Y'all wanna shoot the moon?

[Rob Monster]

ICYMI, during October, Epik sold 3 domains above $250,000.

In the interest of helping folks sell more domains for bigger money, I want to share openly what I think works pretty well when responding to retail inquiries.

Here are my two go-to response templates for answering inbound inquiries:

Template #1

Hello <firstname>,

Thanks for the inquiry.

Names of this caliber routinely sell for over $100,000.

We also sometimes do domain leases with a purchase option.

If you have budget, I will do my best to get something done for you.

Happy to advise.

Regards,
Rob



Template #2

Hello <firstname>,

Thanks for the inquiry.

You are probably looking at well into 5 figures USD for this domain.

Alternatively, it is likely possible to do a lease with a purchase option or seller-finance.

Depending on your budget, happy to advise.

Regards,
Rob


Obviously, if you have some specific comment about the domain or about the person inquiring about the prospect, that can be helpful, but usually this is a great way to just see how high is up.

During October, we saw a 2 word domain sell for $253,750. By most standards, this domain was absolutely nothing special. The domain was however strategic to the buyer.

A lot of purchase prospects end up becoming leases and financings, depending on the budget situation of the buyer. The point is to never underestimate how high is up. It is much better to: Shoot the moon!

And now you know!

 

[hookbox]

I totally agree.

Please don't ask moonshot prices for My-Dogs-Lunch.net. It should be obvious but for anyone that it is not obvious to, please take note.

Our goal here is not to sell gold-plated crap. Our intent is to price for value, not for cost.

To do that, try to understand the economics of your client's business. If you understand the economics of a qualified lead, you can quickly back into their break-even price for the domain.

Someone this week wanted to know what price to ask for CustomIngroundPools.com. They got an inquiry. That is probably not a $100K domain, but it could easily be a $30-50K domain.

The average in-ground pool in the US costs $35K. It is an episodic purchase. For them to spend $35K to own the category defining makes sense.

If someone asks that homeowner "who built your pool", then you just need to remember CustomIngroundPools.com.

When you drive on the highway in traffic and see a courier van on the way to a job with some friendly looking drivers who were courteous, you might notice their URL on the sidepanel.

When a homeowner decides they want to get a pool, they can either go online and do brand comparisons, or they can call from the car, and make an appointment to make an estimate without even shopping around.

If the pool builder's customer goes online, they are going to set the budget at $35K, rather than $55K. The additional $20K was pure margin for the builder. See how that works?

This is not about ripping people off. This is about charging a fair price that enlarges the pie. They pay you a big sum for your domain. You help them compete more effectively to win impulse orders.

As for publishing prices, when people tell me what price they got, I don't even write it down. It is what is called "Chatham House Rules". For anyone not familiar with the concept, look it up. Those who apply it can compare notes privately, and learn from each other, privately.

Custom Pools is memorable, Custom Inground Pools is not. Asking $30-50,000 for this name is definitely a Moon Shot. Who even says Custom Inground Pools?

 

[Rob Monster]

Custom Pools is memorable, Custom Inground Pools is not. Asking $30-50,000 for this name is definitely a Moon Shot. Who even says Custom Inground Pools?

You will have to ask Google:

Apparently they think they are different. Dunno.

You can guess which ones rich people choose.

 

[hookbox]

You will have to ask Google:

Show attachment 136066

Show attachment 136067


Apparently they think they are different. Dunno.

Google has their opinion but people with money don't say that. A guy looking for a pool will search "custom pools" because he's smart enough to know that all custom pools are inground unless he's a redneck then he may think one of those Walmart pools is custom.

 

[Rob Monster]

Google has their opinion but people with money don't say that. A guy looking for a pool will search "custom pools" because he's smart enough to know that all custom pools are inground unless he's a redneck then he may think one of those Walmart pools is custom.

All but one of these was taken:

I suppose if you live in a swampy area, as some do, then I think you go for the above ground option.

I think this niche has some upside. They might not be moonshots, but if rich people need them, then you should find domains that sell to them:

- Putting greens
- Tennis courts
- Gatehouses

Etc.

