advice Mike Mann Selling Strategies

[MrOriginal]

Has Mike Mann ever written about how he goes about finding buyers for all of his domain sales? While many at this point are probably on reputation from his DomainMarket site, I'm sure he does a lot of hustling as well.

I will always see his recent sells around here and always am surprised by how much money he earns for domains I wouldn't even register for $100; such as:

TheHealingTree.com $20,000. Purch 9/23/11 $120.
PortobelloAmerica.com $9,888. Purch 4/9/17 $70.

He is clearly doing something different and managing to find some of the best possible buyers to get this kind of cash for these kind of domains... how is he doing it? How is he finding these clearly hyper-targeted buyers who pay top dollar?

 

[Ategy]

He is clearly doing something different and managing to find some of the best possible buyers to get this kind of cash for these kind of domains...

Actually .. there isn't anything clear here at all.

Let me preface the following by saying I have no idea if he is an amazing sales person or a horrible one. I'm going to guess he's good based on what I've heard and some of the limited numbers I've seen. But the fact of the matter is that if he's got 100,000+ domains in his portfolio then he's always going to have a few random lucky ones like those .. but more importantly, that even with the sales you've mentioned, he'd be losing tons of money with renewals.

However, the opposite is true if his portfolio is smaller and/or he has a lot more sales.

At the end of the day ... without looking at his entire portfolio, acquisition/sales prices and full list of sales, it really is impossible to draw any conclusions at all .. other than the fact that from time to time, some rare end users seriously pay a lot for domains!

 

[Federer]

all us tiny domainers do his work for him. And of course he always shows off how he purchased a domain for $120 (probably from auction) and then turn around and sells it for $14,000.

It is a pure numbers game. The more domains you own, you more inbound leads/sales you are going to generate passively. And a small portion of those will be big-ticket sales. With 350k-400k+ domains, it’s normal for a small % to convert at 5 figures.

Buying at $120 and selling at $14,000 is as impressive as buying at $8 and selling at $928. It’s the ROI that is important, not the sales price. If you can consistently sell at least 1.2%-1.5% of your inventory with that ROI rate (x 116), you’re doing even better than Mike.

 

[.X.]

Mike Mann sold his domain company BuyDomains.com for about 45 million USD, so he can command the prices he desires, I've tried to buy domains from him, but he didn't budge on his asking price. He and other domainers like Rick Schwartz, Berkins enjoy life and get six figure offers on domains most of us would accept 5 figures. More power to them.

Agreed 100% , Also to say, Mike Mann wasn't given anything, he worked for it, the same with Rick Schwartz, They have earned every penny they have made, as well as few i know here at NamePros that were willing to work 12+ hour days to establish their business, Shuffling sales and inventory so they could make it another week. and it wasn't, and isn't a picnic in doing so, I have seen it first hand. I tried it first hand, and i bailed on the full time domaining after 6 weeks., You either have it, or you don't IMO

The people that say the domain industry is a ponze, rigged and all that stuff, You are so-so wrong, If you are talented enough to make a sole living domaining, You are one tough cookie, It takes far more work that many even have a clue to. The operative word being "Work"

 

[namemarket]

I have seen one of Mile Mann's biggest ever sales where after many months go by but Whois never changed to buyers name staying in Mann's name, that imo makes some of his incredible high price sales that few here would buy for $100 or even less, seem suspect. After all, who would pay more than 100k (for what looks like a $100 domain) and not have the ownership transferred!

 

[nametrekker]

Mike Mann sold his domain company BuyDomains.com for about 45 million USD, so he can command the prices he desires, I've tried to buy domains from him, but he didn't budge on his asking price. He and other domainers like Rick Schwartz, Berkins enjoy life and get six figure offers on domains most of us would accept 5 figures. More power to them.

 

[.X.]

Think of BrandBucket, Brandpa and a few more sites of the like, Mike has more to offer than all of them put together IMO, I am not so sure he has extreme worries about paying renewal fees, I don't think his focus stems on making sales to pay renewal fees, I have read that a lot through the years, people saying he will lose money if he doesn't sell X amount of names to cover renewals, I don't think that is the case at all IMO, He has built his empire, and i think he likes his inventory, he also buys what he likes, Like his recent purchase of MotherFuckers.com, people went ape shit over that and many thought it was a crazy buy, not so, Not if he likes it IMO,

Mike has battled the UDRPs , and won many times, as well as sold the name to the person who filed the UDRP against him, that is damn savvy IMO,

The man is pretty damned relentless when it comes to his inventory of domains, I don't see him ever divulging his strategic methods of selling and acquiring his portfolio, he appears to be a one man band with his business, but i can see him enjoying his portfolio, and that in itself speaks loud for his contributions within the domain name industry.

