The Domain King's® thoughts on domain names, web traffic, increasing web sales, success, life, and plain-old Business & Marketing 101. Nothing happens until a sale is made!
I get asked for valuations on domains on a daily basis. Multiple times. Sorry folks, that’s one thing I don’t do. I don’t do valuations. However, I am starting to call out Pigeon Shit domains when I am asked in public.
I don’t even do valuations on my own names for the most part. Why? First of all the value of a domain name is extremely fluid. Possibly more fluid than any asset or investment I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. I decide on valuation at the time of inquiry.
But more importantly, it’s not my job and I don’t want that job. As I have stated many times before, I have two buckets when it comes to domains. Domains that have potential great value and domains that have no value and never will. So simple!!!
Once it makes it into the value bucket, then I weigh the possibilities and probabilities of that happening. Is it a clearly stated domain that meets all of the criteria that I have been posting about these last few days with these blog posts? It Has to filter through those benchmarks for me to put it in the first bucket of value.
Now let’s be clear, only a few go into the valuation bucket. Thousands and thousands going to the bucket of pigeon shit. The bucket that has no value. Liabilities are not assets. They are BILLS!!
But if I can collect a few in the valuation bucket, which is not easy to do by the way if you’re doing it the right way, then you sift through those and see which one might be the one above the others. So focus on the top domain in the valuation bucket and if you can afford all of them, you can buy all of them. If you can’t afford them all just pick the one that has the most value and the most versatility. But it MUST meet the basic criteria I have laid out. If you’re not meeting all or most of the criteria you’re simply on the wrong path. Here's my valuation for domains that DON'T meet my criteria......-$9/year. Just take 9 dollars out f your wallet and toss it.
Domains are taking their rightful place in the Internet ecosystem as we speak. It took a long damn time! Around 35 years and we’re still a ways away from the price but boy are we getting close!!
I have said this for many many years, decades in fact. We are the land barons of the 21st-century. If you did your job well, we hold the most valuable real estate ever known to mankind. The only thing between the potential valuation and today’s valuation is time. We all have to be sensitive to time however being sensitive to time does not mean giving away unique assets for lowball price is.
If you get thru these 5 articles and still don't have a grasp for domains, or don't find anything of value or you simply dismiss it all, then enjoy your journey to nowhere. Sad but true!! Off-course and lost in space. Good luck with a soft-landing!.
The size and value of your audience decide your future before you do. Targeting an audience is the key to the success of any business, organization, or even charity. A profitable audience.
MainStreet.com (Not a domain I own or even looked up) has value. It's obvious because it represents commerce. If it's not obvious to you, find a job. It has an audience. That audience has the potential to be increased and specifically targeted.
ManeStreet.com (Not a domain I own or even looked up) has value. It does not pass the radio test, but still has value. That audience has the potential to be increased. But probably has less value than MainStreet.
DanielQSysemskiMemorialBridge.com (Not a domain I own or even looked up because I made it up as well as this non-existent person) has NO value and never will. NO AUDIENCE!! In 1 MILLION years that domain won’t have value. It’s a Liability not an asset!
Most domainers have the majority of their domains that will never have an audience. ZILCH!! NO CHANCE!! Those are all liabilities. Just bills!
We are talking tens and probably hundreds of millions of worthless domains. Worthless because they are not capable of getting an audience. And when I hear SEO guru's and every answer is the same about optimization, I have but one word.....BULLSHIT!!
Domaining is about getting memorable, meaningful, and important domains. If they are not, that's not domaining. That's not domain investing. That's not anything but a waste of time, money, and energy. SEO really has nothing to do with domain investing. It's nothing you talk about until there is a profit-making site attached.
So the MainStreet test is just another test that should be added to the test of my last post.
Do I have to explain those names? Will people misspell them? Will they easily forget them? Will they be able to tell others? Can content be matched to that domain that is intuitive? Is that content profitable? Is there a market for that content? Is it confusing? That's a lot of filters but a domain that I buy MUST meet ALL those standards and more! If I am doing it, why aren't you?? That's the path to success. To find domains that have the ability to be a successful business. And I focus on domains that have face-value. That has obvious value and uses. That has 1 and 2 words. WORDS!! WORDS!!
If you are ignoring this stuff or want to vehemently disagree.......I can't help you. Nobody can! These are simply the most basic, most important, and most imperative hurdles a domain name must pass if you want to filter out pigeon shit.