For inspiration, folks can perhaps browse some online editions of luxury magazines like:

https://robbreport.com/

Words like Concierge, Luxury, Elite, Exclusive -- those are all keywords to find that.

In general, rich people also don't maintain their pools, tennis courts, sport courts, etc. So there is a market in providing maintenance for those products.

You can call me crazy but I am in favor of selling to rich people because they have money. That allows me to give things away to people who don't have much money but are honorably doing their best.

I am open to changing strategy if you have a better idea. I happily run experiments and share what works.

 

[hookbox]

All but one of these was taken:

Show attachment 136072
I suppose if you live in a swampy area, as some do, then I think you go for the above ground option.

I think this niche has some upside. They might not be moonshots, but if rich people need them, then you should find domains that sell to them:

- Putting greens
- Tennis courts
- Gatehouses

Etc.

For inspiration, folks can perhaps browse some online editions of luxury magazines like:

https://robbreport.com/

Words like Concierge, Luxury, Elite, Exclusive -- those are all keywords to find that.

In general, rich people also don't maintain their pools, tennis courts, sport courts, etc. So there is a market in providing maintenance for those products.

You can call me crazy but I am in favor of selling to rich people because they have money. That allows me to give things away to people who don't have much money but are honorably doing their best.

I am open to changing strategy if you have a better idea. I happily run experiments and share what works.

Not sure what is relevant in what you just said in regards to "Custom Inground Pools"

 

[hookbox]

It says a lot that Mike Mann is selling customingroundpool.com for only $2,288 when we know he always "Shoots for the Moon" with his domains.

https://www.domainmarket.com/buynow/customingroundpool.com

 

[Rob Monster]

Not sure what is relevant in what you just said in regards to "Custom Inground Pools"

I am talking about selling to rich people -- directly and indirectly? Why? Because that is where the money is and that is where a lot of the margins can be found.

The guy who has $100,000 to pay for a domain has an economic model that gives him the reason for wanting to upgrade to a better domain name.

What are some economic models that provide businesses with an abundance of deployable cash:

- Operate a high margin business where the value of adding a new customer is relatively high,

- Raise private equity, e.g. look on Crunchbase.com. Epik recently got a subscription to it. We can export out entire lists of venture-backed companies to see who is landing what capital in what niches.

Etc.

Long story short - to shoot the moon, the person you are talking to has to either be highly liquid, or they represent someone who is highly liquid.

For folks who use Epik SSL landers, when an inquiry comes in, we give you the full details of the inquiry so you can figure that out as efficiently as possible.

If folks have more ideas for how to efficiently determine if a particular inquiry is from a moonshot customer, I am listening.

I am actually considering to do something there, e.g. to show the average offer price and average purchase price based on an IP address. That is anonymous and would help weed out spending time on low-ballers.

 

[Rob Monster]

It says a lot that Mike Mann is selling customingroundpool.com for only $2,288 when we know he always "Shoots for the Moon" with his domains.

https://www.domainmarket.com/buynow/customingroundpool.com

Actually, Mike often sells too cheap. I recently invited him to do a split test with us. I think they are going to do it, and then we can see straight-up whether I am spouting nonsense.

 

[winst]

I know we all have different perspectives, our opinions are shaped by our experiences.

My first domain catch was "Dinela" and I bought it because it was a girl's name. Guess what the buyer wanted for?

15 years ago "App" meant Java "applet" and nobody wants them in a domain name, but today, "App" means "Mobile App" and I've sold many my app names.

Sure, I got lucky, but I have a day job, so I could afford to be patient. I know people do domaining full time and are under pressure to close sale on a regular basis. But if you could try moon shot on a few names, why not?

Sure, I have inquirers who were only willing to offer $500 and some even laughed at my face. But they don't know the data I have because I developed my own landing pages. They did not know I had inquiries from multiple startups, from different industries, they did not know I have already turned down so many 4 figure offers. Of course I'm going to try moon shot.

