tips The ART of negation!

[Domainzy]

Oh how we love to negotiate a price for a domain! However, aren't you surprised how people respond to each other in negotiations. Gonna offer an OPINION, if it helps you, awesome! Its just an opinion.

First/opening offers regardless of price are should be treated as a HELLO... IM INTERESTED.(nothing more or less) Getting offended or not responding is a possible loss of a sale(and future sales and respect). The professional/profitable thing to do is offer a price you know you can go down from, just like they know they have to go up. Rude counter offering or 'LOL' is a waste of time and respect. So is not responding. If you feel the price is TOO LOW, then you didn't treat it as a 'hello' you took it as a final offer?!

Counter offers should be treated as a BALLPARK figure. Getting offended or loosing interest is a missed opportunity to negate further! Always counter offer the sellers counter offer! and repeat!

Anyone who accepts a first offer, or first counter offer is 'leaving money on the table' if you will. Every domain we have bought or sold we countered more than twice. And most of the time, surprised at the outcome!

So many times we have gone to buy a domain and the sellers response is short, rude, or lacks negotiation skills. The worst is when they are offended... as if they don't understand how to negotiate. Once you find people who negotiate with respect, add them to your contacts, and you'll be surprised how often you can help each other out! Avoid people who get offended or lack enough respect to respond proper or counter offer.

Just an opinion..

 

[baldonius]

Oh how we love negating a price for a domain! However, aren't you surprised how people respond to each other in negations. Gonna offer an OPINION, if it helps you, awesome! Its just an opinion.

First/opening offers regardless of price are should be treated as a HELLO... IM INTERESTED.(nothing more or less) Getting offended or not responding is a possible loss of a sale(and future sales and respect). The professional/profitable thing to do is offer a price you know you can go down from, just like they know they have to go up. Rude counter offering or 'LOL' is a waste of time and respect. So is not responding. If you feel the price is TOO LOW, then you didn't treat it as a 'hello' you took it as a final offer?!

Counter offers should be treated as a BALLPARK figure. Getting offended or loosing interest is a missed opportunity to negate further! Always counter offer the sellers counter offer! and repeat!

Anyone who accepts a first offer, or first counter offer is 'leaving money on the table' if you will. Every domain we have bought or sold we countered more than twice. And most of the time, surprised at the outcome!

So many times we have gone to buy a domain and the sellers response is short, rude, or lacks negation skills. The worst is when they are offended... as if they don't understand how to negate. Once you find people who negate with respect, add them to your contacts, and you'll be surprised how often you can help each other out! Avoid people who get offended or lack enough respect to respond proper or counter offer.

Just an opinion..

The word is 'negotiate'.

 

[AEProgram]

Boy would I love to live on the planet you live on, it sounds so perfect and beautiful!

The internet is full of advice that are really beautiful and pretty, in some ways cute and heartfelt, but the reality is we live on planet earth and things do not work the way you describe.

I will start by demonstrating the perfectly beautiful advice, that we all so want to believe is reality, but the planet just don't work like that.

Finance forums:
"Save a little money every week, it all adds up, try to cut spending, a little here and a little there, ask for a raise, open an account with some financial company and tell them you only like safe investments, and before you know it you will have a nice safe retirement stashed away."

Relationship forums:
"The fact that this is the third time you catch him cheating with one of your friends does not mean he is a cheater and refuses to change. Sit down and have a heart to heart conversation with him, listen to what is bothering him and you will be surprised how quickly you two can work things out."

Medical Forums:
"So sorry to hear that you have been diagnosed with [some very serious medical condition]. Doctors don't always know what they are saying, please follow the QuakyQuakker diet, if you follow their diet and get the authentic tea leaves and mix it with honey and some acai, you will be just fine. the human body is designed to heal itself using natural products."

Job Forums:
"Sorry to hear you lost your job! You are right, making a big deal of showing up on time is so 1950's, after all you got all the work done on time. You seem smart and full of energy, I bet your next job will be one that you are actually appreciated and compensated way more than your last job. Don't settle for just any job because you are desperate, take your time and make a good choice, there is a huge demand now anyways for salespeople who specialize in installing the Windows 3.1 operating system."

Political Forums:
"Can't we all just get along?"

Your post fits right in the lines of the above style advice being peddled all over the web. SURE I would love for the world to operate that way, but it just don't!