Mike Mann will continue to raise eyebrows for as long a he decides he wants to do it IMO

 

[Hootsifer]

I could have these domains in my portfolio and I'm sure I would never sell them, or at least not for the prices he gets.

He's not just good at picking potential winners, but he's also managing to find targeted buyers at the same time.

Well he has:

1. Name and Brand / Industry Recognition

2. Connections I think? as most big domainers do

3. VAST large inventory (A numbers game)

4. Hustles hard to make a sale from what I hear

5. Knows the industry

The proof is in the sales.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

The topic of the thread is interesting, but I suspect we will never know the answer!

With such a huge domain portfolio, the real question is what fraction of his domains are selling each year. If both the average price (for all sales, not just announced ones) and the percentage sold are both higher (or one higher and one equal) compared to industry average, then clearly there are seller/promotion tactics that are highly successful. I suspect he would not share them for obvious reasons, and they may not even be transferable if he did, as the persona he built by being one of the big players in the golden age help a lot I would think. When people go to him for a domain name they expect to be paying big bucks.

Konstantinos does a monthly post on Mike Mann announced sales, and has convenient links to the past sales, so an easy way to browse the names he announces as sold.

https://onlinedomain.com/2018/09/20...t-for-126128-vistaglobal-com-mymedic-com-etc/

Konstantinos also points out that Mike has at least about 300,000 domain names. If we adopt the 1% per year average for com throughput, would imply about 3000 sales per year or 250 per month. He announces about 1/20 that many, so it really depends on how many others are being sold. Of course with high prices, Mike could be successful with a lower ratio. He needs to sell about $2.5 million a year to cover renewal costs.

Only slightly related, but I found this post by Andrew re 10 of his biggest sales and how they are used, or not, currently. Clearly these are all great names, and I am always surprised when valuable digital assets that high prices are paid for go unused or under-utilized.

https://www.namepros.com/blog/mike-manns-top-10-sales-where-are-they-now.1092788/

 

[sam123]

I have some theories explaning this strange situation.
.......
1. Most sales are fake, and they are intended to make .com market look hot.

And Sedo is part of the game, Sedo desparately promotes .com, because there is a vast inventory to liquidate. tld of the month is .com always. Whenever someone is interest in your .biz Sedo diverts such buyers into .com region, and pretends there is no other extension.
.......
2. He has Nsa connections, so whenever someone considers buying a domain, he registers
or buys it before the enduser.
........
3. He has connections with people who work with big corporations. Big companies are surrounded by sharks and you just can't approach them. If you are lucky you can reach marketing dept or legal department, who have their own interest in making money from that company's actions. Instead of paying 500, they will file 2000 udrp, and charge their company 10000. A company may pay 50K to buy your domain, but you might get only 100 and not become aware of it. If you can break this middleman step like domainmarket does, then you can sell for fair prices.
.....

I'm not saying these are true, but I believe such things happen somewhere.
Everyone is interested in their own profit. Middlemen may prevent sales in multiple ways, while
trying to optimize their own profit.
Google shared its profits with little guys via adsense, and in the meantime installed its analytics,
established browser connections, and sharing profits only with other big players, and contribution from little guys is no longer needed.
Does anyone make significant money from ppc anymore? I don't think so.

4. Mike Mann faked the moon landing

 

[Domains - Wanted]

I bet he doesn't pay for renewal. or pays a very small amount, because if registrars make 1 usd for each, it makes 300,000 , so he might be paying Icann fee + 1 usd.

You seem to be unaware, or forgot, that the bulk of domain registration / renewal fees are charged by the Registry, i.e. Verisign. Currently $7.85 per year. Registrar and ICANN fees are peanuts by comparison.

Or can even make a deal with Icann and drop Icann fee...

Yeah, dream on... ICANN waiving their fee... priceless!

 

[.X.]

Has it been your experience that "end users" ever find their way to Sedo? If so, I'd appreciate knowing how they find their way? Thanks

99% of all my domain sales are to end users, although i sell very little, My sales have come inbound from Sedo, one good sale was a fortune 500 company, I received a email as well as phone call from Sedo , the company had hired a broker from sedo, I also sold a .org domain that the buyer had searched through sedo, all though they contacted me directly through my whois, they found my domain name on sedo.

