Including the DNZoom folks, RMG team at TRAFFIC this time around was eight. Think of costs, you are not only talking about show tickets but also about flights, hotel rooms, food, and entertainment. Not a cheap proposition to say the least. How can it all be justified? In one word: Value.
The next natural question then is: What is value?
A measure of those qualities that determine merit, desirability, usefulness, or importance
During the show, as I’m there to conduct business, I tend not to attend sessions. This time around it was a bad decision as reportedly, Dr. Kevin Ham of Reinvent Technology, a friend and a business associate, gave a “standing Ovation” heart to heart talk, completely unexpected. Lesson learned - next time, I will pay attention to the schedule a little closer.
Back to value, sometimes it is expected, and sometimes, as in the case above, it is not. As I’m negotiating some deals with our domain name portfolio the question of value comes up often. In my eyes, quantifying value has to do with the seen and unseen forces of nature, it can never be fully quantified. How then do we measure value? How do we quantify value? The answer to it, sometimes we cannot. Life has a funny way to reward us with gifts long after we forget about details which then may have been considered a disappointment, but as they often say “looking back at things…”, they were not.
The “value question” is bigger then this post, it is thicker then a book. In the simplest form of it, it is ROI. You pay X and you make a greater number, Y. The more complex form of value is not to judge ROI in only dollars and cents, but judge ROI in the bigger picture. Monetary ROI is still part of the equation, but not the only part. Other parts may include positioning/alignment, brand value, introductions, unique access to opportunities, karma, the unexpected, and others.
The bottom line we all have different ways to understand and judge value. Value isn’t a one dimensional proposition. After all is considered, it comes down to your gut feeling: Do you FEEL it? Not to say you will always judge value correctly, but if you are smart enough, if you pay attention to details, you will learn with time what works for you, what doesn’t.
Have a great day,
Sahar
Another great post Sahar.
As you say, Real Value is both seen and unseen. Manifest and unmanifest. You, Sahar are a great unifier of men. You get people together as was mentioned by many of the speakers at Traffic, singing your praise’s and the praise’s of RMG. I counted over three speakers that said you, Sahar, were the reason Traffic was successful for them. The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts when one deals with Sahar, Jeff and RMG. Your Bido kick off party at Traffic was a great gathering of many domainer bodies (seen as a great party) but the “Unseen Value” was even greater and more powerful and although unmanifest, was and is very tangible to those who know you.
Like all good things in life, it is mostly unquantifiable. How do you put a price tag or value on friendship? How do you put a price on loving a family member, or your love for your child? You can’t. All we can do is give and people like you give without boundaries, give selflessly, openly, without regard for your future gain. You go the extra mile for your friends and you inspire them to do that for you. The value proposition with Sahar in business (through RMG) and in friendship, is truly unbounded. For this and more, we thank you Sahar and VALUE YOU.
As the old saying goes, “All that we bring into the lives of others, comes back into our own.” This being the case, you have a very bright future ahead Sahar. Call it Good Karma, Good Luck or whatever, you and all your creative businesses at (RMG) Recall Media Group (Bido, Assista, DNZoom, FlowChart, Cowboys.com, etc…) have a very bright future and an unbounded destiny to look forward to. Good Luck, you most assuredly deserve it.
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All I can say Chris is THANKS!!! I appreciate every word you wrote here. Hearing that, especially from you, makes it all worthwhile many times over.
Talk soon,
Sahar
Great post and comment. It is always nice seeing you at the conferences. We very much enjoyed the Bido party, thank you for the invitation. You have highly qualified partners that are taken right from ground floor of this industry. You are all self made men and women and have a great deal of knowledge and experience to offer.
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Thanks Michael for the kind words, just doing our best. On that note, I’m quite sure we will also partner on some projects at some point, just a matter of time
Cheers
Sahar
I’m always so happy for each of your successes!
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Thanks
And again, thanks for videos, pics!
Sahar
“The more complex form of value is not to judge ROI in only dollars and cents, but judge ROI in the bigger picture. Monetary ROI is still part of the equation, but not the only part. Other parts may include positioning/alignment, brand value, introductions, unique access to opportunities, karma, the unexpected, and others.” - Sahar
It’s gratifying to see others hold these beliefs. Valuation is an interesting topic in the discussion forums, but often leads to intense disagreement. I think the greater truth lies in the variety of variables that are used as measures of value. Not all domain names are created the same. Consequently, different valuation measures carry more emphasis depending on the unique characteristics of the domain name as well as the priorities of the potential buyer.
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I think at the end, when it comes to domain valuation, it is all mostly about the buyer and not the seller. The buyer has their own dreams, their own ideas. If the purchase is not multiple driven (cashflow), even the sky isn’t the limit.
Sahar
The question “What is value?” provokes a lot of thoughts, but first a little bit of a background/disclaimer before I delve into it. I actually have registered at this moment exactly 150 domains with the very word value somewhere in the domain name. It’s coincidentally a very round number but it is exact nevertheless.
I value values. I build upon values. I see value where others may not. I utilize values and I network where value exists. To me, value is virtue.
The network of folks that follow the Targeted Traffic tradeshow, and the parallel network of folks that participate in show’s online forum between the shows are the brightest and the best mixture of personalities that could, to date, ever possibly be constructed. It’s very existence is the proof.
I personally have pulled a tremendous amount of value from the experience, it’s staggering. I’ve bought and sold several domains at the auctions, but the value and worth gained in that regard is the most minuscule. That’s the value I can place my hands on.
However, it’s a powerful thing when one can manipulate value on their own. To me, aside from the deals I have done and the ROI I experienced, the future holds much more.