Let me tell you what works based on real life experience and not based on dreams:

1: Low ball offer - DO NOT REPLY - Don't do it! IF they like the name enough they will hit you up again with a higher offer, if they don't like it enough they would have not gone up to your asking price anyway. HUGE mega risk if you reply to LOW BALL offers, this is not about taking things personal or being offended, this is strictly a business decision.

2: The longer you let time linger the less likely they will buy (the low baller is irrelevant, you have a better chance of bringing them up to reality with silence than by replying). Make aggressive deadlines and provide clear instructions. Example, The final price is $5,000 this is valid for the next 12 hours only, you can pay via paypal [email protected] or start an escrow and enter my email [email protected] as the seller.

3: The most underused negotiating technique is called "silence!", LEARN to use it, you will love it! Example, guy offers you 250, you counter with 3500, he replies 275, DO NOT REPLY TO THIS PERSON, 0 replies until he ups his price. I know what you are thinking, but but but I am leaving money on the table blah blah blah, if you reply you will be leaving yourself bent over the table.

4. It's 2014 people read their emails all the time, stop acting like it's 1999 where people needed to run to their brothers house to check their email. If you reply to an email the person got it guaranteed (99.9%) within 12 hours.

5. Use their BS to BS them back. If you get an email about a domain someone agreed to pay 5k for and they say "sorry for the delay I am dealing with a death in the family" reply "I am so sorry to hear that, the timing for this must be very bad, but I decided to make it easier for you during this trying time by deducting 10% of the price if you pay within 3 hours, this will allow you to close on the name for a lower price and you will be able to focus on more important matters at hand".

 

[N-A]

@AEProgram , I've had an interesting experience on GD O/C-O that goes against some of what you have explained in 1-5.

I got an offer for let's say $200 (I don't want to login for the actual numbers, but know the final selling point). If I had not countered with $3250, I would not have gotten a counter offer of $400. If I ignored the $400 and didn't counter with $3450 (+$200), I would not have gotten an offer for $900. If I had ignored the offer of $900 and not countered with $3950 (+$500), I would have not gotten an offer for $2500.

At this point, I was in the ballpark for a handreg 99 cent coupon domain that was 2-3 weeks old, but wanted to see how high I could take the ROI. That's when the silence may have came in play and I waited out the 7 days for the offer to expire. On the 8th or 9th day, they came back with the same offer of $2500 (I presume they assumed I didn't get the message or something).

I finally took it back to the original price I wanted of $3250 and stated that it's take it or leave it in the comments (never left a comment before that).

Sold over a week of "negotiating" by taking 2 seconds of my time in filling in a box. Then another 2 seconds saying final offer and some time dealing with Escrow. However, turning $1.17 into $3250 within a week of "negotiating" was well worth it.

Maybe silence helped or the buyer assumed I didn't get the message and resubmitted an offer (it was an end user).

Quite possibly if I ignored it, they may have came back a week later with $5000. Who knows? I was satisfied turning a dollar into over 3 grand in minutes (although the actual 'time span' of negotiations was around a week or so).

 

[AEProgram]

@AEProgram , I've had an interesting experience on GD O/C-O that goes against some of what you have explained in 1-5.

I got an offer for let's say $200 (I don't want to login for the actual numbers, but know the final selling point). If I had not countered with $3250, I would not have gotten a counter offer of $400. If I ignored the $400 and didn't counter with $3450 (+$200), I would not have gotten an offer for $900. If I had ignored the offer of $900 and not countered with $3950 (+$500), I would have not gotten an offer for $2500.

At this point, I was in the ballpark for a handreg 99 cent coupon domain that was 2-3 weeks old, but wanted to see how high I could take the ROI. That's when the silence may have came in play and I waited out the 7 days for the offer to expire. On the 8th or 9th day, they came back with the same offer of $2500 (I presume they assumed I didn't get the message or something).

I finally took it back to the original price I wanted of $3250 and stated that it's take it or leave it in the comments (never left a comment before that).

Sold over a week of "negotiating" by taking 2 seconds of my time in filling in a box. Then another 2 seconds saying final offer and some time dealing with Escrow. However, turning $1.17 into $3250 within a week of "negotiating" was well worth it.

Maybe silence helped or the buyer assumed I didn't get the message and resubmitted an offer (it was an end user).

