How to Sell a Domain Name - with Adam Dicker

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Interview with Adam Dicker, DNFCollege.com

Watch the full video at:
http://www.domainsherpa.com/how-to-sell-a-domain-name

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Here's your program.

Michael Cyger: Hey everyone, my name is Michael Cyger. I'm the publisher
of DomainSherpa.com, the Domain Name Authority, and the place where
you came to to learn how to become a successful domain name entrepreneur
directly from the expert themselves.

If you are like me you want a bunch of domain names that you have acquired
over the years that some of which you want to sell. But how do you sell
domain names and what are the most effective domain name sales tactics.
Joining me to answer these questions is Adam Dicker. Adam is the CEO of
DNForum.com – the largest online domain name discussion forum. He is also
the founder DNFCollege.com, an online school dedicated to mentoring a
small group of people who want to learn how to become successful domain
name investors. More than 3,000 students have gone through
DNFCollege.com to date.

Adam, welcome back to the show.

Adam: Thank you and I appreciate you having me on the show.

Michael: For those of you watching this show and haven't seen Adam's
previous DomainSherpa show, after this show you can go visit
DomainSherpa.com/Adam-Dicker for an in depth look at how Adam built his
most recent lead generation business in the medical industry - Specifically in
the cord blood bank market. It is a great example of how you did not need to
be into domain names in the mid 1990s to establish yourself and make money
today. And hopefully we are going to have Adam back many more times. So
if you hear a topic during this show that you want to learn more about in the
future please scroll down to the comments and let Adam and me know what
topic you would like a show dedicated to.

Today we're going to be talking domain name sales, Adam. Those people
who are watching this show maybe from the entrepreneurial community, the


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startup community, just business owners that want to learn how to sell
domain names that they may own they may not know you as a domain name
hall of famer, as the owner of the largest discussion forum in the market. Can
we start off with some stats on your domain name sales? In a previous
interview you told us that you currently own about 40,000 domain names.
Some weeks you will go out and buy from five domain names to thousands
of domain names. What is the highest domain name sale that you have ever
made?

Adam: Well lets' start with your original comment. Just yesterday I
registered about 400 new names in fields I plan on entering for more lead
generation areas. I've done some more research and like everybody else I
found about 500 good areas for lead generation. So I'll go back to lead
generation for just a second and then I'll hit the other question. A good topic
for lead generation site is any product or service that sells for over $500. That
allows you to make 20% and at least earn $100 per lead. Don't bother setting
up lead gen businesses for costs or services under $100 like florists or limo
services. You won't make more than $10 or $20 per lead or per sale, so for
those set up affiliate links.

So like I said I've come up with a whole bunch of new ideas for lead gen
businesses. I'll give you a few nuggets now and then they can ask about them
more later. So a couple that I am entering now are landscaping because it is a
good time to set up landscaping sites with most of Canada and the US hitting
winter. You have plenty of time to build out your site before March or April
hits.

Michael: Is that landscaping design, landscaping installation, landscaping
maintenance, all of those different areas?

Adam: All of those things. Mostly just basic landscaping and stone patios
and things like that. And so I am dealing with landscaping, architecture
(which is a big commission based business) and them dealing with many
different types of lawyers like family lawyers, criminal lawyers, real estate
lawyers, and even intellectual property lawyers like we deal with on the
internet. So alright let's hear your question.


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Michael: Highest domain name sale you have made.

Adam: I have been lucky enough to have quite a few high end domain sales.
Elephant.com was a good one but it is protected by a non-disclosure
agreement. The store is quite famous. They UDRPed me and they lost. So
they had no choice but to buy the domain name if they still wanted it, which
they did. I believe the domain name sold in 2006. And I have sold quite a few
other domain names like Forums.com, pw.ca (which I will get into a little bit
more with a story later). I sold sm.com to a bank in the Philippines.

Michael: Are any of these public information Adam? Like Forums.com?
Was that a six figure, seven figure domain name?

Adam: I think Forums.com is public. I think it sold for $400,000.

Michael: What about sm.com, a great two letter domain name that could be
used for probably thousands, tens of thousands of companies out there?

Adam: Yes sm.com is a good story because I paid $15,000 for it and sold it
for mid six to upper six figures. There are a lot of good stories but there are
still lots and lots of ways to get into this business. It's not hard like you say to
get in and earn money in this business.

Michael: Have you sold a domain name in the seven figures?

Adam: Yes but like I said I can't talk about the exact price. Two or three but
I can't talk about them because of the non-disclosures.

Michael: Elephant.com was one of them being a non-disclosure. Since you
sold in 2006 doesn't the NDA expire after a certain while?

Adam: To be honest with you I never checked on it. I don't know. If they
ask me not to disclose that I have to respect that.

Michael: So you own 40,000 domain names, you are buying a bunch it
seems like every year. How many domain name inquires do you receive in
any given month would you say?


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Adam: About 100 to 200, both through email and through sales lin,000s on
landing pages or through the marketplaces like Sedo, Afternic and Go Daddy
auctions and things like that.

Michael: So you receive basically a handful a day and that leads to 100 or
200. For 40,000 domain names you receive 100 to 200 per month. And how
many domain name sales do you typically make in a given month?

Adam: About 20 or 30. I mean it really depends. Of course that number
would be higher if I was a motivated seller which I am not, which means I
can afford to hold out for a better price. So it all depends. In some months
people need to make their rent so they sell a little bit lower. There are certain
times a year where you will get better bargains like between November and
the end of January because people are trying to save money for trips or for
Christmas presents. And in January they are looking to pay off their credit
card debts.

Michael: Alright well you heard it here. If people are looking to buy now is
a good time to get out there and start making inquires because people need to
pay off their credit card or pull together some money so they can buy their
holiday gifts. And if you are getting 20 to 30 sales per month what is your
average domain name sales price per say? Leave out the sm.coms and the
Forums.com, you know those are the ultra premium domain names that I
think that are in a different class for a majority of your domain names. What
would you say was the average domain name sales price?

Adam: Right now I'd say the sweet spot is between $4,000 and $9,000 but
obviously some larger sales skew those numbers like you said. But $4,000 to
$9,000 is about right. I own 3,500 four letter .coms and if I wait (and I
typically do wait) they sell easily for $4 and $5,000 and I see people selling
them on the boards all the time for $150 to $200 which is because they are
impatient.

Michael: I get a few email newsletters with domain names for sale and I just
look through them to see what is interesting and I noticed on one of them
they had I think 3,500 four letter .coms for sale and you had to inquire to see


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what the portfolio was but at one point they were listed at a certain price and
then they were reduced and then they were reduced and I think right now
they are selling for around $60 or $70 per domain name if you bought the
whole lot of 3,500. Is that a good deal considering that you are selling them
for…?

Adam: Well I can tell you one thing those aren't my 3,500 domain names.
But yes $60 at 3,500 is a very good deal. You would be surprised at some of
the inquires you get. Like I have got one guy, and some people aren't that
bright, his name is Clay Luy so he wants cluy.com and we negotiated a price
and then he backed off and I know he is going to come back because he has
no other way to get it besides to come through me. So at $60 a pop it is a very
good investment, you are definitely going to recoup your money but you are
going to be willing to wait.

A good example of that recently I sold a domain that I bought in 2005, I sold
it last week, it was seals.com. I paid $6,300 for it in 2005 and last week it
sold for $65,000 plus another $7,000 which was the broker fee which the
buyer agreed to pay. So my take away was $65,000, which is pretty much
1000%.

Michael: That is pretty amazing. Clearly spread out over six years, you had
to wait six years, you had to have enough capital to be able to put that on the
side, wait your six years, pay your $10 a year renewal fees and finally it paid
off. In those six years did you receive other offers that were for $3,000 or
$5,000 and you said agh why did I buy this?

Adam: I mean I did get a good offer from the US government who wanted
(it was a general or some sort of commander) who wanted to set it up for a
Navy Seals type project but that never went anywhere. I've had some good
offers on seals.com before but really the company that bought it they sell
actual seals, not the animals, but seals to seal products, I don't know what the
hell kind of seals they really are really. When you are getting 1,000 times
revenue you don't really care what the seals they are actually using it for. It is
not the club Seals I made sure of that.

Michael: Is that the clothes for baby seals.