 

[hookbox]

Actually, Mike often sells too cheap. I recently invited him to do a split test with us. I think they are going to do it, and then we can see straight-up whether I am spouting nonsense.

I never said you were spouting nonsense but everyone has their own opinion. I have my opinion and you have yours and as the saying goes, opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.

 

[Rob Monster]

I never said you were spouting nonsense but everyone has their own opinion. I have my opinion and you have yours and as the saying goes, opinions are like assholes, everybody has one.

I have a saying: rational people do rational things.

If there is a compelling rationale for why someone should own your domain, then once they engage that dialog, they are mostly sold, but now need to be armed with the business case to their other stakeholders.

That process might not be overnight, but if you attempt to understand their business, then you can also help them with their decision-making logic.

I should add that it is really fascinating what you learn about different industries since the data is pretty much all out there for anyone that wants to look.

I will try to share examples as we go in order to illustrate the point.

 

[otismo]

You are missing the point.

There are some names where beauty is in the eye of beholder. This is especially the case with certain brandable domains where there is a strategic imperative on the part of a large organization that their management has decided to call themselves something where they don't own the domain name. This happens all the time.

Most of the time, some brand manage just got to some marketplace site like Afternic or Sedo, and searches the domain name, and buys it because the registrant was duped into pricing all his domains as BIN. Some time later that registrant figures out that the domain he sold for the prescribed $1800 that he was told to use as a price point, is being used by a company that could have paid 100X of that price.

So, sure, you can discard this advice for your own personal portfolio practices, but for people who own short .COM domains (e.g. ~11 characters or less on SLD), I would say this advice is very good. Forget BIN pricing for such domains. Set to Make Offer. Use SSL landers. Shoot the moon. If the bid comes in low, you always have the option of pivoting to a lease.

I Offer Some Anecdotal Evidence ( make of it what you will )

Brand Leverage Collusion

Company - Location - BrandName

Nestle - Switzerland - Coffeemate

FritoLay - PlanoTX - Fritos

Both companies using almost IDENTICA L SUBLIMINAL IMAGERY

to associate their Brands with a Generic Advertising Term, "The Original"

I tell you Corporate has made its mind up to firmly resist this Domain Name Extortion Game

First you tried to sell them their name and variants in multiple extensions

And then this KeyWord SEO Google search engine ranking business

I tell you Corporate/BigMoney/SmartMoney have become very clever

In all Advertising Promotion Marketing and Sales

You can find the evidence of this cleverness

As I have provided in the above example.

I bot BATPLC.com for $10 BIN @ GoDaddy Auction on a reflex

Thinking they ( British American Tobacco ) let this one fall between the cracks.

I was thinking be a gentleman and restore it to them and maybe get a lifetime supply of Newports.

But they just don't care they have decided they don't need all these names - same thing when I

acquired Capri.Poker etc. Corporate/BigMoney/SmartMoney has got its creative mojo working

overtime to discover other clever maybe even better ways to skin the cat...

Meanwhile I'll bet I can guess who acquired TheOriginal.com years ago for cheap $$$

This domain is not available and does not resolve. Whilst Original.com takes you to a website

of a guy who is trying to sell domain names ( and I'll bet we can BOTH guess which domain

he is trying { and WILL NOT SUCCEED } in "Shooting the Moon" with ).

***********************************************************************************************************

All the above does not mean that "Shooting the Moon" just flat out won't work.

Stupid money is actively being aggressively vaporized all the time.

The question is who will get it first : The Tesla Car; The Beverly Hills Mansion; Paranoid

Insurance/Annuities; Stocks That Are Destined To Go To No Bid; The Next Hot Crypto;

The Newly Discovered DaVinci ( market price : half a billion ); Rare Gold Coins; etc. or

domains.....

Aggressive Outbound Marketing and Sales always gets the Lion's Share of this $$$;

with only crumbs leftover for the too slow, passive etc.

 

[Recons.Com]

I think your challenge is probably not about lacking data. Rather it is a difficulty to comprehend that there are people in this world that have wealth, and are taking significant risks by trying to lift up others.