Even a brandable has to be spellable. How many MONTHS did it take takl.com to go out of business?? WTF was that?? They spent TENS of millions on Kathy Lee Gifford and endless commercials everywhere advertising a name nobody could spell or remember or even meant much. Everywhere! Until they went belly up and broke! They blamed it on Covid! Here's a memo from me to them, had nothing to do with covid. Had everything to do with a PIGEON SHIT domain name! They failed before they started. And remember, almost all failure happens at the start! The start of the Internet is the Domain Name and many times, that will dictate your success or failure before you take your second step!!!!
I am so sick of domainers running around trying to sell any domain or register any domain that has a keyword in it from a recent domain sale. Talk about chasing shiny objects!!
Domain sales to end-users will rarely spawn similar sales! The reason is there was a specific use. Just because a company buys one domain in a sector does not mean they want to buy any others. They don't!! Nor does it mean that your domain has any more value than it did yesterday.
Domains are unique. Sales are unique. Need is unique. Their purpose is unique. Stop wasting your time trying to duplicate unique! I am not going to buy your domain just cuz it has a keyword of a recent sale or is in the same sector.
In the last 1000 emails from desperate domainers, do you know how many I bought?? ZERO!! Stupid, worthless names with a keyword that does not even match the other words. So stop wasting your time sending me crap. I am no longer even answering these emails. (Not that I ever did)
And if you spam me on Twitter, I am no longer going to remain silent. Besides blocking you, I am now calling out your pigeon shit domains so everyone knows it's pigeon shit. Worthless crap that can only be sold to a domainer dumber and less experienced than the current owner!
If you buy a domain and someone can't build their dream on it, don't buy it. PASS!!
Let's be clear, it isn't that domainers can't afford good domains, most domainers would not know a good domain if it smacked them upside the head. They pick and register worthless CRAP and the first thing they try to do is sell their worthless crap!
There is a tried and true path to successful domaining. It's not hard when you have the right mindset. If you have to drop domains because you can't afford to carry them, that's the definition of a wrong mindset.
If you are methodical and follow a simple path that works, you will grow your business and be able to afford better and better quality domains.
If you are flipping crap for $100, $250 and $500, we are in a different business. In real estate you have mobile home flippers and Real Estate agents. They are far from the same. Flippers are far from being sophisticated. A real estate agent can flip a mobile home, a mobile home flipper would be way over their heads trying to sell mansions.
Domaining is not a business to simply make a living. Domaining is not a business to be a schlepper. Domaining is about taking advantage of great opportunities! Being able to see and seize those opportunities. Even part-time and passively.
Do I buy domains every day? Hell no! Why? Because there are not enough valuable domains that will come to market on any given day. I can go weeks or months without buying. But when I see a domain I like, I am on it.
This year I have bought 3 domains so far. Probably the first .net I have ever bought on the open market, Watching.net $310. I like Friendseeker.com so I grabbed it for $1099. And I liked Cult.tv and paid $5605. It's rare for me to buy a non .com. But I like it because it follows the rules I set below.
Do I have to explain those names? Will people misspell them? Will they easily forget them? Will they be able to tell others? Can content be matched to that domain that is intuitive? Is that content profitable? Is there a market fo that content? Is it confusing? That's a lot of filters but a domain that I buy MUST meet ALL those standards and more! If I am doing it, why aren't you?? That's the path to success. To find domains that have the ability to be a successful business. And I focus on domains that have face-value. That has obvious value and uses. That has 1 and 2 words. WORDS!! WORDS!!
Domains are about WORDS! DH26Homesforsale.com has no value no matter what some SEO guru tells you! WORDS!!
I never look to sell. I simply look to add to and round out my portfolio. The sales will come!!!!!!!!!!! Do your job and sales will come. If you buy crap, wtf do you expect??
If you are struggling, those are the filters that will help you. That will guide you. That will make you money! And those that try and minimize those attributes have portfolios of Pigeon Shit! I don't know a single SUCCESSFUL domainer that ignores those points. But I know tens of thousands or more that do and they are all BROKE!! They drop domains to pay for the others. That's a failure. That should never happen. This is from poor budgeting and picking piss poor names that mean NOTHING!!
I take strong positions on things and that ruffles the feathers of folks with different agendas. You are domain investors, you should never be the victim of the agenda of someone trying to profit off you! Don't be used! I have nothing to sell you, but I am happy to share what I have learned in 25+ years as a successful domain name investor and a serial entrepreneur for 50 years! I look at things differently. Success requires that!
If you are on a limited budget, DO BETTER by learning about the attributes of a valuable domain name!!! GOOD LUCK TO ALL!