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Adam: It is nothing like that. So I am feeling good about it. And it was a
good deal and you have to be willing in this industry to wait and part of the
problem is people are very impatient; they want to get the quick fix. And they
don't realize that the only people that make money right away (and I take us
back to the gold mine days) a lot of people or a lot of gold miners went out in
the mines and they worked days and days, and months and months, to get a
little nugget of gold and when they found it it was worthwhile. But what they
don't realize is that most of the people that made all the money were the guys
that sold the picks and the shovels. So to me in our business the registers are
the ones that are selling the picks and the shovels and domainers are the gold
miners. And once in awhile you get a nugget but you have got to be willing to
wait for it and you have got to dig for it and you have got to be very patient.
And I am in a position and a lot of people are in a position where now with
parking revenue as low as it is. To going back to full time jobs which allows
them a steady income to support their families so they can be a little bit more
patient in waiting for better numbers on their sales.

Michael: And I think that is a great point because so many people love Ron
Jackson's weekly emails and sales chart summaries that show what happened
in the last week. He takes the sales from various marketplaces SEDO,
Afternic, Go Daddy, anybody that publishes information he verifies it and
does a great job listing them for sale. And I look at them as I'm sure other
people do look at them and it is very easy to think wow that is easy money.
You know I can go out and buy domain names like that every single day and
I can just flip them. But that is not actually the case. These aren't lottery
tickets that somebody bought yesterday and are selling today. These are in
fact domain names that people owned for awhile and it takes awhile for
interested parties to contact them, to agree to a decent sales price and then to
sell them.

Adam: Well you can go out and you can buy decent domain names and flip
them very quickly but you are not going to get near as much if you wait for
the right buyer to come along. And one of the things that I am going to get
into later is it is very important to understand that as a domainer we don't set
the sales price for a domain name. The price is set by the buyer, what the
buyer is willing to pay. So that part of it is really out of our control. So if we


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can get a buyer for seals at $1,000 and he won't go any higher we can get a
buyer that goes up to $6,500, we get a buyer that goes up to $300,000
because the name has value to their business. But that sales price is not set by
me no matter what I do or how long I wait.

Michael: Good point. Before we get into the actual tactics themselves, you
have already mentioned a couple of domain names that you sold recently. Do
you have a few more domain names that you sold yesterday, the day before,
the day before that you can throw out a domain name and a price so we can
get an idea for the kinds of domain names that you are selling on a regular
basis. Not the sensational ones, the great ones like seals.com that you sold for
$65,000 but the nuts and bolts.

Adam: In my head I don't really have any but I sold a few four letter .coms
this week and late last week and again they sold between the $4,000 to
$5,000 mark. Those are the ones that are in my head. I sold permissions.ca to
a school board. It hasn't completed yet but I know it will because they send
me the contract and we both executed on it. There are a lot of other sales that
do go through. The CA market is starting to heat up a little bit. So there are
some good sales coming up on that. Off the top of my head, I'm sure I will
think of something later on as we go through the interview.

Michael: Alright, we will get through it. So I went to DNF College, I looked
at the website, I looked at what you are doing there. Some great, great content
is being delivered on DNFCollege.com. You have been gracious enough to
give me access to it so I could take a look around. On the course outline the
first bullet that you list you say: You will learn that buying domains is only
5% of the work and 95% is knowing how to sell. Why do you say that?

Adam: I mean for selling a domain I always start out by saying anyone can
buy domains. It doesn't take a lot of brains to go out and buy any kind of
domains, go to our beds (and I know you and I are going to do another video
on how to buy the right domains later on) but the problem is you can go out
and buy domains and that is only 5% of the work because anybody can buy a
domain. But actually understanding how to negotiate a sale and how to sell
will get you the most value for that domain name. So I can take a $2,000 and
make it a $60,000 or $80,000 or I can take a $2,000 that you bought for $7


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and you sell at $2,000 and you think wow great, but the problem is you have
left a lot of money on the table. And you also have to remember and the most
important thing, like I just said before, we don't set the price, the buyer does.
So you have to understand how to negotiate to get the best possible price.
Always know what you paid for a domain name before responding to an
offer. That way you know how much you stand to make or lose on a domain.
And you don't always make money on domain names. Sometimes you
actually lose money on a domain name. But hopefully those times are rare.
We are in a great business so don't be too greedy or you will blow a sale.

Three days ago a gentleman popped me up on MSN asking me my opinion.
He had an offer for a two letter .net for $36,000 and then they went up to
$57,000 and then he said what should I do? I said take the $57,000 as fast as
you can and close it. And he got greedy and he asked for just over $70,000
and he ignored my advice. Well the next thing you know the buyer pulls out
completely, got pissed and the most they want to offer him right now is
$35,000. He's upset. I warned him he should have taken that $57,000, he
didn't listen and now he has learned a costly lesson. So you much remember
though in our industry if we buy a domain at $8 and it sells for $100 you have
made 1,250% profit. You will never get that kind of money on a return from
a bank. So now I'm not suggesting that you sell all your domains for $100 but
take it as a good example to show our business can generate profit like no
other is done correctly. He didn't take the advice at $57,000. It was a two
letter .net. He should have taken it. Now he is going to have to sit out and
wait a good six months to a year before they come back and if they still want
the domain then.

Michael: Let's talk about that because I agree it is a fair market, the market
is set by the buyer. If you are offering a domain name for sale the offers that
come in will determine the value of that asset. But, just like you said earlier
with seals.com you paid $6,300 for it. It may have been a buy it now price,
you bought it right then, the buyer set the price, why didn't you sell that for
$12,000 when that person came to you that you sold it to and looked at it and
said I just received 100% return on my investment? Then over six years so
you can reduce the value of it or whatever. Clearly the market sets the price
but on the other hand you also determine the value of it. How do you wrestle
with those two things Adam?


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Adam: Part of becoming a professional domainer is understanding how to
evaluate domains. And I personally evaluated seals at about $125,000 and I
did that because, like I said, I'm not a motivated seller so I can sit and wait for
the right buyer to come along. I did most of my big transactions back then
through Escrow.com (which is great because it keeps a great history of what
you paid for a domain name). So I was looking at the offer, and looking at the
offer and then I went back and I looked and I saw I only paid $6,300 for it
and then I realized 1,000% return is a pretty damned good return in any
business. So I decided to let it go. And this is one that I actually used a broker
for which I don't usually do. And they sold the domain and I told them I
would let it go for $65,000 but the buyer is going to have to pay your fee
because I want to walk away with $65,000. And yes I could have sold it for
$20,000 and I could have earned whatever, 400% on it and that could have
been the scenario and if I had needed the money for something or I was
buying a new house or I needed a down payment for something I may have.

I mean there have been times when I let domains go for much less than I
should have. I am going to get to one of those stories probably at the end of
this interview where I lost a lot of money because I had left a lot of money on
the table but I still made a lot of money. So at the end of the day I can't also
worry about (and this is something that domainers do) I can't worry about
that I sold it for $64,000 and somebody else is going to turn around and flip it
for $300,000 or $350,000 because that doesn't matter to me. The bottom line
is I made money on my investment. I can take half and invest in more
domains or I can bank the whole thing and think okay this was a good
investment for me. I've learned how to make money. I learned how to sell
domains for a profit. Pat yourself on the back and say this one was a good
one.

Michael: How did you determine that seals had a value of $120,000 to you?

Adam: Just over the years I've come to set up my own valuation tools and
systems that I run through Excel and a lot of it is based on traffic, it is based
on how much it is earning on Pay Per Click, it is based on brandability, it's
based on is this an industry defining term (which this one is)…


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Michael: With seals you weren't thinking about the animals, you were
thinking actually about the seals that are in pumps or whatever to make
something leak proof.

Adam: Well I happen to be famous for loving animals. I have been an
animal lover my whole life. I watch Animal Planet all the time. So I bought
Elephant.com, I bought Giraffes.com, I bought Seals.com and probably about
a host of others. And it turns out that all my animals have been very nice to
me.

Michael: Alright Adam for those that don't have the 15 plus years – 20 plus
years – I'm not sure exactly how many years of internet experience that you
have what is a good bench mark for them to determine the value of a domain
name? What is a good tactic for them to use? Should they go to an online
evaluation tool? Should they pay for online valuation or online appraisals?
Should they send you an email? What is the best way for them to determine
the value of a domain that they own?