How do they find Sedo. I dunno, but i really like what has happened for me via sedo through the years.

 

[Candace]

I think he's great at targeting.

And he hustles

1. "FromSmartToFinish.com" --- he picked up for $20 in August, and sold for $1788 in Sept.
Well there is a company on "SmartToFinish.com"....If I were the ceo, I'd certainly purchase "FromSmartToFinish.com" for $1788 for brand protection. Why not? I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So, at least for some of the domain names he picks up on the cheap, he's most likely figured out (before hand) why he's buying/hand registering them, and he already knows the enduser(s) he's gonna pitch to.
For stuff like "TheHealingTree.com", he held on to it long enough until an enduser came along. Many of us won't have the patience or foresight to hold on to a 'The' domain from 2011 - 2018. He registers domains that make sense to him and holds them.

2. Mike was asking on Linkedin recently for feedback on which tools people use to contact end-users. He gave a list of tools that he may/may not use. Many people, including me (I didn't mind), gave ideas of which tools we use. I think he was testing the waters to see if there were any new tools out there that he/his people weren't already using to contact potential buyers. If you want to make sales, you can't be afraid to contact end users. Moreover, many big time domainers aren't afraid to call; while most average domainers fear calling.. Perhaps, Mike and his people are just doing more than the average domainer is willing to do..

Ask many domain brokers, they'll tell you that they hate outbound. You really can't hate outbound if you're trying to sell your domain names.

 

[MrOriginal]

You say "you wouldn't register for $100" well clearly he knows what to register and not to register then, you answered your own question. He has industry knowledge and know how, and experience.

I could have these domains in my portfolio and I'm sure I would never sell them, or at least not for the prices he gets.

He's not just good at picking potential winners, but he's also managing to find targeted buyers at the same time.

 

[topdom]

In a UDRP response (dollarcity) he (?) says he sells 4000 domains per year. So 3000 estimate above looks quite accurate. I bet he doesn't pay for renewal. or pays a very small amount, because if registrars make 1 usd for each, it makes 300,000 , so he might be paying Icann fee + 1 usd. Or can even make a deal with Icann and drop Icann fee, or give commission from sales instead of paying for renewal. It is very risky to assume that hundreds of 5 figure sales will be possible every year. There might be a small financial crisis, and everyone may delay purchases for a year, and that year would be a pure loss, and that trend may continue.
Domainmarket might be a big organisation invented for speculation purposes, and this may be making domain market alive and make people invest in domains, So registrars have profitable business, even when there are not many new endusers. .. In the next round "they" may collapse this business to make people drop their qualty domains, and restart everything after a few years.

.Global registry sells .global domains for 4-5 figures every week, but domainers can't. Similarly other registries can't sell similar tlds, like .site, .online, .world. Some people seem to know how to reach endusers and convince them, or, making fake sales for speculation purposes.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

There has to be some balance between quantity and quality or he wouldn't survive. While still relatively new to the domain game, my business philosophy is similar to Mikes. Compared to Mike my portfolio is peanuts, but the quality is improving over time. It's taken me almost a year to accumulate a portfolio of a little over 1,500 names, and despite warnings from old timers here, renewals aren't, and won't be killing me. Of the 120 names that have come up for renewal, I've renewed just 21 to the tune of $180. I'm sure Mike, if he's as smart as they say he is, does something similar.

On another note, unless I missed it, his Linkedin Bio shows him involved in four or five businesses that he started...Phone.com, MakeChangeTrust.org, MakeMillions.com, SEO.com and DomainMarket.com. No telling how much he's making or losing from those businesses.

In my case, starting, naming and operating dozens of businesses over the years is a huge advantage. I'm still very much a work in progress, but the sort of success Mike has had is very encouraging to me. And for those of you who know me, I don't need much encouragement

 

[Bob Hawkes]

But is Mike having fun? Fun is where it's at.....making money is secondary

I think there is a lot of truth in this. I don't know the big name sellers at all personally, but they seem disproportionately angry, negative and untrusting (clearly this is an over generalization, and some big names seem and I am pretty sure are incredibly generous, positive, creative and interesting). I really hope that is a persona, and that really are not nearly that intense in daily life.

I do understand that some domainers need to make a living at this, well choose to I guess. I know when that is true you really have to take things more seriously and be more hard nosed re prices etc.

For many on NPs however, this is somewhere between a hobby and a side gig. For us we really should make sure that we are having a fun and interesting time, and if not, probably move on to something else.

So let's not forget about fun and using our 'industry' to help others do something positive! And just in case you want a fun domain, well let me show you....