Quite possibly if I ignored it, they may have came back a week later with $5000. Who knows? I was satisfied turning a dollar into over 3 grand in minutes (although the actual 'time span' of negotiations was around a week or so).

"If I ignored the $400 and didn't counter with $3450 (+$200), I would not have gotten an offer for $900. If I had ignored the offer of $900 and not countered with $3950 (+$500), I would have not gotten an offer for $2500."

You know this how?

The problem is many people use one experience in this business to make assumptions. Day traders that have a similar success rate like domainers do the ame thing. They make one good trade at 2:35PM and they now walk around yelling and screaming that 2:35PM is the best time to trade, next day they lose their pants at 3:30PM and they yell and scream never trade within the last half hour before the closing bell.

Last but not least, low ball offer to me isnt a dollar amount only but the domain vs dollar amount for examaple $15 for thsuhfiijde.com is a great offer while if you own home.com anything below mid XXXX is not even worth replying to. Not that one should sell it for mid XXXX but at least the buyer is showing he is serious.

The best deals will come from being silent, an art few can gather themselves up to do.

 

[N-A]

If you felt that that I dismissed your entire post and shared experience from my one sale using this tactic, then sorry. That was not my intentions.

Ignoring can work and does get people coming back, whether it be a day to months later. I only used this method once as it was a $1.17 domain, I had nothing to lose trying something new and I wanted to see how high of an ROI I could get off of it after weeks of registration with a minimal investment and time put into it.

 

[baldonius]

@AEProgram , I've had an interesting experience on GD O/C-O that goes against some of what you have explained in 1-5.

I got an offer for let's say $200 (I don't want to login for the actual numbers, but know the final selling point). If I had not countered with $3250, I would not have gotten a counter offer of $400. If I ignored the $400 and didn't counter with $3450 (+$200), I would not have gotten an offer for $900. If I had ignored the offer of $900 and not countered with $3950 (+$500), I would have not gotten an offer for $2500.

At this point, I was in the ballpark for a handreg 99 cent coupon domain that was 2-3 weeks old, but wanted to see how high I could take the ROI. That's when the silence may have came in play and I waited out the 7 days for the offer to expire. On the 8th or 9th day, they came back with the same offer of $2500 (I presume they assumed I didn't get the message or something).

I finally took it back to the original price I wanted of $3250 and stated that it's take it or leave it in the comments (never left a comment before that).

Sold over a week of "negotiating" by taking 2 seconds of my time in filling in a box. Then another 2 seconds saying final offer and some time dealing with Escrow. However, turning $1.17 into $3250 within a week of "negotiating" was well worth it.

Maybe silence helped or the buyer assumed I didn't get the message and resubmitted an offer (it was an end user).

Quite possibly if I ignored it, they may have came back a week later with $5000. Who knows? I was satisfied turning a dollar into over 3 grand in minutes (although the actual 'time span' of negotiations was around a week or so).

Great story. I love selling hand-regs for ridiculous ROIs. Was it a brandable or generic?

 

[AEProgram]

If you felt that that I dismissed your entire post and shared experience from my one sale using this tactic, then sorry. That was not my intentions.

Ignoring can work and does get people coming back, whether it be a day to months later. I only used this method once as it was a $1.17 domain, I had nothing to lose trying something new and I wanted to see how high of an ROI I could get off of it after weeks of registration with a minimal investment and time put into it.

Its like having a discussion about lotto and how unrealistic it is to think one can win, then a guy arrives to share his story about him winning the lotto. What exactly did he contribute? He is simply making people feel good and providing false hope.

I sure hope people aren't here to selectively read the one offs, do what works for most people and maybe you will succeed.

 

[wwwulff]

[QUOTE if you own home.com anything below mid XXXX is not even worth replying to. Not that one should sell it for mid XXXX but at least the buyer is showing he is serious.
.[/QUOTE]

If I owned home.com and got a offer in mid xxxx - I´m not sure I would consider it serious

 

[AEProgram]

[QUOTE if you own home.com anything below mid XXXX is not even worth replying to. Not that one should sell it for mid XXXX but at least the buyer is showing he is serious.
.

If I owned home.com and got a offer in mid xxxx - I´m not sure I would consider it serious[/QUOTE]

Serious as in serious potential to get a higher price, there are only rare occasions where an offer just arrives for XXXXXX+ out of the blue, you build up to that, HOPEFULLY.

 

[jideofor]

Interesting topic.