Adam: To be honest with you at the beginning, and I did this myself, I was
lucky enough to find somebody that I could trust that I would run by things
that I was thinking of purchasing or things that I was thinking of selling and
say am I getting a good deal? And that is the best benchmark you can get.
Find somebody you can trust, whether it be me or somebody else and use
them as a benchmark. My advice on appraisal tools and all the guys that write
them won't like this but it is don't ever pay for an appraisal. And why is
because they are useless. Remember what I said earlier the buyer dictates the
price. You little piece of paper saying it is worth trillions of dollars won't get
you any more revenue for your domain.

Appraisals are just a way for you to get an ego boost and a waste of money at
the same time. There are also known scams of people asking you to get
appraisals before they buy your domain name. Then you get the appraisal
from the lowest company that they send you and that is where it ends. They
never buy the domain name so please don't fall for that either.

Michael: But what if you go to one of the more reputable services like
SEDO.com is the largest marketplace in the world. They offer an appraisal


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for I don't even know what it is. Let's say it's $30 or $40. I'm not sure, on that
order of magnitude I'm sure. If you got an appraisal for $10,000 doesn't that
give you more ammunition when somebody comes to you and offers $5,000
or $1,000 for it? You could say hey SEDO the largest marketplace in the
world said it was worth $10,000?

Adam: Not really because if the buyer is not going to give you any more
money for it, it is completely useless. Plus in most cases the people doing
these appraisals are running algorithms. They put in your domain name and
out comes a price. So you are not really getting any value. They don't know
how many competitors there are for that domain name for that keyword. Like
if you are selling insulation. You have 10 companies that are famous for
selling insulation so Insulation.com may have more value and it may come
out on an appraisal. But at the end of the day an appraisal is like a jewelry
appraisal. A jewelry appraisal is only good if it is stolen and you want to
replace it. You domain name hopefully won't get stolen. And a domain
appraisal has no value what so ever.

Michael: What about DNForum.com? Your discussion forum. Do you have
a special area of your board that is just dedicated to getting appraisal input
from other domain investors and those on your discussion forum?

Adam: Yes DN Forum serves as a gut check to keep you realistic on your
prices. But I always tell people buy from domainers but don't sell to
domainers. And remember if somebody asks you to do it for a price or they
send you an email about a domain name and ask for stats on a domain name
don't sell it because they are a domainer. Only domainers ask for stats on
domain names. And you want to sell to end users. You don't want to sell to
domainers.

Michael: Okay so a domainer is going to ask you for stats, is it bad to
provide those stats. If they are great stats wouldn't that serve your purpose?

Adam: Yes generally stats won't help the sale. If a gentleman is buying it,
they are buying it because they want to brand their business, an end user they
are not buying it because you are getting 10 or 15 or 100 or 150 or 200 users
to the site. So I have never really provided stats to anybody. And I have never


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had any trouble selling domain names. End users simply do not know about
domain stats and they don't care about them. If they want Mikesblog.com
they want it because it has some value to them. They see the value. I don't see
it but they do and that is the important thing.

Michael: I think we just gave the audience a great tip for those who want to
value their domain names and clearly I think domain investors and other
people know when they generally have crappy domain names and when they
have decent domain names. So don't go out and ping everybody in the world
on your crappy domain names. Everybody knows that they have them in their
portfolios. Rick Schwartz calls them pigeon shit. We all have them. Even
Rick will say that he has them in his portfolio. But here is a great opportunity
for those in the audience. If you want to reach out to Adam and you don't
know Adam go down to the comments, post a comment to Adam, tell him
that you enjoyed the comments that he provided, the tactics that he provided
in the interview. Start forming a relationship with Adam. And then maybe
you join DNForum.com. Adam has been very open with his email address
and with his telephone number and other contact details. Once you create a
relationship it is easier to ping Adam and ask him for a quick piece of advice
maybe on a domain name that you are thinking to sell. And there is a great
opportunity to interact with a lot of domain name experts through
DomainSherpa and other websites that are out there. The first thing you have
to do is create relationships. So I will emphasize that.

Adam awhile ago I had Andrew Rosener on and he talked about valuing
domain names, generic .com domain names by breaking apart the domain
name into the individual words, going to the Google Ad Words Keyword
Tool, typing in those individual words, finding out what the search volume is
and the Cost Per Click on Google Ad Sense. So you have to sign into your
Ad Sense account as well. And then multiplying those two things together,
multiply it by a factor, by let's say 35% and saying if you buy this domain
name and you work on the domain name you can get it up to the top of
Google's organic search results and you should look at that investment as a
portion of what it would take for you to buy marketing in Google Ad Sense to
be at the top of that keyword phrase. Do you think that that is one way to
value a generic keyword domain name?


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Adam: Sure. Everybody has their own formula that they use. And what may
work for some may not work for others. To me in general if a domain makes
at least $5 a year it's a keeper. But everybody has their own way of valuating
domain names and that is certainly a good one.

Michael: So we have talked about setting prices. Clearly you are not
providing any hard fast rules but ping other people. Look at Andrew Rosener
for another input on valuating domain names and his interview is at
DomainSherpa.com/Rosener-equation. DNF College another tactic that you
provide is set your minimum offer requirement at $1,288. So when you go to
sell domain names and you list them in different marketplaces your advice is
to put a minimum offer requirement of $1,288. Why is that?

Adam: I do say that and where possible I don't like to spend too much time
with low-ballers however if you filter your domain name properly you can
list what I call junk domains for $100 and still make 1,250% profit if it sells
and you paid $7. So what I tell people is it is pretty clear: get a spreadsheet in
Excel of you domain names, go back through your emails (as far back as you
can), make a list of every domain name that you ever received an offer on,
mark those domains in purple in the Excel spreadsheet even if it was a low-
ball offer. These are keepers even if they make no money because someone
has a need or a want for that domain.

Then I tell them to gather all their parking revenue for the last 365 days (if
they can, if not grab the last few months and extrapolate) and highlight those
in green - any that made more than the reg fee and those are keepers.

Then I tell them to go through the list again and look for any domains that
you feel have development potential regardless of revenue, mark those in
blue and those are keepers.

And then the final time I tell them to look at the domains that you feel you
have a hunch are good but have no development potential and earn no
revenue, marks those in red. These are probably not keepers. I classify these
as junk.


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So take a look at what is left without a color and then list them at $100 to sell
them. You may make 1,250% on them and get rid of them and you won't get
that kind of interest at the bank. Or it is time to drop and some domainers are
always afraid to do that.

Michael: So those domains that are junk let's call them, list them for $100
and then if you don't sell them within the year when it is time for a renewal
then you just drop them?

Adam: If nobody else wants them you have no reason to keep them.

Michael: Where do you list them?

Adam: I list them on all the major marketplaces. I list them on SEDO, I list
them on Buy Domains, Afternic, Go Daddy auctions. I list them on Go
Daddy premium auctions. I list them everywhere because they have more
exposure and overexposure never hurts anybody on domain sales. I list them
on the forums. I list them on DN Forum. I list them all over the place. But I
make sure the prices are consistent with the commission rate. And then the
most important thing is if you do sell a domain name do into all those
marketplaces and delete that domain name. I can't tell you how many times I
had offers on domain names after I sold them.

Michael: I have never gone onto any of these marketplaces and sold a
domain name. Isn't there one system that I can just sign into that will list it on
all the marketplaces for me Adam?

Adam: Not really. I mean it is not easy. You have to go in and you have got
to manually do it. The most important two are SEDO and Go Daddy because
they command the biggest audiences. And are just good places to list your
domains in.

Michael: So if you want to get the biggest bang for your buck go to SEDO
and go to Go Daddy because those are the biggest marketplaces.

Adam: They have the biggest audiences.


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Michael: And so you list it. Do you list it for a minimum offer of $100 or do
you set it as a buy now price on say Go Daddy?

Adam: Well Go Daddy offers all different kinds of ways you can list it.
There is a couple things here. I tend to list them as offer/counteroffer. And
that way I still control the sale and I don't have to sell it at a set price. The
minute you set a price you could be leaving money on the table. But let's not
confuse Go Daddy auctions with premium domain sales. Premium domain
sales are the names that appear on the front of the site when somebody
searches for domains exactly or similar to your domain your domain will pop
up. Those premium sales must be priced. And you can price them for
whatever you want. I only set minimums, I never fix prices. That is just the
way I do it.