The Movers and Fakers™ It's a race to the bottom. A race of survival. A demolition derby. The big loser......unsuspecting "Domain Investors" and CHEAP startups making bad decisions and getting a start on the wrong leg.
Both .xyz and .icu hit about 6.7 million registrations as a high. .xyz hit their high of 6.7 Million and change in December 2016. .icu hit their high of 6.7 Million domains registered in March of 2020. Each has now shed over 3 Million domain registrations since their "Respective" highs.
And we are far from done. .xyz still has 284,000 upcoming deletes and .icu has a whopping 1 million more deletes coming on the heals of a whopping 3.2 million drops since last March. .xyz has 2.94 domains left in the zonefile and .icu about 2.3 million.
The two gTLD leaders are sinking! But wait there is more. When you peal back the onion, the largest domain registrar in the world has less than 10% of the .xyz regs and when it comes to .icu 192 total domains registered.
The next high flyer that is crashing is .Top. After hitting 3.8 Million registrations in December 2018, they have managed to drop 2.2 million names and are now sitting under 1.6 Million with 244,000 still to be deleted. Just 1.33 Million in the zone file.
That's a meltdown by any measure!
To me, these are all "MOVERS and FAKERS!" That's my PROFESSIONAL and PERSONAL opinion soley based on my knowledge of NUMBERS!
Then you have .site. After hitting its peak of 2.14 Million regs in late September 2020 it has been downhill. Now 1.7 million Registrations with 261,000 upcoming deletes. 1.253 Million left in the zonefile.
Next up is .vip. After reaching a high of 1.5 Million registrations, it now has a little over 1 Million with 127,000 upcoming deletes.
Then of course we have .Club. They have done more outreach and marketing then all the other stinkers combined. But even with that, they have truly struggled to maintain 1 million registrations. They have 1.1 million domains registered with over 60,000 upcoming deletes. A far cry from the 7 million originally promised.
.work is up next. Sitting in 10th place. They hit a high of about 750,000 names in November 2020. Now sitting at 566,000 in the zonefile.
.app hit their high just in late January of this year with 771,000 names registered. Today at 716,000 in the zone file.
But there is a little bit of a bright spot. Of the top 10 gTLD losers, there is one not doing bad! .online has been the healthiest. Hitting their top just days ago on February 1 of 1.95 million registrations. The growth has been steady. Today they have 1.7 Million in the zonefile with 129,000 deletes.
.shop is a little choppy and not as strong as .online but with over 800,000 registrations and only 33,000 upcoming deletes, it shows signs of life. But don't confuse "Signs of life" with something worthy of investment.
Now of course numbers don't tell the whole story but only a total fool would ignore more than HALF the story!
These are the top 10. The leaders. The movers and shakers or as I refer to most of them as the "movers and fakers™"!
I am a numbers guy. Have always been, will always be. Numbers don't lie, PEOPLE LIE!! It appears they have had more deletes than registrations now. Isn't that a wonderful place to be for "Emerging Technology"?
I am a lone voice and of course I get LOTS of pushback from a multitude of different groups, companies and domainers. But while they whine, I just state facts and numbers. Its all right HERE!
And while they will attack me personally, what they can't do is attack the facts. I am sorry the numbers are not convenient for them. TOUGH! The 7 years of pointing out many of the pitfalls instead of overcoming those pitfalls. They have never directly refuted my points because there are too many to choose from. They pick 1 or 2 and IGNORE a hundred others because they have NO ANSWERS!! What I have predicted has unfolded as predicted. What they predicted, never happened then fell apart and never materialized! It's all on record!
Sure, dotcom is dead is the chant from folks losing their shirts. 51% of the universe uses a dotcom domain extension the world over. Almost 100% of the fortune 500. Follow the leaders, don't follow the losers! Good luck to all!!
The value of a domain is related to the PURPOSE of that domain. Purposes are specific. The key to value is the SPECIFIC PURPOSE!
Purpose comes with a value. So when I interview a prospect, it's about purpose. If their purpose is to make no money, my purpose is to run! If their purpose is to make $1000/month, my purpose is not to engage. That's why it is ALL about the conversation and not the price. Price is a LOSER!!!!