Have a fun, interesting and positive day everyone!

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

I'm spoken to him on Linkedin briefly. I wanted to sell him some domains. Told me to just send him my list. so it can't be that he's registering all the domains he sells.

all us tiny domainers do his work for him. And of course he always shows off how he purchased a domain for $120 (probably from auction) and then turn around and sells it for $14,000.

It's sad for the guy who let a domain expire which got sold for $120 but that's the nature of the game.

anyone ever ask Mann to broker their domains?

 

[.X.]

There is no such thing as running your own show if you want to have sales. All domain prices / domain market is maintain at this level by a small group of people. You buy or sell domains in the price range made by these people.
You can run your own show only for something unique.

That is why I run my own show, my niche in domaining is not reselling domain names, development and domain holding is my niche, I guess you could say the domain holding part sorta fits in the collector- hobby category, I sell every once in a while, always inbound, I have to like the price I am offered to sell any of my names, my renewal fees are paid in 3/4 by my websites profits most usually, the other 1/4 usually by the sell of a domain name or names. I will sell a name, but for the most part, it has to be on my terms, pricing and ect, Otherwise I don’t sell any.

 

[topdom]

I have some theories explaning this strange situation.
.......
1. Most sales are fake, and they are intended to make .com market look hot.

And Sedo is part of the game, Sedo desparately promotes .com, because there is a vast inventory to liquidate. tld of the month is .com always. Whenever someone is interest in your .biz Sedo diverts such buyers into .com region, and pretends there is no other extension.
.......
2. He has Nsa connections, so whenever someone considers buying a domain, he registers
or buys it before the enduser.
........
3. He has connections with people who work with big corporations. Big companies are surrounded by sharks and you just can't approach them. If you are lucky you can reach marketing dept or legal department, who have their own interest in making money from that company's actions. Instead of paying 500, they will file 2000 udrp, and charge their company 10000. A company may pay 50K to buy your domain, but you might get only 100 and not become aware of it. If you can break this middleman step like domainmarket does, then you can sell for fair prices.
.....

I'm not saying these are true, but I believe such things happen somewhere.
Everyone is interested in their own profit. Middlemen may prevent sales in multiple ways, while
trying to optimize their own profit.
Google shared its profits with little guys via adsense, and in the meantime installed its analytics,
established browser connections, and sharing profits only with other big players, and contribution from little guys is no longer needed.
Does anyone make significant money from ppc anymore? I don't think so.

 

[alcy]

lets not forget the tons of contacts he has and made over years

i assume he has at least some repeat buyers... does he do outbound? or has people working to do outbnd for him lik2 some other successful sellers.... by now he must know every broker in industry..those have access to databases of sales and buyers we can hardly imagine... so imagine all this put togethet...its basically exponential effect... this is why ge sometimes make unbeliavable sales..that often do not have logical explanation...pricewise etc

 

[Nattydomain]

lets not forget that it most its a numbers game. Also these domains may be used for future projects and could be short lived marketing plans so to spend $25,000 on marketing for a big company is nothing. Now yes the domains that sell we would maybe see $10 from Namepros but again if I could hold 300,000 domains and don't need money ASAP then I can quote high fees and maybe get them. For him the QUANTITY over QUALITY works better for him.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Has it been your experience that "end users" ever find their way to Sedo? If so, I'd appreciate knowing how they find their way?

I am not .x but to me there are lots of companies that find their way to Sedo, either directly through professionals in their web or branding divisions, or more likely through consultants/brand experts they hire when looking and through the big brokers. Sedo have handled so many big sales for so many years that they do have the ear of those that acquire names on behalf of companies. They have respect.

I think that the small 2 person business are not finding them, though. Nor Undeveloped etc. I would support your argument that they are not finding much of anything (possibly a few through Afternic network where they show up at registrars when hand registering). I think that is part of the reason so many small companies start with a hand registered domain, even though not that many dollars would provide something better. If we can solve that mismatch, we will have many more domain sales, at least in the $$$ to low $$$$ range imho.

Bob

 

[ThatNameGuy]

But is Mike having fun? Fun is where it's at.....making money is secondary

 

[namemarket]

In January 2018 Mike Mann's Domain Market reported selling CryptoWorld.com for a stunning $195,000. Today, 9-mos later WHOIS still says it's for sale at domainmarket.com and resolving to a DM landing page.

Isn't that incredible, after all that time and all that cash domain ownership never changed and the buyer never even bothered to at least park or forward the name to their website!