Michael: Okay so you set a minimum so that the system doesn't even email
you for a low-ball offer. And that reduces the noise. And then the offers that
do come through are over the minimum and then you can either reject them,
counteroffer or not respond.

Adam: Usually I counteroffer. Most offers when they come in at $1,288
they are serious. I mean you can tell a lot by an opening offer. If you get an
opening offer of $50 to $100 you probably know you are not going to get
them too high. Maybe to $200 to $300 if you are lucky. But if you get an
opening offer of $1,200 you know it is going to close somewhere around
$4,000 to $6,000 because nobody comes in with their best price right away.

Michael: So at Go Daddy they do offer for sale options. We just had an
interview go live with Paul Nicks from Go Daddy auctions. So you can do to
DomainSherpa.com/Paul-Nicks and I know Adam you are saying I haven't
seen that interview because it is coming out on Monday but by the time this
interview comes out Paul will have gone live. And he goes into a lot of the
details. There are four sale options on Go Daddy. They have the
offer/counteroffer, you have the offer/counteroffer/buy now, a buy now only
button and then you can send it to seven day auction. So for example if I put
in an offer on one of your domains Adam you could say I don't like that I'm
going to send it to the seven day public auction and we will see what
happens. What the market will bear on that price. So do you ever list your


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domains with a buy now price because you want to have it listed in the avail
check process of Go Daddy when people are searching for a domain name?

Adam: Yes I list some of the ones that I want to list on the Go Daddy
premium auctions with a sales price. Those are usually my four letter .com
names or some logo domain names that I cap at about $4,888. And if they sell
at that price (and I tend to sell one a month or one every two months) and it is
just extra cash.

Michael: So you do list your four letter domain names with a buy it now
price because a lot of people are searching for those short domain names and
it is easy cash?

Adam: Yes $5,000 is a reasonable price to get for a four letter .com that
doesn't make any sense. I mean I wouldn't list Worm.com for that but I would
list other domains with letters that don't make any words or sense on them for
that because to other people I have sold a lot of four letter .coms to people in
other countries where the words actually make sense to them.

Michael: Let's talk about sales inquires. You have got your 40,000 domain
names, you receive 100 to 200 inquires per month. Most domainers don't
have as many domain names as you do. So you could probably scale it down
if I have 4,000 domain names maybe I'm going to receive 10 to 20 domain
names as a general rule of thumb. Who knows if it is going to be right if my
domains are going to be as good as your. But when sales inquires come in do
you personally manage every single one of those inquires that comes in or do
you have a staff or a team that helps you manage them?

Adam: I have a staff. I have a team of designers and developers and content
writers. I've also had the same assistant for the last 12 ½ years. But the one
thing that he doesn't touch is anything related to monetary so I am the one
who answers all of the sales emails and I handle all of the transfers and things
like that. He has never had has access to my account.

Michael: So approximately 5 per day inquires that you get you manage
them yourself.


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Adam: Yes.

Michael: Do you have any examples of a sales inquire that came in, and I
am suspecting that some of them are low-ball, some of them are medium-
ball, nobody comes in with an $80,000 offer right off the bat. Are most of
them low-balls or do you receive a decent number of them as realistic or
decent prices coming in?

Adam: Everybody likes to get the best price for the buck so everybody tries
to low-ball you to begin with. I'll talk a little bit further on on how you deal
with some of those. I have a couple of stories at the end of this on how I dealt
with low-ball offers.

Michael: One of your recent offers that came in?

Adam: Yes. Sorry say again?

Michael: Can you give us an example of one of your recent offers that came
in via email and how you handled it?

Adam: Nothing comes to mind right now. But basically what I do is either
follow it up with an email. And don't be afraid to say look we are not in the
right ball park. I am looking for this much on this domain name so I suggest
you go pick another domain name. I have done that quite a few times. And
they have turned out to come back to me with more realistic offers and we
have closed on much higher sales.

Michael: Okay so I am going to do a role play with you. I want to buy
abcd.com. I do a whois look up because I am educated enough to do that. I
see that dcg.com owns it or Adam Dicker owns it through the whois. So I
send an email to the email address on file, even though you have it listed on
different marketplaces and say Adam I would like to buy this domain name
from you. I can offer you $100 for it.

Adam: So the first thing I do is look at it and I figure out what I paid for it. I
know I paid $7 for it. And then I'm going to send you a note back saying I
respect your initial offer but it is far too low. I am looking for something in


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the neighborhood of $4,000 to $6,000 for this domain name. And if this is not
a raise that you are comfortable with in setting up your new business then I
suggest you look elsewhere and purchase a different domain name.

Michael: And I respond back to you Adam and I say hey I watched your
DomainSherpa interview with Mike Cyger. I know that you understand that
the price is set by the market, what the market will bear. I can bear $1,000 for
the domain name Adam. I think it is a reasonable price, I appreciate your
time, let me know when we can close.

Adam: Well I appreciate your offer, it's a good one and it is a respectable
offer at this point it is still far below what I was looking to get for the domain
name. What I am willing to do is drop from the $6,000 to the $4,000 and that
is pretty much my bottom line price at this time.

Michael: So you know what you want to get out of the domain name. You
are willing to walk away from the sale because you know if you wait long
enough somebody is going to think $4,000 for a four letter .com domain
name is reasonable. And you are willing to wait.

Adam: I am but you have also told a lot more information but in your
change from $100 offer to $1,000 offer has told me that there is a lot more
room to move. You can tell by the negotiation process. That is why it is so
important how high somebody moves and how quickly that they are really in
wanting this domain badly. So you went from $100 to $1,000 so I know for
sure that I can probably close you at around $3,500 if I want to. $3,000
minimum and on a domain that I paid $7 for.

Michael: Now if I would have thrown in another sentence in that reply and
said this is the highest I can go.

Adam: Then I would have said okay, again I appreciate your offer, it's a fair
offer, it's just below what I am looking for the domain name. You need to
spend a bit more money to invest in your business. Getting the right name is
very important and I give them a little bit on why the premium domain name
that they have chosen would be good for their business. And I say but I wish
you luck. And you can go register another domain name at Go Daddy if you


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like for $7 but it is not going to give you the same kind of branding and the
same kind of client base, or instant traffic, that you are going to get from my
domain name.

Michael: So you know that you want to get $4,000 so you start at $6,000 to
give yourself some room to come down in price for negotiation tactics?

Adam: Yes you have to leave yourself some room. But you also have to be
realistic. You have to know that sometimes you are not going to get your
$4,000, sometimes you are going to sell it at $3,000 or $2,500. But at the end
of the day it really doesn't matter because you still only paid $7 for that
domain.

Michael: Private or public whois information on all of your domains?

Adam: Always, always, always public. I mean don't make it hard for people
to find you. Make it easy for people to find you. The only people that need to
hide are the people that have trademark domain names and by now you
should have gotten rid of all your trademark domain names. If you currently
own a trademark domain name, or trademark typos, get rid of them. They can
only get you into trouble. What I suggest is that people visit trademarkia.com
to look for current trademarks or to register a trademark. And then Go Daddy
has a really cool feature in the domain control center called Delete Domain.
And it sends it into redemption right away. So use that feature and dump bad
domains. I have gotten a couple C&D letters in the past. I went in and just hit
delete domain and that was the end of it. The maximum fine for having a
trademark domain is $100,000 per domain plus any revenue that you have
made off of their trademark in that domain name. Do you really want to risk
that? I don't.

Michael: That is a great point. I am a big believer in karma as well. And I
don't mess with other things that are going to reduce my karma. That is a
great tip also for the delete domain because I know that I have got crappy
domain names in my portfolio. I set them to non-auto renew so they won't
renew the next year because I know that they are just crappy hyphened or .net
domains.


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Adam: I am even going to give you one better tip that I normally wouldn't
give out. And that is when you go ahead and delete that domain name, before
you do it, go in and change the whois information to fake whois information
and then delete it so that while it is in redemption it's not showing your real
name and address. It is just showing junk.