They have a purpose, I have a purpose. Mine is extracting maximum value and my value is directly related to their purpose. If I have a square block in Manhattan, I can sell it to a guy that wants to put a house there with a large garden. I could sell it to a guy that wants to open up a parking lot, but that said, I am waiting and looking for a guy that has the purpose of building a skyscraper. The land did not change, the only thing that changed was the purpose. The purpose is how you get to value. I am looking for folks with BIG and PROFITABLE purposes. Others, NEED NOT APPLY!! I am NOT compelled to answer or negotiate with anyone other than the PURPOSE I am looking for. I DON'T SELL!!
I don't sell domains!!!! I INTERVIEW potential suitors to see if their PURPOSE has high financial merit. PERIOD!! I don't sell. I have to be sold! That's a HUGE difference in mental approach. It's why I get the prices I do. I look at it and see it much differently than shadow and shiny object chasers.
Buy crap, get crap! Chasing purpose where there is none is a recipe to go BROKE!!
Stop selling domains and look for partners with purpose! Need, Want, Desire, Value, PURPOSE!
Sales are about Buying. Buy shit, get shit. People lose the sale at the beginning. Buying is the start. They lose the sale by what they say. SO STOP TALKING!! SHUT-UP!! Knowing WHEN to SHUT-UP is the #1 key to sales.
Some people teach the world to sing. I want to teach domainers how to sell. Not only how to sell, how to extract maximum value for your assets. YOUR job is to appraise. YOUR job is to believe. YOUR job is to compare & show the value. YOUR job is to be strong. YOUR job. DO IT!
Here are my 10 steps to be a better salesperson.
Lesson 1: If you give a price, YOU LOSE!! Ask a question don't give a price.
Lesson 2: If you give a counter-offer just because they made an offer, YOU LOSE!! You only give a counter-offer when they give you an offer inside your realm of value. Other than that, NO WAY!! They can keep making offers. NEVER counter until they are in the realm. If you have a $1 Million home and someone offers you $75,000, you don't counter. Not at $100k, not at $500k. Not at $750k. You counter when you get a TRULY BONA-FIDE offer! PERIOD! Or YOU LOSE! Why dance to their tune?? YOU set the parameters!
Lesson 3: Don’t negotiate. That’s when you turn it into a conversation. Ask a question. Ask another question. Probe. Discuss. Tell them your own profitable plans. You did buy the domain for a reason. Right?? If not, you are not buying the right names. I buy focus on domains I have an idea for and I can build a future if that was the only name I owned.
Lesson 4: Don't do REASONABLE, Don't do CURIOUS. How to handle "Curious" inquiries "I am curious about the price" 2 responses: 1. Toss it 2. Ask "Why?" That's your opportunity to get info w/o wasting your time. "Reasonable" IS a total waste of time and usually another domainer. If you are selling to other domainers, you are far from getting maximum value. Actually, you are getting minimum value. Reasonable is for losers!
Lesson 5: Don’t wet your pants. So you got an inquiry. Big deal. Don’t get too excited. Don’t jump up and down, calm down. Now is the moment to do the research on your own domain names to find the current value. I'm not going to tell you how to do that. Figure it out! A domain's value can go from Zilch to millions with new products, news, or events. Pre-pricing domains are not the best approach. The day smart glasses came to be in the news, I snapped up smartglasses.com for $3500. I rest my case.
Lesson 6: Don’t be sucked in by BS and shiny object chasers. Let an email marinate!! You don’t need/want a “Hot” lead. You want a strong one! Strong ones don’t lose interest in 24hrs Weak ones do! When you waste time w/ weak, you lose time & opportunity.
Lesson 7. A Domains value is Fluid. Do the research at the time of inquiry. Put your own value on it and stick to it. Assign a value worthy of the domain name. Don’t price it out $1200 cuz the mortgage is due. Want to be a millionaire? Think/act like one.
Lesson 8: Sales is about buying. Buy shit, get shit. Most success or failure happens at the beginning. The end is simply when you find out about it but don’t necessarily figure it out. So the beginning of a sale is the purchase of the domain name itself. Choose wisely. Stop buying crap. If you buy crap, what the hell do you expect?
Lesson #9 Invest in dotcom. You invest in dotcom, you gamble (and lose) on .whatever. Stop reinventing the wheel. Stop spitting in the wind. Start smarter. The internet starts and ends with .com domains so give up the .crap and you will live well.
"You build nightmares on gTLD Domains But there's a solution... When you wake up from the nightmare, the dream is just a dot-Com away!"™ -Rick Schwartz
Lesson 10 Domain Names that are easy to spell are easier to sell. Spelling test = Can an 8th grader spell it right? Radio test = Are there multiple ways to spell or even hear wrong? Hair/Hear/Here Must be easy to remember & pass on (word of mouth advertising is key)
In Review: Part1 Lesson 1: If you give a price, YOU LOSE!! Lesson 2: If you give a counter-offer just cuz they made an offer, YOU LOSE!! Lesson 3: Don’t negotiate. That’s when you turn it into a conversation.