 

[venturefile.com]

@AEProgram why not respond to lowballers? I just respond: Thank you but that offer is much lower then I would consider..

But I don't give them my price range either.

 

[AEProgram]

@AEProgram why not respond to lowballers? I just respond: Thank you but that offer is much lower then I would consider..

But I don't give them my price range either.

Sorry not in the mood to go into 50 chapters as to the mindset of the lowballer, but stop replying if you want to make more sales at higher price points.

 

[jideofor]

Now I wished I never replied to an enquiry for a domain a few months go to which they didn't respond either. Twice. Lol

 

[venturefile.com]

@AEProgram so do you think that me being silent will change anything if I don't sell for the lower prices anyways? Would less replying change the fact that a lowballer that doesn't have a high enough budget will then have it? What does the silence bring to the table?

I am not saying you are wrong, I am actually asking, because I always want to improve my negotiating skills and of course get more money from my names.

 

[Domainzy]

Not replying COULD be taken as a sign of disrespect and or flakiness. (and loss of interest and sale)
Replying Cant Really be taken as a sign of disrespect and or flakiness. (unless its rude)

We buy domains everyday, and if people don't respond we move on. (Loss of serious sale for them) We would rather deal with respectful sellers than deal with sellers who drag on the negotiation. Don't most people want to finish the sale sooner rather than later? End users have a business to build, they don't have time to play games.

More times than not, sellers who don't respond are hard to deal with, and unsurprisingly flakey. Obviously not everyone...

Giving your girlfriend 'the silent treatment' might work, but giving buyers the silent treatment is an odd strategy. It might work on some people, but as buyers, we find it to be unprofessional. Because how hard is it to respond with "thank you, but that offer is too low"

 

[N-A]

SILENCE everyone in this thread. Apparently if we don't use silence, we won't win the lotto.

Apparently this was a tip intended on making the OP look good and our contributions that contradict his are worth 0 value, so I say silence.

Sorry for derailing your point and apologizing for the 2nd time.

FYI, what works in face-to-face sales (silence, whoever talks first, "loses") doesn't quite work online as there are many other salespeople to talk to and they can avoid you as opposed to you making it harder on them leaving the conversation.

/silent

 

[NPer]

Now I wished I never replied to an enquiry for a domain a few months go to which they didn't respond either. Twice. Lol

 

[NPer]

Here's a recent thread called: "Domainer negotiation tactics" which has some posts on the topic. https://www.namepros.com/threads/domainer-negotiation-tactics.837352/

 

[AEProgram]

Not replying COULD be taken as a sign of disrespect and or flakiness. (and loss of interest and sale)
Replying Cant Really be taken as a sign of disrespect and or flakiness. (unless its rude)

We buy domains everyday, and if people don't respond we move on. (Loss of serious sale for them) We would rather deal with respectful sellers than deal with sellers who drag on the negotiation. Don't most people want to finish the sale sooner rather than later? End users have a business to build, they don't have time to play games.

More times than not, sellers who don't respond are hard to deal with, and unsurprisingly flakey. Obviously not everyone...

Giving your girlfriend 'the silent treatment' might work, but giving buyers the silent treatment is an odd strategy. It might work on some people, but as buyers, we find it to be unprofessional. Because how hard is it to respond with "thank you, but that offer is too low"

The problem is you are a domainer or wannabe domainer and talking and thinking like one. What percent of sales worth a damn come from domainers?

I am talking about end users here, and you have end users wrong completely!

You are speaking as to what you think and I am speaking on how things work.

When you dont reply to an end user they see it as they disrespected you with the offer HENCE they almost ALWAYS email again with a higher offer.

 

[baldonius]

FYI, what works in face-to-face sales (silence, whoever talks first, "loses") doesn't quite work online as there are many other salespeople to talk to and they can avoid you as opposed to you making it harder on them leaving the conversation.

Agreed. Taking a few days to respond to a buyer email is a classic negotiation tactic. They freak out, afraid that you're gonna sell it to someone else. And there's plausible deniability - people often genuinely forget to reply to their emails for about 2-3 days.

I watched a video with Adam Dicker recently and he says he regularly takes a few days to respond to an offer email if it's just below what he wants. If it's way below what he wants, he just deletes the email. It's added a few thousand dollars to offers without any actual work.