Michael: Oh that is a great idea. I don't want to receive those renewal emails
every week for the six weeks leading up to the renewal or what have you. So
that is a good idea to use. Okay so we talked about getting the most exposure
as possible, make your whois on the domain name public. Do you have a
preference whether it should be a company name or a personal name if they
actually have a company name that they are using to sell domain names for
example?

Adam: Yes, generally you should list your domain names in a company
name because a company offers you extra protection should there be an issue
or a law suit or something like that.

Michael: But the legal entity aside for protecting your assets Adam. Do you
think that buyers looking up a whois will say it is worth more because they
can see that a company owns it versus an individual?

Adam: It probably does but I don't think that that has any bearing on any of
my sales.

Michael: Okay, public whois information. Marketplace we talked about. If
you want get them listed on all of them, but if you have to minimize your
work and try and get the biggest bang for your buck list them on SEDO and
Go Daddy auction. SEDO being the largest marketplace in the world in terms
of the number of domain names and Go Daddy being the largest domain
names in terms of the domain names sold per month. So get onto those.
Should the domains be parked just to have a for sale link displayed. I know a
lot of domainers don't want to park them. They don't want to have
advertisements listed on them. They don't want to have to manage them. You
know they just look for inquiries to come in or they sell them through the
marketplaces. Do you recommend that they do park them in order to have a


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for sale link displayed like is done on SEDO.com pages or a host of other
parking companies?

Adam: I park my domains. There is nothing wrong at all with parking your
domains until you get around to developing them. Just make sure that parking
for you is just a step towards development.

Michael: So that is sort of the passive selling process. You list your whois
public information, you list them for sale. Let's move to proactively selling
domain names. Which domain names in your portfolio are worth proactively
selling? And contrast those to which of your domain names are worth waiting
for inquires.

Adam: Personally most of the time I wait for inquires. And sometimes I go
find them. But going back to that Excel spreadsheet anything that you didn't
list or highlight is not worth going out and proactively selling.

Michael: Any general rules, generic words, two-word domain names, three
word domain names, four letter domains.

Adam: No because you never know what the buyer is going to be interested
in. I have sold some three and four letter word domain names that I would
have thought would never sold for anything more than $20 or $40. So you
really never have any idea what they are looking to sell.

Michael: At one point you actually well let me come back to that. So if you
want to sell a domain name, let's say that I've got a domain name that is
related to pictures and I know that Flickr and other companies online that
make money through the premium model. You can upload some pictures for
free and then you can get more space or more services by paying a
membership fee per month. Let's say that I have a domain name that I think
Flickr might like (which is now owned by Yahoo I think). Is it worth me to
reach out to that company to try and sell it?

Adam: Sure I mean as long as it's not a trademark and you are not trying to
capitalize on their traffic it sure benefits you to reach out. It also benefits you


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to use something like LinkedIn to find a contact within that company that
would have more influence than you as a total stranger.

Michael: Who would I want to reach out to in the company?

Adam: Any VP, any CFO, anybody with any decision power. And there are
lots of them. They are all listed in LinkedIn. So LinkedIn is the best place to
hit somebody that can influence a decision on a domain name purchase.

Michael: So I am looking for somebody with some sort of authority with the
company. I am not looking for the customer service reps, I'm not looking for
a sales person, I'm not looking for a developer there, I'm looking for someone
at the VP level or above.

Adam: Yes you are looking for somebody that can decide, or influence the
decision, or pass it up to the person who can influence the decision and make
that decision to purchase.

Michael: Okay so I can go on LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn gives me a certain
number of in-mails per month so I can send that person a mail saying I have
this domain name, I think you might be interested in it, let me know if you
want to discuss it. And that sends it out to them. And I can upgrade my
account and buy more in-mails to send to them.

Adam: Yes and there is no harm in doing that what so ever.

Michael: Is there any other ways for me to get names and email addresses of
potential buyers.

Adam: Yes this is going to take us into the longest part of the discussion that
we are going to have.

Michael: Is this the information on how professional broker sell domain
names?


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Adam: No we are going to get to that a little bit later. First of all I want to
talk about when you get an offer with or without a price and how to deal with
that offer. So this is going to be me talking a little bit.

Michael: Okay let's do that and then we will come back and I will join my
questions inline.

Adam: Okay, so whenever you get an offer with or without a price you have
to look at it closely. You have to analyze it from top to bottom. It can tell you
many things about the potential buyer. Here is a list of things to do with
initial offers so you can get the upper hand. The first thing you should do is:
Is the email from a company email? If yes, go to the company's website and
see if it is obvious why they would want to buy your domain name. If no take
the Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo or other email and Google it. People tend to keep
the same email and that may lead you to their real names.

If the email is signed with a full name: If yes look for them on LinkedIn and
then Facebook. LinkedIn is the most powerful. It shows their company, their
title and their website. Follow where that lead takes you. That may help you
understand why they want the domain name.

Number three: Is the email written in perfect English? This will also help you
as generally company inquiries from intelligent people can't get away from
their writing styles.

Fourth one is if none of this works reply to their email with this (and I have
done this many times): We do not take inquires seriously when they come
from a Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo email address. Please email me from your
company email and I will take this inquiry more seriously. And many times
they have venues their real emails to continue the exchange and then I get
their real names and then I can follow some of the steps as above.

Michael: Great, let me back up for a second. The perfect English. Tell me
about that again. If something comes in with broken English what does that
tell you and how do you respond?


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Adam: It tells me I am usually dealing with an individual and I could be
looking for somebody who is prospecting or just trying to make money off a
quick flip. They may not be using it for their own company. They may be and
they may not be but usually emails that are sent out in perfect English (and
I've had a lot of those) do tell you a bit about the person. Writing styles - you
can tell quite a bit from that initial opening email that comes in. And if you
have any other questions I'll let you ask them.

Michael: I love the idea we don't take emails through generic email
addresses, please send it from the company name because then it opens up
more information from them. You now know their full name, you know their
company name. You can do some research on LinkedIn, on the web, and
gather some information. So I understand that perfectly.

Adam: And 95% of people will send it from their business email less than
10 minutes later.

Michael: So that gives you a lot of information to move forward with
negotiation processes. Is there anything else that comes in that you look for?

Adam: Yes there are three types of domain sales inquiries and how to
handle each one. So in all three scenarios you have to take control of the offer
and not leave control with the buyer. The first way is when you receive an
expression of interest without an offer. These are usually a waste of time
unless you can solicit an offer from the person. So respond by saying thank
you for your interest in my domain planets.com. I currently have plans to
develop this domain but if the right offer comes along I may consider selling
it. Please feel free to submit your best offer. And then I just sign it with my
company information and all my contact information. This way you will
know if they are a chain puller and it will lead you onto an appraisal scam or
if they are just a bargain hunter asking for an offer. Let's you right away
know if they are wasting time, if they aren't in your ball park.

Michael: But on one hand you say take control of the situation but then on
the other hand you say submit your best offer. Why wouldn't you just say I
know that I want $120,000 for seals.com? Submit your best offer and it better


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be over six figures. Or it should be over six figures in order for me to
seriously consider it.

Adam: You can do that too. Sometimes I've had best offers come in above
what I would take for the domain name. So that is why I do it that way.

Michael: And if you were to say make sure it is over six figures or submit
your offer of a minimum six figures. They may just come back and say here
is my offer of $100,000 whereas if you wouldn't have said that they may have
come back with $140,000.

Adam: In that case because they haven't submitted an offer to begin with
they probably won't come back with an offer at all if you say I want $150,000
for the name. So you have scared off a potential lead whereas maybe they
would have come back at $10,000 - $5,000. And remember that as long as
you know ahead of time the domain that they are inquiring about and what
you paid for it you can sell it for a lot lower than $100,000 and still be
making quite the profit. And have more money to invest in future domains.

Michael: So that was the first tactic. Get the offer.

Adam: The second type of offer is an offer with a price. You can tell a lot
from the original offer. For example if you get an offer for $500 that is
somehow serious an offer and you know that you have room to negotiate.
The final price should be between $2,000 and $5,000 if you handle it
correctly. Whereas if you get an offer between $10 and $100 you know this
will probably be a waste of time unless you paid $7 for the domain name and
you have no development plans for this domain. It is a good chance to dump
one of those junk domains we talked about. Take your 1,250% profit as
discussed earlier but you should still aim for the $500 to $1,000. The worst
they can say is no.

