Negotiation is a skill and it develops along the way. However, you may take care of following points to negotiate better:
- Research the buyer - Use the email address from which you received the email to see who the buyer is. A lot of times, big companies portray themselves as small people in need and get the domain for give away prices.
- Google your domain name - Check for news related to domain name that you own. Whether there is some new company that has come up, or a product from a big company etc.
- Check websites like Crunchbase etc - Look for websites which list names of startups which may have been funded recently. These kind of startups go for domain acquisition. If you know who you are negotiating with, you have an upper hand.
- Pay attention to their initial offer - Look for how they approach, whether they sound desperate or eager to buy this, your cash flow, whether you can afford losing that amount should you say NO to a good offer to get a better one etc.
- Take some time to reply - I find this useful at times. If you don’t reply immediately, there are chances that desperate buyers would increase the price before you counter. That ways, sometimes, it gets you to identify the value of name for the buyer. Accordingly, you can negotiate.
There are a number of other factors too like your personal target with domaining, how much are you expecting for that name etc. But this should get you going.