Do you know that in Nigeria, there are strict limits on how much money a Nigerian person can receive through their bank. I did not know that, but I found that out.

Do you know that in Yemen, just about the only way to get someone USD is through Western Union, and that even Western Union branches have very little currency.

I don't know about you, but I have a problem with that.

Now, imagine being a Nigerian or a Yemeni, who can figure out how to buy and sell domains, using profit from proceeds, ratcheting up domain quality while improving sales effectiveness.

Now, imagine what happens when you teach 10,000 people to do this, and then they teach others. And then repeat that in 50 or 100 countries. This is all doable in the next 12-24 months.

Is that worth doing? I think so. How do we do it? We shoot the moon. The folks who have good enough domains, can do it. The rest will have to work their way there.

What is good enough? Well, since I have seen many two word brandable .COM domains sell for more than $100K in 2019, I think there is still plenty of room for upside. Worst case, you lease it instead.

Ah, that condescending tone again! I have zero difficulty comprehending anything. I know, you don't like facts and numbers, but here is one for you: with just 2 weeks of prep my GMAT score was 740, 98 percentile for all people taking it, including native speakers and those preparing for years.

I comprehend just fine that you are masking greed as charity.

You should go and check out the thread about not shooting to the moon by the Namebio owner. He uses numbers and facts, differing from you, and it turns out, shooting to the moon can shoot down your sell through really bad. Possibly, by the factor of 60! He calculated that it might take 14 years for one sale to happen with 500 names priced in that range. That is the kind of advice you are giving people from the kindness of your heart.

 

[winst]

If you try to push TheOriginal or Original to FritoLay or Nestle, of course you will not get anything. Tag lines are not brand names.

However, hypothetically speaking, if Coca Cola is rebranding Classic Coke to The Original Coke and is spending $100 million and including a Super Bowl campaign, then it makes sense to ask for high 6 figures or even low 7 figures. It's a long shot. But that is the point of a Moon Shot, right?

Per Rob's suggestion, if Coca Cola did not want to spend $1 million on a domain name, then workout a lease for 6 month, 1 year. If the campaign did not work out, then no big deal. But if the campaign was super successful and Coca Cola is expanding the campaign to multi-year and year-round promotion, with merchandising, e-commerce, then Coca Cola might just buy it outright.

As long as you can justify the moon shot price, it can also be used as "price anchoring" during negotiation.

 

[Recons.Com]

If you try to push TheOriginal or Original to FritoLay or Nestle, of course you will not get anything. Tag lines are not brand names.

However, hypothetically speaking, if Coca Cola is rebranding Classic Coke to The Original Coke and is spending $100 million and including a Super Bowl campaign, then it makes sense to ask for high 6 figures or even low 7 figures. It's a long shot. But that is the point of a Moon Shot, right?

Per Rob's suggestion, if Coca Cola did not want to spend $1 million on a domain name, then workout a lease for 6 month, 1 year. If the campaign did not work out, then no big deal. But if the campaign was super successful and Coca Cola is expanding the campaign to multi-year and year-round promotion, with merchandising, e-commerce, then Coca Cola might just buy it outright.

As long as you can justify the moon shot price, it can also be used as "price anchoring" during negotiation.

Do you have any facts or data to support what you are alleging here? How many mediocre names have you sold for mid 5 to 6 figures?

Why are you assuming that payment plan will change anything if company believes the mediocre name is not worth $50K-100K? They can just go for an alternative at $10 to $5000 and then spend the remaining $45K to $95K buying target audience at $0.01 to $0.2 per visitor driving millions of potential customers to their website.

Buyers are not idiots. There is a reason companies pay mid $xx,xxx for LLL.coms but only mid $x,xxx for LLLL.coms, even if there might be some bigger companies needing the specific LLLL. Rich people are not dumb, they might even be more shrewd and frugal than many poor people.

