I was hoping that maybe Kenny was thinking about buying one of your names and we can have the live kind of like I can be the voiceover with Kenny doesn’t know David on the other line [00:44:00] would be awesome. Let’s see what David thinks, Kenny quite. Yes. David doesn’t know is that we’ve got well, I’ll tell you one thing.

Just let me go over to the room for a second. I don’t want to cut my own throat. Well, everything is divine Providence. Eh, the name that I’m trying to buy for what I’m trying to do with Kenny and his partner. If I would own that name,

I would not sell it under

$40,000. So I’m trying to get the name for a lot less than that. And that name is even better than the person who owns another name, who thinks he’s name is better. And once more than a hundred thousand dollars, [00:45:00] this one is better than the one he’s asking a hundred thousand, but I’m realistic. And, uh, and I, yeah, that just goes to the fact that we don’t know.

What they’re worth on the low side or the high side. Um, and I think I really appreciate that tip, um, David, you’re generous with your advice and as I’ve shared with many people, that’s how really we rekindled our relationship was you reached out to me with a suggestion. Um, that was wonderful, but I think I’ve heard you talk about times where, uh, platforms brokers have reached out to you.

And I guess that’s what I hear you saying is that if you use a broker who does know how to get in touch with the owner, because they at least listed on the marketplace, then you’ve accelerated, uh, you know, the, the, the owner. He could not take the call from the broker or not respond, but I really thought that was [00:46:00] pivotal advice there, David.

So thank you. What I would do, and I haven’t done it personally. I have used other ways, but even a domain that is not listed at gold daddy, eh,

for the $69 or $99. I don’t remember what GoDaddy charges for reaching out to a customer. So you can hire their broker service and tell them I want you to, to reach out to these, to the seller on my behalf, don’t give them my name. And, uh, I am interested in buying these names through your platform. So now the guy gets an email from GoDaddy buy domain service look professional is real, everybody knows GoDaddy.

And, um, then [00:47:00] they will try to reach out to the person. And, uh, and get an answer from you and maybe they tell you the guy wants 20,000, 15,000 or a bazillion, eh, but, um, I would, I only, I only contact sellers direct if I am expecting to pay under $5,000. If the domain I know that the seller has already over the years, gotten offers over $5,000.

I don’t go direct at the beginning because they are tired of getting global offers. And if a domain is worth really 20, 25, 30,000, eh, anything for 5,000, the guy I sent an offer for $5,000 to somebody through. The guy never responded because he’s not interested. And if he wants 50,000, [00:48:00] if I don’t offer more than 5,000, he’s not going to waste his time with me.

I’m complete. Gotcha. I will say you’re bringing up a tip that I have given out in probably 10 years. Wow. This is really going back. If you, if someone does have their name listed on Seydoux and you can at least offer above their minimum and make an offer, I believe that puts you in a position to get notified.

If the price of the name ever drops or goes up, I’m not sure about this, but it used to be a way, um, especially when the market was, was cold, it was a cold winter from 2011 to 2016. Um, You know, sometimes you can track if a name’s price drops. If it’s a portfolio holder, maybe like if it’s owned by one of the GoDaddy or snap names or huge domains or something, you never know, you know what I mean?

And it might be 14,999 now. And, and by making a [00:49:00] minimum offer, I think that kind of puts you in there for some amount of time. But anyway, I wanted to get to Sherry. Uh, David, thank you for sharing. Kenny, did that bring up any other thoughts or I’m going to say hi to Sherry. No, thank you both. Appreciate you very much.

And uh, yeah. Good time to have a blessed day. Hi Sherry. Thanks for joining us on million dollar domains. Do you have a comment or a question about million dollar domain? Yeah, it’s high Paige, um, great room as usual. That’s why I love your rooms. Um, question, when you look at the lower end of the spectrum as a domainer lower end of the spectrum pricing wise through the higher end of the spectrum, what you’ve have experienced in regarding education, quote, unquote, education of what the domaining pricing, um, is, and, you know, the value it can bring to someone’s marketing and [00:50:00] branding and all the other topics that, you know, you know, that flow with being in this space.

Do you find that the people at the upper tier really understand, uh, the domain space or are they similar to those at the middle or lower tier? They just have more money.

I think they are smarter than most people give them credit for. And what I mean is if you have a domain like a wool socks.com and you convince yourself that it’s the category killer for that industry, which sells a hundred billion dollars worth of socks a year. Um, and. And it should be worth a million dollars.

And if someone says, it’s not because they’re at Proctor and gamble or Levi’s you say, oh, they just don’t understand. I would say, no, they kind of do understand. And [00:51:00] yes, they know that they’re not going to be able to get wool socks from you for a million dollars, but they’re okay with that because they’d rather not get it and pay that much.

So I think sometimes people use, they don’t get it. They’re uneducated. Um, when really a name isn’t a good match or it isn’t worth it. You know what I mean? So I think that’s the first thing I’ll say. The second thing is if you ask someone to, to go down a journey with you, that’s easier than getting them to agree with you.

So you might say something like. Um, one of the things I’ve done for clients, have you ever go to sell a house and you go to a realtor, sometimes you can do like a market value analysis or something like that, rather than getting someone to agree that the names were 2 million, you might say, um, what I’ve done for other clients is I put together kind of a summary of comparables and [00:52:00] things like that.

Would you mind if I did that? And maybe that’s an easier way than saying you’re wrong, you know what I mean? Or you don’t get it. So that would be my advice. Thank you very much. I think that, you know, the one thing that, one of the best things that was said all year on clubhouse and it’ll pass to your familiar dollar domains was said by Rick Fords and it’s really effective.