So at that point you can reply with okay what is your best offer? When they
reply you can decide to take it or tell them to pick another domain name. I
have sold many domain names, even the high five to six figure range, by
telling them to go pick another domain name. They may get pissed off for a
little bit but usually they come back within a week to two weeks. Again they


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don't have much choice but to deal with you if they want the domain. People
want what they can't have and that's why we see auction prices sell for much
more than the name is worth. And don't be afraid to say we are not even close
on the price I suggest you pick another domain name for your business. And I
wish you luck in your future endeavors almost ending then conversation. I
have used this many times and it has worked like a charm.

Michael: That is an offer with a price. What is the third offer type?

Adam: Well I am still sticking to that. When you get an offer and you don't
respond too quickly half the fun is the chase. Here is a good example. I made
an extra $100,000 on a domain sale because I got an offer on Thursday and I
didn't bother responding until Monday. To my surprise they upped their
amount due to my lack of response by $100,000. That was Forums.com by
the way.

Michael: They upped their response by $100,000.

Adam: $100,000. Just because I didn't respond. I responded quick to the
first few offers and then I paused. And they got scared that I wasn't going to
sell it so they upped their offer and I was just about to type okay I'll take
$350,000 and meet you half way and then in came my inbox saying fine we
will take it at $400,000. So stay in control. You have what they want and it is
not like the cookie cutter houses where they can go next door if they don't
like your price and get the same house for cheaper. There is only one domain
like yours and if they want it they need to pay for it. But don't be too greedy
or you'll lose it like that guy that lost the $57,000 earlier that we talked about.

Michael: Alright. Third offer type? You did have three?

Adam: I did have three but I am a little lost on what my third was is because
I went off the trail there.

Michael: So you get an offer. Either the offer comes in and there is no price
attached. You will contact them back and you will say submit your best offer.
Second offer type comes in, it's an offer with a price, either it is $500 or
above, you know you can get them up because it is a reasonable offer or it is


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a high enough price that indicates that you can probably negotiate. Or if it is
in the $10 to $100 range it is probably a waste of time unless it was a domain
name that you knew you wanted to sell for that price range.

Adam: Sometimes you will get an opening offer of $10,000. And those
opening offers tell you how serious they are about wanting the domain, how
much they want it and they give you a lot of room for negotiation depending
on that price. Plus the other thing to pay attention to closely is the price like
you did in our little role playing example where you went from $100 to
$1,000. That is quite a jump in a negotiation. Usually they will go from $100
to $250, but if you go from $100 to $1,000 and then I know you want the
domain more and I know I can get you to the $3,000/$4,000 sweet spot that I
am trying to get you to.

Michael: And if I went from $100 to $250 on a domain that you wanted
$4,000 for it and your initial price to them was $6,000, would you consider
that to be a waste of time? You would respond back saying I don't think we
are going to meet up here. I want at least $6,000 for it and you should go look
for another domain name?

Adam: That is pretty much exactly how I would respond. But I would keep
track of their email and the offer and the domain that they were interested in
because, in like I said filtering your portfolio earlier, you want to keep all
domains that you have ever had an offer on them no matter how crappy it is.

Michael: So all these come into you via email. Do you ever get somebody
calling you up saying Adam, show the domain I've got to have it?

Adam: You are getting me to skip to some of my stories down at the
bottom. I'll skip down to one of those right now just because I can tell you are
dying to get this one. So there are a couple of good stories. Let me find the
one that I wanted. Okay so it's not even on here. So this isn't even one of my
stories so I can go back up to where we were.

I got a call from a guy who wanted to buy MegaCity.com from me. He
offered me $2,000. I happen to be talking to my wife on the other line at the
same time, so I wasn't very interested or very motivated to talk to this guy. So


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what I did was say look I'm not really interested in $2,000, your offer is not
good enough. We need to hit $80,000 to $90,000 for it to be serious.

Michael: Let me pause the story here for a second. Megacity, if I go to
Google Ad Words and I type in mega city it is probably not going to have
any search volume. If I go to EstiBot or Valuate and I type in it is probably
going to come back with $7 reg fee or something. It is a brandable domain
name right? Am I thinking through this correctly?

Adam: You are thinking through it somewhat correctly. They only
advantage that I have over you, and this is one thing that I stress, is that the
person that owns the domain and the portfolio has to know it inside out. And
I will give you two examples for that. I always got traffic on a domain called
96123.net. Now you wouldn't know what kind of traffic that way but know
from going research on it that 96123.com is a Chinese site that sells phone
cards. So I am getting a lot of traffic from people looking for phone cards.

So let's go back to mega city. Yes it is probably not worth on stats probably
not worth more than $500.

Michael: Okay but you could argue that brandable domain names, any
brandable domain name is worth $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 if you are willing to
wait long enough?

Adam: Right.

Michael: Okay so let's pick up the story. He calls you, you are on the phone
with your wife, he says hey Adam $2,000, let's skew the deal today and you
said I think that this domain was worth how much?

Adam: About $80,000 to $90,000 and I wasn't willing to sell it for less.
Now the reason that I wasn't willing to sell for less is because I live in
Toronto and Toronto and all of its suburbs is known as the Mega City. So
that is why I got the domain MegaCity.com. So it has meaning to me.

Michael: It does and it probably has a lot of meaning to a lot of people in
that geographical area.


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Adam: Well I have since learned that California and all its suburbs are
called the mega cities. And then I also did some research after the phone call
(and I will tell you how the phone call ended in a minute) and I found out that
Mercedes was coming out with a new car called The MegaCity. So right
away I thought it was them and I thought they wanted it because of the car.
So anyway I said I wasn't interested and then he threatened that he has a
trademark and that he would come after me and he would get the domain
through UDRP. And I said that's nice, have fun and I hung up on him.

About a week later he emailed me back, like they usually do and he increased
his offer.

Michael: By about how much?

Adam: It may have been about $10,000. I don't know. But this whole email
stream of emails that happened is listed on DN Forum and it was a very, very
popular stream and you'll see from on DN Forum if you do a search for
MegaCity from the beginning of the sale to the end of the sale where it finally
sold. It didn't take long. It took like three or four days of going back and
forth, maybe five days. But in the end the final sales price was $65,000.
$60,000 or $65,000, I forget. So I got close to what I wanted. He got the
domain. It turned out to be a Brazilian guy who is starting a game called
Mega City and he wanted it to brand his game.

Michael: So from your prospective as the seller it really made no difference
whether somebody contacted you via telephone or via email, you know the
value that you wanted for the domain name, you countered with it and you
stuck to your guns. They could have walked away and you could have been
left with a domain name and held onto it until somebody else was interested.

Adam: Yes but the other benefit that I have is, because I do all the buying
and selling, there is not really one domain name that I have bought or sold
that I don't know what I paid for it. And this was one of those where I paid
$10,000 for MegaCity.com. I had no action on it for about seven or eight
years. This was the first guy that called on it. So I figured selling it at $65,000


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I was getting a 600% return on investment over eight years and I decided to
sell at that point.

Michael: Have you ever been soft on somebody that called you up and
created a bond with you over the phone to be able to get it at a better price?

Adam: That is a strange question but yes I actually have. I once actually
gave a guy a domain for free because he came to me with a good story about
his wife who started a business. I still remember the domain and this was
probably about 10 years ago. The domain was called bottletree.com. And his
wife was running some business making bottle trees. And I went to check it
about two weeks ago and she is still selling bottle trees on bottletree.com. It
is a unique product. He came to me with the story about how he wanted it for
his wife. Told me a whole sad story and he was honest with me about it that
she was nagging him and he wants it. And being just married about five years
I could understand a little bit of nagging. So I felt for the guy and I gave him
bottletree.com.

Michael: Nice. Do you ever get snail mail sent to you through the postal
service where somebody will say I want to buy this domain name?

Adam: No. Never.

Michael: Any faxes ever come in?

Adam: No. Never. Just phone calls or emails.

Michael: If somebody is sending you a letter to buy your domain what
should be in that letter? An email let's say. Somebody is sending you an
email, they want to buy that domain. What should be in there in order to get
the deal done?

Adam: It should have their information, their personal information, their
real information and it should have a price.

Michael: And the price should maybe be in the three figure, four figure
range depending on the domain?