 

[Rob Monster]

Ah, that condescending tone again! I have zero difficulty comprehending anything. I know, you don't like facts and numbers, but here is one for you: with just 2 weeks of prep my GMAT score was 740, 98 percentile for all people taking it, including native speakers and those preparing for years.

I comprehend just fine that you are masking greed as charity.

You should go and check out the thread about not shooting to the moon by the Namebio owner. He uses numbers and facts, differing from you, and it turns out, shooting to the moon can shoot down your sell through really bad. Possibly, by the factor of 60! He calculated that it might take 14 years for one sale to happen with 500 names priced in that range. That is the kind of advice you are giving people from the kindness of your heart.

No, not condescending. I replied with all due respect. You don't need a ton of intelligence to judge character.

On NameBio, their data set is Swiss cheese. I rarely check it.

As for shooting the moon, we are happy to help folks do it.

Again, we advise to list in the MLS with BIN pricing. However, for the landers, we view them as an invitation to have a consultative sale.

And again, price for value, not for cost.

 

[winst]

You should go and check out the thread about not shooting to the moon by the Namebio owner. He uses numbers and facts, differing from you, and it turns out, shooting to the moon can shoot down your sell through really bad. Possibly, by the factor of 60! He calculated that it might take 14 years for one sale to happen with 500 names priced in that range.

This is a fascinating debate! I've struggled myself sometimes to if I just ask 30% more of a reasonable offer and call it the day, or anchor a price for moon shot.

Dealing with data and analytics, sometimes you get different insights based on who is interpreting it. Moonshots may not be for everyone, but what it comes down to is your portfolio, your goals, and the strategy, and what works for you.

 

[winst]

Do you have any facts or data to support what you are alleging here? How many mediocre names have you sold for mid 5 to 6 figures?

If you want to know, you have to ask nicely...

All kidding aside. This is just my experience. Like I stated before, most are 4 figures, a few 5 figures. I'm working on a few potential 6 figures, but not holding my breath. I don't have to prove to you anything. But I do believe rising tide lifts all boats. In respect my clients' privacy as I did not get permission from them to disclose the transactions, and one of them I'm in the middle of negotiation, so I'm not going to say anything until it is closed and fully paid. You can DM me about my past 5 figure transactions if you are interested.

 

[winst]

Sorry Rob, I'm a little too excited about moon shots and kind of hijacked your thread. Moon shots was exactly the strategy what I was looking for (at least for a few of my names)

 

[Rob Monster]

Sorry Rob, I'm a little too excited about moon shots and kind of hijacked your thread. Moon shots was exactly the strategy what I was looking for (at least for a few of my names)

You are doing great.

Authenticity has its charm even if you can't always kiss and tell.

I absolutely wanted to hear folks sharing what worked -- and didn't work.

Keep up the good work, and keep SHOOTING THE MOON.

And don't forget to turn "Lemons into Lemonade".

 

[Recons.Com]

This is a fascinating debate! I've struggled myself sometimes to if I just ask 30% more of a reasonable offer and call it the day, or anchor a price for moon shot.

Dealing with data and analytics, sometimes you get different insights based on who is interpreting it. Moonshots may not be for everyone, but what it comes down to is your portfolio, your goals, and the strategy, and what works for you.

I have worked for major corporations and negotiated deals worth billions. If you have position of strength, you can really push it as far as you need.

However, for most in this industry, the position of strength is non-existent. Often, they don't know who the buyer is, why he needs the name, what could be the budget and there are no readily available alternatives.

Even for me, even though I am financially fine, I choose to ring fence the domain business, so it has to rely on its own cash flows, I prefer mid $xxxx firm than 1/60 chance of mid $xx,xxx. And I have over 3700 names already. It will be a bit different when I have 30000+. My regularly binned names will provide a sale a day, and I can allocate a percentage of the portfolio for higher pricing, make offer/negotiations etc.

And when I have the data, I will be open to share how the sell through is affected by aggressive pricing (price elasticity). Then it should be fairly easy to quantify and make an informed decision.