It was really good piece of advice. And what he said was he says picture that the person you’re talking to is going to be the buyer at your price. And that’s, that’s how you want to see that person and don’t try to fit them into any. And so basically when he doesn’t respond to someone for two months and the person’s emailed him 10 times, he’s basically saying if this is the person that’s going to eventually pay $3 million for the name, [00:53:00] I’m not going to let them get away with just a, Hey, how much type email, you know what I mean?

And so, even though if he wanted to feel good about his portfolio this week, he could have someone offer him 150 in cash right now, or two 50 in cash. Right now, his feeling is picture that the buyer is going to be your eventual buyer at the price you want. And I would go on further to say and picture that you’re going to have a relationship with that person past when you sell them a domain.

If, you know, you’re going to have a relationship with someone past when you sell them a domain name, you’re less likely to fib. You’re less likely to puff. You’re less likely to make up stuff. You know what I mean? Because you don’t want to have someone calling you on that. You know what I mean? And you told them that, oh, you know, you really didn’t want to sell, but you know, your brother passed away and you’re thinking of selling and then you get to [00:54:00] know him later.

And he’s like, you told me, your brother passed away. What happened? You know? So I think that it gets you to be more authentic and you may end up really saying to somebody, Hey, listen, I really liked this name and I’m probably not going to sell it, you know, unless I get the Christ. Okay. And then, and then talk about something else in the email.

So I really thought that was good. What rich, what Rick shared. So be authentic. Don’t be afraid to be authentic, authentic plays in 2022. And if not, like David said just mentioned Bitcoin because no one knows how many Bitcoin you’re talking about. When you say I might be willing to pay in Bitcoin. You know, I think it was, it was funny how the biggest I’m going to go way off topic here.

The biggest barrier Bitcoin, I think had in the early years was convinced it was getting people to realize that it wasn’t like a [00:55:00] physical coin where you could only buy and sell one Bitcoin. You know, they didn’t do a good job at telling people that you could have 0.01 Bitcoin and 0.03 and 0.06. You know what I mean?

But yeah, I really liked David’s comment today because if you say. That makes them think you’re talking multiples of 40,000, but you might be talking 0.01 Bitcoins. So thanks, David. Well, everybody. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Um, so would that conversation, I know you’re focusing mainly on the single word. Do you use the same strategy when you’re talking about, say a two word?

I know you mentioned two words. I’m sorry. You asked that the first time. So what I do when I get in an inquiry on a domain name is I ask myself, am I a seller of this name? Or am I a seller at the price I want? So I sold the name yesterday. That was a long [00:56:00] word alone. It was a real estate name. It was a long name.

It was a directional name. It had a north in it, and then it had the name of a city and then real estate. So it was a long and. When I repriced it down as part of something I’m working on right now, I said to myself, I’m glad I bought this name. I think I bought it. Right. You know, I bought a friend or a hundred dollars.

Yes. If I got to buy it now, right now, I sell it for 1100. So I priced it 1100, buy it. Now, if I, if that name would have been north Austin real estate, and I knew that north Austin was the place in Austin. I don’t know Austin, that everybody was moving to. Not just that they were moving to Austin, but they were moving to north Austin.

That would be the name that I would put one to put up minimum offer 12,000. And I may not respond to inquiries unless I really saw that it was a big agent. So what I try to do with my name is Sherry is I try to [00:57:00] decide first. Either when I’m pricing them, whether to put them at a low buy it now, or when I get the offer, ask myself, but I’d rather have the money or the name.

And if I’d rather have the money that I’m going to probably sell to that person, one offer before now, I’m very rare on this. Most people will say that I’m stupid. And if they’re, if I’m stupid, that I’m stupid, but it’s kept me in the domain business is I usually sell dissembling one offer before their last offer.

So if someone comes in and offers 500 and I reply with 1999 and they respond with nine 50, sometimes I take the nine 50 or I might respond with 1650, but if I respond with 1650, and they say 1200, even though they may have gone through. I’m going to take that 1200, get the sale done before I get every last dollar out of them.

Because for me it’s more [00:58:00] important to have sales because I’m a full-time, domainer not only do I have my renewals, but realistically, I’ve got to pay for my lifestyle. Do I need to have four to five transactions a month? So when it comes to low value names on the receiving end of an offer, I decide right away.

If I’d rather have the money or the name and it’s all about, could I replay either one? Do I like the name or two? Could I replace the name? And if I know I can replace the name with something for 20% of the money they’re paying me, then yeah. I’m going to sell it and get whatever I can now, because you got to remember I’m most names.

You might get two leads a year, and if you’re really holding it. And you don’t close the sale right now. It might be three years before you sell the name. Now that’s not a bad thing. If your business model is to sell for 30 and 40,000 a name, you know what I mean? So it’s just knowing what your business model is and sticking to it.

But you don’t want to do is switch back and [00:59:00] forth. And some months be a, I won’t sell anything for less than 30,000. And then in December and January or November, December, when it’s weak, you sell a bunch of stuff for low, and then you go back to high. You could sometimes feel like you’re always making the wrong move.

So pick one strategy and stick to it. So you get the benefits of it, even though you get some of the negatives of it, they’ll balance out.[01:00:00] 

I hope I’ve been on mute this whole time. Anyway. Uh, thanks everybody for coming in. Uh, [01:01:00] join me next week on million dollar domains. I think it’s our one year anniversary show. We’ll see. All right, bye everybody. Thank you, David. Thank you ferry.