In Review Part 2 Lesson 4: Don't do REASONABLE, Don't do CURIOUS Lesson 5: Don’t wet your pants. Lesson 6: Don’t be sucked in by BS and shiny object chasers.
In review Part 3 Lesson 7: Value of domains is fluid. Stick to your value! Lesson 8: Sales is about buying. Buy shit, get shit! Lesson 9: Invest in dotcom. Invest in dotcom, you gamble (and lose) on .whatever. Lesson 10 Easy to spell means easy to sell.
Remember one thing, you are selling a unique asset. Act like it!
All business people need to be good in sales. Sales takes talent and you get that by practice and rehearsing. Saying the right things. Knowing when to SHUT THE F*ck up! Sales is about LISTENING not TALKING. Listen CAREFULLY. Know what to answer, know what to ignore, know what to look for, know how to answer.
Stop leaving your family's future on the table or putting your future into the pocket of others. Learn to sell. Learn to create value. Learn to be tough, not desperate. If you want to be a millionaire, you MUST think like one, act like one, and make decisions like one! This is your roadmap. GOOD LUCK TO ALL!!
So I get a contact from a business broker via LinkedIn. OK, let's hear what he has to say. So in my normal course of business whenever I hear someone selling me something it will inevitably all boil down to ONE question from me. Just ONE! ONE! Pretty simple right?
But guess what, the weak will do anything to avoid answering just the simple one question. A simple question. One I asked 3 or 4 times w/o an answer. JUST ONE!
"First tell me what you know about domains and their value." Simple right?? Not difficult. Even f you knew ZILCH you would think an intelligent broker that even had 1/2 a brain and was not lazy and incompetent would do the SIMPLE research and give me an intelligent response.
But what did the WEAK BUSINESS BROKER say after me repeatedly asking the same simple question......"Most potential sellers that we have worked with in the past have had a very inflated value - financial buyers pay multiples of earnings." That's the weakest garbage that brokers use all day every day! It is a flashing neon forehead sign that says AVOID!!! If that's their lead, RUN!
He is devaluing my assets without knowing a damn thing about them!? He is useless and foolish! My only regret as we talk "Multiples", is that I only have 2 middle fingers 2 show him. He deserves a much better multiple and response!
Let me respond to this weak, time-wasting broker...."Most potential brokers that we have worked with in the past have had a very deflated value of themselves and what they are trying to sell - dumb buyers led by weak brokers paying multiples of earnings based on no skill to see the future. They can't see past their calculator. Nobody needs a broker for a WEAK SALE! We all have that capability at birth!"
The new gTLD demolition Derby is in full swing. It's hard to fathom just how TERRIBLE these domains are doing but hopefully, the following graphs and numbers will help.
As you can see from the graph below GTLD's have found a CLIFF and they are falling off it right now.
Growth for the period of November 2019 till TODAY in February 2021 has been ZERO!! GTLD's are back to November 2019 levels!! Imagine 1000 companies trying to sell something nobody really wants and COMBINED can't even get to a NET GAIN of ONE! It's almost impossible!! Call Guinnesse's cuz this may be record-setting!!
So there is 2021 for ya. Below we will show what today looks like as I could not find a single registration but we did find nearly 1.4 MILLION drops on just the top 10 LOL domains! Now about 29.5 Million Total and melting like the witch from Wizard of Oz!
It is starting to look like this every single day. Domainers that drank the kool-aid and finally threw in the towel.
Below is a graph of what I would assume is a Domainer BUYING about 7000 .Tattoo domains in 2019 and you will see them all dropping 1 year later. I could not fit the entire graph it was more important to show you the BUYING from 2019 then the graph that goes all the way down, today.
I could do this all day long with extension after extension. It's ugly! They are not even flatlining. They are bleeding and they are bleeding heavily.
So how many of the new G's are owned by domainers vs END-USERS. It would be my best guess that OVER 98% of all new G's are in storage by domainers trying to hang on.
Then there is the .Club HYPE!! PLEASE! It's ass backward folks! Just because clubhouse took off?? It's not HouseClub.com. If there was ANY beneficiary it would be .House. But .CLUB?? That's why so many domainers FAIL. They are ass backward. My WhoreHOUSE.com is a bigger beneficiary than the entire .CLUB registry! How do so many "Professional Domainers" get this so wrong. I think it is pure desperation!!