As Namebio founder mentioned in the other thread, Mike Mann boasts 352K names and only shared 25 5 figure sales for the year. Although he doesn't share all his sales, he normally likes bragging about the larger ones. Especially, if they were cheap acquisitions. I have had 4 in past 2 years, averaging around 2000 names, but those were very high quality names, 3 very high quality LLLL.com and 1 dictionary word, albeit looking like a brandable (noble/metal/com)

 

[winst]

I have worked for major corporations and negotiated deals worth billions. If you have position of strength, you can really push it as far as you need.

Wow, that may be the last piece of the puzzle! Negotiate from a position of strength!

Quoting "Art of War" know your self and know your opponent, you will always be victorious!
So how do you gain advantage? find out who the inquirer is. Google everything available from the inquiry from!

The buyer seems to be willing to pay the most at a very specific timeframe:

• A business that is already established
• Ready for a major expansion
• Received major funding
• A new product or service is ready to launch or just announced
• A rebranding to a shorter name or .com will help generate publicity and expand internationally.

When we know the inquirer really needed the name, negotiate from a position of strength!

Because I have a small portfolio, most of my names are short brandables, I can spend more time doing research each inquirer and analyze the traffic.

 

[Recons.Com]

Wow, that may be the last piece of the puzzle! Negotiate from a position of strength!

Quoting "Art of War" know your self and know your opponent, you will always be victorious!
So how do you gain advantage? find out who the inquirer is. Google everything available from the inquiry from!

The buyer seems to be willing to pay the most at a very specific timeframe:

• A business that is already established
• Ready for a major expansion
• Received major funding
• A new product or service is ready to launch or just announced
• A rebranding to a shorter name or .com will help generate publicity and expand internationally.

When we know the inquirer really needed the name, negotiate from a position of strength!

The biggest strength is not needing to sell.

My 5 figure sales were for names I would be happy to keep and had an idea for my own use.

Then I don't care who the buyer is. If the name is great, someone else will come along. I liked review/org so much, I paid over $14K in the auction. I turned offer for over double of that for couple of years, until someone offered $45K and then I let it go. All because I had my own development idea for it.

I have started developing elix/com and for now have bin of $100K on it, as before it reaches certain stage, I can probably find an equivalent for 1/4 to 1/2 of that. But then I might change it to "make offer" and won't take less than mid 6, and then once it reaches the main milestone of going to print, then it is off the market.

Again, doesn't matter who the buyer is.

So, know your best names and price accordingly, while still having the majority of names at the sweet spot pricing to provide the blood line to your business.

 

[Windoms]

Uniregistry brokerage has released their 2018 market sales.

For 5445 domains sold in 2018.
$50.100.000
Average sales price was $9.200.
Median sales price was $3.500

• 404 one-word domains. 7.42%
• 2,363 two-word domains. 43.4%
• 423 three-word domains. 7.77%
• 538 one-to-four character domains. 9.88%
• 1,799 other domains. 33%

58 sales were above $100.000. 1.065%. Average length was 5.8 characters.
1005 between $10.000 and $99.999. 18.45%. Average length of these domains was 8 characters.

Uni has a decade of data, they also uses make offer and offer leases if needed during negotiation.

If you have a portfolio of 1000 curated names with a proven model in which I am diligently acquiring and selling names like @Recons.Com does by pricing them fairly (which is the way to grow), I'd take my best (quality) 100 names including 2-words and set them to make offer. Because the other 900 are still going to sell and I'll still be acquiring names.

If you make the fatal mistake of going lethargic by trying to shoot the moon too early, you'll stop acquiring names while waiting for that sale.
So make sure you only allocate good domains to shooting the moon.
And that you have a diligent, proven business model in which you are always acquiring names and setting the vast majority of them at fair BIN.
Like domainmarket.com or buydomains.com.
And better domains at make offer.

You have to know how to grow quickly and diligently without relying on the lottery, and how to handle leads on good domains and not be scared to because you can always switch to leases.

And now you know!

 

[Windoms]

Kindly note all those won't teach you how to buy a good domain name.