| New Member Location: Texas Join Date: Jul 2008 | Who is your target market?
Reece made excellent points and the article was easy to follow. I would like to add an opinion to his guide as it has influence on how you sell (or should).
I happen to be the CIO of a software company and am managing the 100+- domains my Exec team feels they would like to have on a given day. It also happens that I like buying and selling my own domains of course. So what's the point?
1. Do you see the disparity between what a company wants, can afford to buy and what it needs?
2. Do you, as a seller, have something that is priced appropriately for a company which may or may not be in the 'space' the domain occupies?
3. Do you have something that conveys value beyond the name? (in my experience this is rare, we usually just pick up a domain)
Here are some recent examples I have dealt with on the 'company as a buyer' side.
EX 1:
1. The head of Automotive has an interesting idea to compliment the gianourmous parts site we run. He finds a name (randomly searching...no specific site used) and asks me to get hold of it.
2. I go about using every auction site, tool, (this site of course), to find out what I can. Ultimately we end up having to make an official blind offer through something like Sedo.
3. Seller responds that it is a 2 for 1 sale and that the price on the one we want is lower, but the total is the same.
Take a moment and think about what I just said. I'll do simple (not real) numbers to explain:
1. Site we want lists for $1,500. It's short-ish, it involves cars (so we have need and it fits in our expertise), it's for sale on Sedo.
2. Exec wants site. We bid. Response is: Site X is now $750 but you have to buy Site Y for $750 as well.
Error of the ways
This is where you as the seller just went off into the ditch.
3. Exec says 'f that'. Technically we should have walked away. Thankfully for the seller (who I will compliment, was very professional and communicative with me) worked with us. The company wanted X, not X and Y. It took a while for the Exec team to talk about the value. Ultimately the head of Automotive wanted the X domain so much we bought both.
4. Guess what site Y is doing? Nothing. At all. It was a sunk cost.
EX 2:
We bought a company a year ago and picked up the primary domain as an asset.
1. As a for-sale-by-itself domain, the name sucked. It was looooong and it was very very specific. It had two words and those words literally fit a grandtotal of maybe 4 currently operating companies. Looking bad right?
2. I am told to off load the domain as we haven't done anything with it.
3. I contact the one company I know would actually be interested. My CEO tells me to start at (I'm going to say more than $10K because it was higher and that's an argument I don't want to cover here).
4. The person I speak with actually tells me he feels like he's being sold a car.
Error of the ways
You as a seller (and I know better) should never get to this point. Know your market, know your customer, know your limit. Don't do what I just described to you.
5. So...we come to an arrangement. Needless to say the domain sold for <$1,000.
6. CEO is happy as a clam. Asset has been sold.
EX 3:
1. We have a fairly large patent portfolio. Where there be patents, there be Trademarks. Reece said it, I will say it again. Don't F@(@ with the trademarks.
2. I am more aggresive about this because I am the guy who calls you, the domainer, and explains which of our Six (yes I said 6) law firms will be taking your house away. This is not a joke.
3. We as a company spend a lot of money and time on our IP, Brand, name, etc. My CEO is constantly asking me who is out there that is even close to what we are doing. In a few cases the 'violator' didn't really know and everything was resolved nicely.
4. In one ongoing case we are contesting a domain.
5. In another case someone opened a company in another state, got rolling, put their name out there and immediately ceased to exist when our lawyers found out. Why? Because they never bothered to check the uspto.gov site. (though really a simple Google search would have done...)
Error of the ways
Are you paying attention? You should when doing this. My personal domains take this into account.
I do in fact have one that contains a trademarked name owned by Sprint. The short version is, Sprint's head Trademark lawyer and I had an excellent and very polite conversation about the domain, what I was going to do with it, etc.
Key point: I wrote him an email clearly stating that at no time was I trying to make money off of Sprint or the trademark and that they could have the domain at any time for the cost of the registration. I keep the lawyer's response handy just in case........
Final Note
1. I'm not the best domainer because I buy and hold.
2. I buy what I like and what is interesting to me based on my job and the industries I know.
3. I trend spot, so some may be good, some I'm sure are useless.
4. I am skewed by the knowledge of how companies buy their domains...from a mega corp view and a smaller company standpoint.
Apologies if any of this is off tangent of Reece's original train. |