We have witnessed an epic marketing failure the likes of which have really never been seen before. 1000 new extensions and 1000 losers. Congrats!
I stated years ago (2013) that this was going to be a "Demolition Derby". IT IS! It's a "Clusterfuck". IT IS! Here are all my blog posts with "CLUSTERFUCK" and most talk about GTLD's!
In the meantime .com domains have continued to be more and more important and of course prices have reflected that. When I look at the top 10 new GTLD sales each week on DNJournal.com usually 6-7 slots are taken by legacy extensions like .net and .org. Those 2 extensions are the winner as I predicted YEARS ago RIGHT HERE in 2015.
If I can see this garbage coming 5 and 10 years in advance, what the hell is the excuse for not seeing it now in light of ALL the evidence?? I articulated only a FRACTION of the pitfalls. I wanted to be on the record. It was an epic lesson in foreseeable failure.
The registrars for the most part made out like bandits. They were bandits. They swallowed up MILLIONS of domain investor dollars like a vacuum cleaner. How many total drops?? TENS of millions. Maybe HUNDREDS! I don't blame them. They had bags of smoke and their job was to sell and market them. Foolish domainers looking for the "Second coming" got sucked in with dreams of riches but most went broke. The smart ones learned. They will chine in on the comments I am sure!
This failure was easy to spot because in my 50 years of business I have NEVER EVER seen a product with so many pitfalls. EVER! It was and remains the single biggest business clusterfuck I have ever seen. The only thing left is the funeral. And with Frank Schilling auctioning off his own GTLD's, the new GTLD era is over!! Matter of fact, it would have never taken off at all without Frank.
Your future business destiny starts and ends with your domain name. Great domains equal great destinies. If Social Media is your hub, destiny is in the hands of others. It can disappear on the whim of just one idiot with power. Are you in control of your own destiny or is your unknown pimple faced master in control?
They had caravans to transport the king's gold, but was not a very safe or fast way to move assets of value. They had stagecoaches that moved from east to west. How much gold could they carry before it would collapse or was attacked by outlaws? How safe was it?
You could bury CASH in the desert, but you had to pray nobody would find it. You could put all your dollars in a bank into an account that the government can seize on a whim. You can hide it in your mattress as long as the house does not burn down.
Bitcoin is fine. But it's not built on anything useful and you will never control the value. You can just enjoy the ride. #whiplash
Diamonds are small and easy to carry and easy to hide. But they suck as investments and can be stolen or cracked and become worthless. You would have a hard time getting a $100k CASH quickly even for a $1 Million diamond.
Stocks, we all own them. Manipulated as they are. Pieces of paper and a monthy statement. Whoo-Hoo
Watches are portable. You can put a million dollars on your wrist and always have enough to put a roof over your head. I give a thumbs up to a wristwatch.
But in all the years of scraching my head and scratching my balls, nothing has ever even come close to Domain Names. Now it isn't like I am against the other investments as many try and twist my point, they just simply can't compete with a meaningful and great domain name. The most portable asset in the history of man with the most potential value. And pretty darn safe!
Raw land is about liquid as a domain name. Not easy to sell raw land unless you want to give it away. You have to be patient and wait for someone with a need. With a want. With a desire. With the where with all. With an idea and a plan. And it has to be a value. Similar to Domain Names. You don't buy 10 acres today to put on the market tomorrow and expect to get much if any return. Silly! But that is the domainer strategy. Silly!
There is land and parcels everywhere that have been for sale for years. Decades even. Probaly the same in your neck of the woods. Land to be sold for premium $$$ need a specific purpose so one can calculate how things will unfold. What is different with a domain name? Unless you sell to another domainer that sees something you don't and let them reap YOUR REWARD!
Serious inquiries come from owning serious domains. So invest and collect great domains and eventually you will have a flow of qualified inquiries. Worry about buying and the sales will happen. Worry about sales and not much will happen. Focus on the hunt, the meal will come later!
I own each and every asset listed above plus others. But with my domains I can go to sleep knowing I have great value stored safely away and wherever I go those assets are a click away. I control my destiny. And if all else fails, I can actually roll up my sleeves and start building out. What exactly do I do with my other assets other than sell them? Controlling your own destiny has value far beyond what the untrained naked eye can see or put a value on.