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Adam: Yes depending on the domain name.

Michael: So your tip for somebody, for an entrepreneur that wants to buy a
domain name if we said that brandable domain names, not Mega City, one
that has been used. If you go search for it on the internet it probably does
have a good amount of search volume. But other brandable domain names,
abclandscaping.com – well that one has probably –
greentreelandscaping.com. If I wanted to buy that brandable domain name,
any brandable anybody can argue that it is worth $3,000. If I came in with an
offer of $500 you would think that that is reasonable enough to have a
conversation with?

Adam: Yes especially if I bought it for $7.

Michael: You did research on that person. You saw that they were a
landscaper. Landscapers don't make enormous margins on their work. Would
you consider selling it for less than $3,000?

Adam: Probably not. Landscapers do make good money on what they do. It
depends. That is another good point and we will get into that in the discussion
when we talk about buying domains but you will have a harder time selling a
domain to a landscaper or a baker (like Seattlebakery or Seattlelandscaper)
than you will say selling something Seattlecriminallawyer, Seattlelawyers.
Picking the right domains to sell is also key.

Michael: Do you use different sales tactics if you're selling a generic domain
name, you know Forums.com versus a brandable domain name
MegaCity.com, versus a geo domain name Seattlelawyers.com?

Adam: No. Well I mean there are different ways to find purchasers. Like if
they came to me, no I'd use the same strategy whether it is a $1,000,000
domain, $500,000 domain or $100 domain. It is the same strategy.

Michael: So the strategies that we talked about and the strategies that you
use are the same regardless of the type of domain.


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Adam: Yes regardless of the type of domain and regardless of the price. If
we are not at the ball park at the $100 we are not…and I've had people say
they will just offer me a reg fee and that is it and I know even if I want $100
for it I'm not going to get it. So sometimes you are just not in the ball park no
matter what price it is.

Michael: I read one of those. I was laughing because I was on
DNFCollege.com yesterday, the forum part, the college part of
DNForum.com and I was reading through some of your examples on there.
And I read about the one that offered you the reg fee and then decided to
double the reg fee. And they had actually lapsed on their registration and they
wanted to buy it back. I thought that was a funny story. So I'm going to get
into how you find the people to contact. And I'm going to ask you what a
professional broker does but let me ask you this first. In the emails that you
are sending back to potential buyers, people are inquiring about your domain
name and you are responding back to them how does your email address and
your signature help the sales process?

Adam: Okay that is a good question. My signature is very professional. I
sign it Adam Dicker and then under that it says CEO Domain Consulting
Group Limited, then it has an address, then it has a phone number, a 1-800
number, and then I have a fax number and I have my Skype ID, and then I
have my website (which in this case I'm selling a domain name is dcg.com)
and it says SEO and Website specialist. That lets them know that they are
dealing with somebody that knows what they are talking about and they are
not going to pull a fast one so it scares away re-sellers right away.

Michael: And for those that are just entrepreneurs or in the business and
want to buy a domain name they look at that and they say this guy has some
credibility. You are basically establishing credibility with them through your
signature that then causes them to maybe react differently to the counter offer
that they may receive from you.

Adam: Definitely and chances are pretty good that they are going to Google
me.


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Michael: So having an online persona, an online LinkedIn account, or
Google Plus account, or a website where they can go read about you helps in
the negotiation as well because if they look at you as an authority in the topic
(and clearly you are) they offer $2,000, you are countering at $60,000 they
are going to attribute more credibility to your counter offer than might be
otherwise the case.

Adam: Also don't be afraid to include a link back to DNJournal.com
showing them what current prices are and what domains are selling for
because that will also set their expectations a little bit more realistic.

Michael: Alright Adam. We are over the hour point. Do you have enough
time to stay on for a few more questions about professional brokers and
effective negotiation tactics? You have been very generous with your time so
far.

Adam: I do and there is a lot more that I have to cover.

Michael: I know. Again if people are watching this show and Adam has
talked about a certain area or something about negotiations that you want to
know more about get in the comments. Let us know what you want to know
more about. And we will see if we can get Adam to come back and share
some more strategies and tactics. So let's talk about professional domain
name brokers. People in the industry probably aren't best friends with a
professional domain name broker that they can call up and ask them how they
do things. Most people that own domain names probably don't even know
professional domain name brokers. What does a professional domain name
broker do on a daily basis?

Adam: This is going to get me going for another five minutes here. So I
think people are going to appreciate this once I am done. These days every
domainer thinks they are a domain broker. Domain brokers do not sell to
other domainers. That is what I call a good contact list not a domain broker.
So a true domain broker finds end users to sell to. And here is how they do it.

I have personally bought software I'm going to recommend here to help
people sell domain names. Of course you can do this all manually without


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buying the software but it will save you weeks and weeks if you buy the
software. I'm not getting any affiliate links on this so I am just recommending
the software that I use. So at the very least you will need a piece of software
called Whois Explorer. It will save you days of work and it's only $49.95.

First I'll give you the easiest way which is why they sell more generics than
any other two word domains. So let's take an example like witchcraft.com
which I happen to own but don't worry I don't believe in it. I don't practice it I
just own the domain name. I bought it. I thought it was a good investment. So
if you have access to Zone Files and Zone Files are files that contain every
domain that was registered in let's say a .com. That makes this a little bit
easier. But for now most of you don't have that so I'm going to send you
somewhere where you can actually go find people for your generic domain
names right away like a broker would. So you would go to a place called Zed,
I forgot sorry I'm in Canada. ZFBot.com and see how many domains are
registered with the word witchcraft and spells. When you do that you will
find that 342 start with witchcraft and 341 end in witchcraft. Spells has 486
which start with spells and 1,500 that end in spells. Witch has 3,500 that start
with witch and 10,000 that end in witch. And make sure you use the right
witch, w-i-t-c-h. Now you can export those domains and now you have a list
of 16,145 domains that relate to the premium domain witchcraft that you
want to sell.

Michael: So I go to ZFBot.com and I can type in key words that tell me
every single domain name that is currently registered in say the .com using
those keywords. So if I have autoloans.com, or I have auto-loans.com and I
want to sell that one I can go and do a search on ZFBot.com to look for any
domain name that is registered with auto, automobile, auto loans.

Adam: Yes. Okay so you get that list of 16,145 and you take a program like
Atomic Whois Explorer, you import those domain names and it will extract
all the admin emails from those 16,145 domain names and then you now
have a list of contacts that you can use to email. So then you need an email
client. So you go after something by the same company called Atomic Whois
Explorer and this is designed to search through the global Whois data base
automate the process of extracting contact information, domain
administration and website owners. You can use it to email out these 16,145


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emails that you have just gotten and then you send them an email. Basically
it's called Atomic Email Studio and it has an unsubscribe link so it is good for
all the canned spam and everything else that people do. And now you have
been able to extract the…You have got your domain list, you have got the
emails that are attached to those domain lists and now you are able to go an
email them and get people that are interested using Atomic Email Studio. It is
an all in application for sending mass email customers and they can subscribe
and unsubscribe.

Michael: But I could go to Constant Contact if I have 200 Whois contacts,
the email address and their domain name. I could go onto Constant Contact
and input them in and create a list and write up my email and just send it out
through them too and they would manage the unsubscribe for me as well.
There are a lot of different email programs that you can use. Right?

Adam: You can use anything you want. There are just a lot of extra features
in Atomic Email Studio. Like for instance if you wanted to type in what was
your example – auto loans? You could type in auto loans, the two keywords,
and it would search Seattle auto loans and it would search in Google for any
company that had Seattle auto loans listed and would extract 1,000 or 2,000
or 10,000 results which would give you more companies you could contact to
sell your domain or your local domainer or anything like that.

Michael: And that is the Atomic Whois Explorer, right that does the search
and extracts the information?

Adam: Atomic Email Studio.

Michael: Atomic Email Studio will extract the information for you?

Adam: It will extract the information. The Whois Extractor just extracts
from the Whois information from the domain list that you got earlier.

Michael: Okay so the Whois Explorer extracts the contact information from
the URL and then the email program extracts what?


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Adam: It extracts, based on terms that you input it will also extract from
search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. And then they will email out
the ones from both the web extractor as well as the ones that you extracted
from Email Studio.