 

[N-A]

When you dont reply to an end user they see it as they disrespected you with the offer HENCE they almost ALWAYS email again with a higher offer.

Is this an assumption of what an end user thinks from a domainer?

Sales are sales no matter what industry you're in.

Assume you made ballpoint pens, someone wanted 100,000 at 5 cents each and they emailed you. You ignored their request as it was low. Since you can, let's assume for the moment that phones didn't exist. Are they going to think they offended you or contact another supplier?

The only type of sales where the silent treatment works are face to face, you're a salesperson and not a conversationalist and don't let the prospect direct your pitch.

This is a highly assumed "tips" post as I cannot find any statistical categorical data from follow up surveys that contain binary variables ("Yes - I felt I disrespected the seller", "No - I don't think I disrespected the seller") on why end users bought at the price they did.

Let me remind you that the thread title is "The Art of Negotiating".

verb (used without object), negotiated, negotiating.
1. to deal or bargain with another or others, as in the preparation of a treaty or contract or in preliminaries to a business deal.

I don't see anywhere in any marketing, sales, or dictionary for that matter where ignoring a user is the best option.

It's plain and simple. Create an email template that is 2-click send and reply. You either receive a response or not. It's like what @venturefile.com said:

What does the silence bring to the table?

Silence brings nothing to the table. A reply that may or may not result in a higher price does as it could peak interest. Grab a buyers interest again before they forget.

The 2-3 day reply is fine, it get's them eager, I understand that. However a message sent to the trash can? Sorry, I disagree completely.

What works in your replies that resulted you to come to the "silent treatment" as resulting in higher and more sales may in fact be the reason why it works for you.

How did you come about this working? Did you deduce it yourself? Formal sales training? I'm very interested as you're providing a tip for members to ignore all sales inquiries if it's a lowball. This is harmful in closing a deal, whether bigger than they expected or small as beginners need constant cash flow to stay afloat (whether break even, below or slightly above) to reinvest in something better.

I don't think a lot of people understood my first post, but this is what I was getting at.

In my opinion, reply to every email and use a template. It saves you 1 minute of time, supposing you type 40 word per minute and can result in a higher offer. From there, you work the art of negotiating.

 

[AEProgram]

Agreed. Taking a few days to respond to a buyer email is a classic negotiation tactic. They freak out, afraid that you're gonna sell it to someone else. And there's plausible deniability - people often genuinely forget to reply to their emails for about 2-3 days.

I watched a video with Adam Dicker recently and he says he regularly takes a few days to respond to an offer email if it's just below what he wants. If it's way below what he wants, he just deletes the email. It's added a few thousand dollars to offers without any actual work.

Adam and many other top guys use that same technique and its been successful for a long long time. One of the biggest brokers in the industry does the same when the name in question is a name he owns (ersus a brokered name as he says the clients want them to reply as they fear etc.)

To David Walker - I don't sit here and give out advice based on my own personal bias and emotional theories. I figured out a long time ago, the more I can help others get more for their name, the better off we all are.

Like I mentioned earlier, there is the world we would like to live in, and the world we live in, my advice is for the world we live in. If you tell me you live in LaLa land my advice would be different.

Thanks

 

[Kate]

One thing I would not do is, reply within 10 minutes to the E-mail.
This would suggest that:
a. you are not so busy after all if you are always in front of your computer - maybe you are some sort of nolife
b. you are eager to sell, while you in fact have the upper hand, and that's the way it should be

 

[Name Trader]

I can say that what AEProgram is saying is true, although I don't totally practice it. Every reply I've ever made to a lowball offer with a price, has never ever resulted in a successful sale for me. I get multiple lowball offers every day. I usually now don't reply to $xx offers anymore, because of this experience. But I have sometimes sent them a reply stating there offer is too low. But then all I get is a what's your price request, and then nothing after I've replied. They are just tire kickers. I prefer an email which asks what your price? But they are mostly tire kickers too. But they potentially could be genuine buyers. So I'm swinging around to not quoting the price first in these situations.

Of course we all prefer only to get great offers from end users. But it is never going to happen all the time. In fact it's going to be the exception rather than the rule. I bet a lot of those dictionary word .com's also get bugged by lowball offers

I used to reply to every offer, thinking you should never let any selling opportunity go to waste. But I just don't have the time to waste on these lowballers anymore.

I am not being confrontational with jahfree or David Walker. I respect both of your opinions.