I am bullish on domains in a way few can see or understand. I understand the value in our eco system when compared to other assets and other opportunities. Domains are the foundation of the internet and has yet to be recognized by those that should have seen it DECADES ago! The domain name is your world passport to autonomy and independence both financially and spiritually. It all starts with a Domain Name. Get your head around that!
I value my domains based on factors I have discussed in previous blog posts. There is NOBODY on this planet that can convince me otherwise. But it is time for many to wise up and see what I see. Everyone's future starts and ends with a domain name. I REFUSE to sell LIFE-CHANGING assets for anything under the value I see. If they don't see what I see, there is nothing to talk about. SIMPLE!!
That mindset has earned me over $21 million selling just 19 domains since I retired in 2015. Added to the 20 years of traffic and 20 sales prior to my retirement, would put me among the top 10 career earners by any professional golfer and just 4 or 5 slots behind Tiger Woods! But nobody keeps score like that except me! And I do! And yes, of course, I have but 1 goal......to match or exceed Tiger! I figure I'll be an active domainer longer than he'll be an active golfer. (God willing for both of us)
But 2021 is going to be a MONSTER of a year. No longer do I get hateful responses when I discuss a price with a potential buyer that may be 10 times higher than it was a few years ago. Now we have conversations and I am engaged in different conversations daily. Sometimes all day. So with that in mind, I will make the boldest of predictions, In the next 18 months I will exceed the $21 Million of the past 5 or 6 years. Possibly with one sale!
Why am I so sure? 3 words: Covid, Social Media. Covid is driving everyone online and social media is driving everyone to having their own website and not depending on the Masters of the Universe pulling the rug out from under them in a whim and leave folks without income or exposure or even a business. #WOKE
My valuation STARTS with real world expenses. So virtually nothing I own and sell will be valued at less than $500,000. That's my BASE. PERIOD! And to the base still has the value of the domain itself. So it won't be long before my floor is $1 Million.
Now you can go and dismiss that but before you make that mistake, let me share this with you. In 1996 my minimum value was $15,000. A few years later it went up to $50,000. In 1999 with my first sale of eScore.com my minimum had gone to $100k. When we started 2020 my minimum was $250k. That doubled by the end of 2020 and I would not be surprised to see it double again THIS YEAR!
$480k BEFORE salaries! Before lots of other expenses Local vs Worldwide +++ That's how I value Domains before I even get to value the domain itself.
And how about the store sign? Tens of thousands! Hundreds of Thousands!
And what if you have 100 or 1000 or more locations? This is not rocket science. You can see your physical store name on your sign from a block away. You can see your domain name from OUTER SPACE! WAKE UP!
What was the COST of building just one Sear's store? The land, the building, the furnishings, the employees, the YEARS of research to find a proper location??? That equation will no longer work! Get your head around that! That my friends is the proper comparison. The one I have used for 25 years and the one that I will use 125 YEARS past my own personal expiration date!
That said, I am open-minded and offer flexible terms and angel friendly financing by way of liberal lease options as low as $1000/month and equity deals for those with big and profitable ideas. Their wallets may be thin, but they can use the equity in their PROFITABLE idea to start using and exploiting my high-profile and sometimes high-traffic domains.
Getting a 6 or 7 or even 8 figure domain to exploit their business dream with possibly no upfront fee and a monthly note no more than a luxury car, is called OPPORTUNITY!! It's actually the opportunity of a lifetime and I guess I like doing business with folks that see that. If they can't get their head around something as simple as that.....what else can I say?
You can't buy what I have until you see what I see!PERIOD!!
In a few days, I mark the day that I got my very first Domain Name. LipService.com on December 26th 1995. I have had several monikers along the way. RickS, Mr800King, Webfather, DomainKing but I have always been Rick Schwartz.
It really was not until months later, in May, that I got my 2nd and 3rd domains. A birthday present from my brother. My 2 company names at the time.
Then I sent him an email and asked if he could get me 1 or 2 others. Then 1 or 2 more. Then 1 or 2 more and after a while he got sick of the work (Smart) and says go to this link and register them yourself.
AND THAT was my first day in Domaining.
I did not know how to cut and paste. I did not know how to search. I could barely navigate anywhere and when I did get there, I had no idea where I was, how I got there or how to got back.
So my only point of reference was a domain name. I knew how to type in http://www.lipservice.com etc. But it would take me a while to grasp the http:// part and you had to put in the www in those days. (Some sites still have not figured out that one)
So I was a know-nothing lost pup in a land of techies. Techies and I see a different sun and a different moon. Oil and water.
I was an idiot in their eyes. They were right of course. But I had a different path that they could not see or get their head around.