And then the last thing I'm going to give you is an example email that you
would send. You would send an email simply saying:
Good afternoon,
My name is Adam Dicker, I am a Senior Broker at the Domain Consulting
Group Ltd.
I am contacting you regarding witchcraft.com as I felt it could be an excellent
addition to your online business. The seller is motivated to sell and I am
happy to present any reasonable offers for consideration.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your feedback.
Regards,
And then you sign it with your name, your website and your phone number
and your company name. And you make it as official as possible. And you
will be surprised at how many tons of responses you do get back. Remember
you are sending 16,000 emails out at a minimum you only need to get one
back to sell the domain but you will probably get a handful saying how much
and then you will be able to go from there. This is pretty much how seals.com
was sold.

Michael: These people that you are emailing, most of which have no idea
how much domain names are worth, so if they respond back and say how
much it is only out of ignorance, do you respond back saying make me an
offer? Or do you respond back with another email trying to educate them and
giving them a link to the weekly sales at DNJournal.com?

Adam: Yes I would definitely try to educate them. You will be able to gauge
– I mean if they just send the one line back saying how much then you would
have to send them more information than just the price of $200,000 -
$100,000 because they are going to tell you to go fly a kite will be the next
response. So you need to educate them and make them understand that they
can have whatever…it would be like 2,500 daily targeted visitors to their
websites looking for witchcraft or related products. And if they are selling
products related to crystals or related to anything else, those are customers


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that could potentially buy something and they can make revenue from them.
So you want to put a little blurb in about how it could positively affect their
business.

Michael: You threw out a data point right there. Most domain names owned
by people probably don't have very much traffic and you have said in the past
you that you don't want to provide that information because then if it is low it
may reduce their price. Would you simply respond back to them saying this
could increase your business? It is a brandable domain name. Here are some
other domain names that have recently sold to give you an idea of what
average sales prices are?

Adam: Well you can pretty much measure their traffic ahead of time and
know that they probably don't have much traffic. So in some cases it benefits
you to include the traffic.

Michael: Okay but if the domain name has no traffic then you wouldn't
include it, or if it has low traffic - if it only receives 10 hits per day. If you are
parking it and you know is that worth including?

Adam: No not really.

Michael: Now you have written this letter back to them as if you were a
broker for a third party. But if they do a Whois lookup they say oh Adam
Dicker owns this domain name. Doesn't that sort of throw a monkey wrench
into the system? That you are representing yourself?

Adam: No the question was how do brokers do it. You would do it more
customized saying look we own this domain name - we have no current plans
for it. Some people go as far as to say look they sent it out to 10 possible
people and they say this domain is going up for auction. They set up the
auction. They say here is a link if you are interested in bidding, go check out
the auction. So there are a few different ways you can handle it.

Michael: Clearly you need to know what you are willing to take so a
reasonable offer would be based on that. But if you are sending out an email


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you are probably thinking the domain name is worth at least a few thousand
dollars otherwise it wouldn't be worth your time.

Adam: Yes you want to get an initial offer close to 20% to 40% of your
expected price for the domain. And this will give you plenty of room to get
them higher, as a first offer is never usually their last offer.

Michael: How many times a week do you do this process? You go from you
take a domain name that you are interested in selling, you go to ZFBot, you
go to Whois Explorer, you go to your Email Studio and you blast out an
email to try and sell a domain name that you own?

Adam: Personally I've done it a few times. I haven't done it a lot. To be
honest with you I am so busy with so many other different projects that I just
don't have time to do it all the time. I've done some testing with it with local
domain names. I've done some testing with other domain names that aren't
high generic domain names, because typically those are harder to sell on a
cold call. But a name for $1,000 - $500 - $200 - $300 those are fairly easy to
sell going about it this way. It is pretty easy to get $500 for a domain name if
you get somebody responding back.

Michael: Would you even go through this whole process for $500?
Wouldn't you try to get them up to $2,000 or somewhere around that area?

Adam: Ideally you want to get them up as high as you can but at the end of
the day $500 is still good money. If you are looking to make $1,000 a day so
you don't have to work full time somewhere, you sell two domains a day
doing this and you are laughing and you only paid $14 and you have made
$1,000. And most people don't need to make $1,000 a day. They would be
happy with $500 a day.

Michael: How quickly do you respond? When you blast out an email and
somebody responds back instantaneously how much do you want, do you
wait or do you respond back in time.

Adam: It depends on the situation. I never really respond right away as it
makes me seem too desperate to sell the domain. Half the fun is the chase


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like with anything else. And I already explained that I made and extra
$100,000 on a domain sale because I didn't respond or counter offer on that
Thursday or Friday and I waited until Monday. So sometimes people out
there will up their offer, they will increase their offer based on you waiting.
And if you have got a live hot lead on a $500 to $1,000 domain name you
don't really need to wait a long time because they are not going to increase to
$10,000. So in that case if it is a lower end domain name and you are just
trying to get $500 to $1,000 or $1,500 I'd respond fairly quickly because…It
reminds me of when people are in line and they want to buy something and
they are ready and they are all hot and bothered and they want it right now
they want to click the button, like the auctions they get caught up on it and
they may close at a higher price just because they want to close and get the
sale. Rather than giving them too much time thinking about it and then my
wife leaves the store and she doesn't want the item any more.

Michael: What do you use as the subject for an email that you send out
saying good afternoon my name is Adam Dicker; I'm selling this domain
name. What subject do you use? Do you put the domain name in there?

Adam: I usually tend to put their domain name in there as well. And then I
say witchcraftforum.com and then I put dash and then opportunity. And then
they will want to read more about it because it is addressing their own
domain name. So something relating to something they already own. And
then if you are only sending out to a select few you can personalize the email
by getting the information off of the Whois extraction tool and getting their
first name and last name and you can personalize the email. And then
obviously if it is a higher sale you want to follow it up with a phone call.

Michael: Should a domain name investor that is sending out an email like
this setup a "real" business on the web in order to give them more credibility
as we discussed you have? You list your website you list your LinkedIn
account and other things to establish that credibility?

Adam: It certainly doesn't hurt to establish credibility. A proper email
signature will give you instant credibility and it won't look like you are a fly
by night organization or even worse a spammer. So it is really important to
have a proper email signature.


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Michael: When you sell a domain name for $500 or $2,000 do you execute a
purchase/sale agreement on each of those? Or do you just go directly to
Escrow.com and wait for the money?

Adam: I'm pretty lucky. Most people (end users obviously don't know who I
am) but if I am dealing with a domainer I don't go to Escrow. If I am doing it
and it is only a $500 to $1,000 domain, that is not a lot of money to me,
where to some people it is. I've had deals where I bought gardeners.ca and
webdesigners.ca and I just said, they wanted to go to escrow and I said look
I'll tell you what. Give me your bank account information and they were in
Canada. I'll go to the bank, I'll put the money in your account and then send
me the code and then we will do the transfer. So it really depends on you but
if they are a total stranger they may want to go to escrow and the price of the
escrow transaction is minimal, it's pennies for that. The only pain is you have
to wait for time to get it done. I mean you are waiting for $500 or $1,000 so it
is not such a big deal.

Michael: Let's talk about some more negotiation. On one stream on
DNFCollege.com you wrote about an exchange you had with a buyer of one
of the domain names that was priced at $80,000. The buyer started off with
$2,000. Was that the earlier case where you actually walked away and they
came back and upped their price, and upped their price, and upped their price
and by you waiting you actually got them to meet the price that you wanted?

Adam: Yes that was the Mega City stream. And it was I basically told them
that we are not in the same ball park here. So go find another domain name.
And you can't be shy to do that because they have already expressed an
interest that they want the domain name for whatever reason it is they want it.
It could be something to do with their kid's name. You don't know what the
reason is. But they have had an expression of interest. The hardest thing to
get is an initial offer or an expression of interest. Once you have that you are
in the driver's seat. So at that point with the negotiation…I didn't know I was
in the driver's seat, I paid $10,000 for it, I wasn't going to sell it for $2,000. I
knew I had to get the gentleman up and he did go up and it is an interesting
stream to follow. And I post streams like that because it's a really good
education on the process that actually happens sometimes. And it shows


How to Sell a Domain Name - with Adam Dicker

How to Sell a Domain Name - with Adam Dicker

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