How do you advertise 125.66.139.81 on tv or radio or magazines or Billboard? Of course I was an idiot for asking that cuz everything comes from SEARCH.
“You don’t advertise on TV, you have links you idiot!” And that was how the table was set.
This idiot was dependent on those idiots!!!
I got kicked off my first host because of makeout.com and listing party chat lines. So I had to find another provider and another idiot to deal with. After a few idiots I finally found a host that understood how to point as many domains as I wanted to one page. Redirecting.
Redirecting. Wow!!
Funny part is all the genius idiots I had already dealt with told me what I wanted to do was impossible. So maybe now you understand why genius idiots don’t impress me. I actually like SMART people not those that think they are.
So remember I am in the wilderness. I am BLIND to where I am. I've been having the genius idiots lead me until then. I was dependent on idiots. And they were idiots for multiple reasons. They thought they had a 9-5 job as a hosting company for starters.
Their servers were up and down like yoyo’s and they had no sense of urgency. I was out of business, they were out of business and all their clients were out of business but they were GONE!! Gone on weekends and gone 16 hours a day.
Now they are CERTIFIED IDIOTS!!
So I discover I am a businessman in a sea of idiots. That sounds like opportunity to me. So I find this guy in Pennsylvania that hosts and has a brain and still has issues being a techie, but we found common ground. Maybe paying $1500/month for my domain hosting helped!
But I would have to rely on him to make update changes to my page or link changes. Until the day I learned to FTP. LIFE-CHANGING!!
I could finally take updates in an instant and not rely on 9-5’ers that may take DAYS and a 2nd email or even 3rd email to get something done.
The next thing I learned was to cut and paste. CONTROL-C, CONTROL-V, Then CONTROL-F
I was in pig shit heaven!!
With those simple tools, I was able to change my destiny. To this day I can’t do much more. Though I do know now how to search like a bloodhound now!
Through all this I am alone. I know nobody. That is until I started hitting the chat boards and getting banned from those chat boards and my posts pulled.
Professional businessman many of them with adult sites. They were talking BUSINESS!!! The business was TITS and ASS, but the discussion was almost all business!
That was when I finally came out of the wilderness for the very first time. Little by little I worked my way into the group. It took me about 2 weeks to make a name for myself.
“Serge” was the guy on board that everyone feared. One day Serge offered a $5 challenge. I stepped up and I said I would take that bet.
I lost!
So now I owed Sege $5. Serge was in New Jersey, I was in Florida. Serge sends me his addy, I send him the $5. But it was the manner that I sent the $5 that got the attention of Serge and everyone else.
I spent $12.95 to overnight that $5.
Well, Serge knows class when he sees it and of course he loved it!! That $5 check is framed and still hanging on his wall, until this day. That made me a name. That made me credible and in a cyber world of the invisible, that made me real.
I always say all successes and failures happen at the start. That ladies and gentlemen, that was my start.
From there I developed the most potent traffic any of them had ever seen. My domain traffic sold at rates 100 times MORE than the rest! They need 10,000 visitors to sell a membership, my traffic needed less than 100 to sell one.
Remember, there is no mainstream back then. There was CNN and now much else. Amazon is 1 year old. Google was yet to be founded. eBay was months old. Graphic User Interface, GUI, had just barely arrived. Remember MSDOS?
It was truly the dark ages of the Internet.
But I took a good chunk of my earnings and kept buying mainstream names even though there was no mainstream. Mainstream rejected the Internet. Mainstream tried to bury the Internet. Mainstream tried to discredit the Internet.
They were all schmucks and idiots cuz they should have been embracing it. They rejected the idea of selling cars online. Rejected it!! How much were those sales worth that they rejected??
They did that for a DECADE before they figured it out. They were IDIOTS for letting so many years pass. I simply can't excuse their shortsightedness nor should anyone. They failed miserably and hurt their companies.
Give them an award! What the hell you want me to do? Praise them!!?? They did not see the single biggest tool in business history. So whatever education they had, did not work as planned.
And even today, 25 years later, they still have not figured out the value of great and strategic domains. And while they dither, those domains went from $15,000 to $15 Million and now accelerating.
I will leave you with a few recent Twitter thoughts and DEEP beliefs!
I hope I have explained my attitude towards idiots and where it came from and why it is so strong. But how do you respect incompetence? What is the point of having a degree or degrees if you miss something life-changing like the Internet itself? They failed the biggest test of their lives and that does not make them smart! It may make them irrelevant.
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