We will all spend the rest of our lives extracting value from, and leaving our own trail of value from each show’s experience. The folks I’ve met at these tradeshows, and the lifelong friendships and memories are priceless.
That’s the ultimate essence of value.
Have a great day!
Value is relative, Sahar. And success can be measured in many ways.
The benchmark for most folks, though is ROI and that ROI is usually measured in terms of cash.
For most folks, the initial investment is one of cash. And, as life is, many folks are making decisions regarding their cash at the lower end of Maslow’s Hierarchy out of necessity.
Therefore, it is imperative that they value their ROI in terms of cash and not in terms of higher needs (love/belonging/esteem/self-actualization).
This is not to say that T.R.A.F.F.I.C. or any other industry even does not have value outside of cold, hard cash. And I do not mean to imply that if one does not have a cash ROI, the show is not a “success” for a given attendee.
For most people, though, the bottom line is a cash bottom line out of necessity, not choice. Karma is great; I like it too. But most folks can’t eat karma! Their focus is on lower needs.
The interesting idea here though is this: the pressure of those needs usually drives us to find innovative solutions that meet our needs.
It is not that I want people to struggle; I don’t. Notice, though, that there are folks who come through struggles with their spirit intact not because they wanted to, but because they had to.
Others, no matter what good is in front of them cannot or will not experience life in the same way.
The T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show is an expensive proposition for many folks and, like anyone else in business, they reasonably have expectations around their ROI. My sense is that the more important the initial cash investment is for an individual, the more likely they are to value ROI in terms of cash and less in terms of important but esoteric friendships and network connections that may result from attending the show.
Rude of you to the people who work so hard for the industry like the aussie guy and you don’t attend sessions. Excuse please english
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Some are there to learn, some are to do business, put deals together. I’m with the latter.
Cheers,
Sahar
I am a great fan of Ayn Rand when it comes to questions like this. To try and paraphrase her thoughts on this in a few statements…
Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep.
It’s the energy of the men who produce, or a product of man’s capacity to think.
Value is…that which is worthwhile to each of us.
When it comes to business conferences generally, it can be money/ROI, establishing and/or renewing friendships and business ties (which can mean monetary returns in the future), education, or a combination of one or more of these.
Specific to this/our field/industry, when it comes to deciding whether or not a given domain conference is worth attending or not; and part of that consideration is what value (time, money, education, relationships) will be impacted and/or forfeited by attending; no one can determine for anyone else whether a conference is/was worth attending or not.
It is completely individual.
While most would argue that someone who made a business deal with a 25k profit as the result of meeting someone they otherwise wouldn’t have met given the 3-5k in hard costs to attend would clearly have received excellent value in attending; what if they missed a deal that would have made them 50k-100k by not attending?
Bottom line? Is the value we give up by attending a given conference greater or lesser than the value we will gain?
If the value be greater by attending, we will be there.
If not, we won’t.
Thanks for this advice. I have not yet attended a domain name conference, but plan to in the future. Thanks to your comments (and Rick’s blog posts as well) I have a good idea of how to make the most of the event and what to try to take away from it.
Wow Sahar! Great post. And some great comments. I’m waking up eating my cereal, drinking my coffee and you start getting me all atwitter about value – not fair!
Congratulations on having such a successful time at TRAFFIC in Vegas.
Back to value. On it’s most basic level value is getting something (whatever it may be) that is more advantageous for you than what you give up (whatever that may be). It is hard to find a true value in a commodity like gasoline. You can drive around all day looking for the cheapest gasoline and your best result will be saving 10 cents a gallon to drive halfway across town. You would probably be better off to just buy gas at the most convenient station to you and let dollar cost averaging work it’s magic over the course of time to give you the gasoline at the average cost.
On Friday night I went to dinner with my wife and some of her friends from out of town. We picked a restaurant that was rated as one of the “ten best� in our city. We ordered an appetizer, our friends ordered some wine, we proceeded to the entrees and all ordered our dinner (good food, but not great) and finally ended our meal with coffee. However, when I got the bill I thought to myself, “nice food, nice atmosphere, but I don’t think it was worth this – I would have much rather eaten at Ruth’s Chris for this amount.� I don’t know exactly what the value of the meal was, but I inately knew that I thought I didn’t get a good value.
On Saturday night I went to dinner again with my wife and one of my friends. We went to a slightlty less upscale restaurant but a local landmark. We had roughly an equivalent amount of fun and conversation with our friend as the night before, good food, and when the bill came I thought to myself, “wow, that’s a great deal.� Once again, it was something I couldn’t exactly define, but I immediatley knew that this meal was a “value.�
As a value investor in equity and domain markets I also look at value from a standpoint of price to fundamentals, or selecting stocks/domains that trade for less than their intrinsic values.
The big problem for determining value is estimating intrinsic value. There is no “correct” intrinsic value. Two investors can be given the exact same information and place a different value on a domain. Some domain investors only look at revenue or click-thru (or some other metirc) and don’t place any value on the “qualityâ€? of the domain. Other value investors have strategies based around the idea that a domain can be developed and turned into a cash generating machine.
For this reason, another central concept to value investing is that of “margin of safety”. This just means that you buy at a big enough discount to allow some room for error in your estimation of value.
The basics (for me – and I am not an expert by any means) consist of four sections that I have shamelessly stolen at some point and written into my moleskine without proper attribution.
1. the extent to which markets are efficient.
a. Stocks markets are by far more efficient than domain markets which makes it far easier to grab a deal in the domain industry. You may be the only person bidding on a domain this week, simply as a byproduct of the seller only listing the domain on one message board. If the seller needs to raise cash quickly, you could get a Value Domain (the phrase is already registered, I checked).
2. a search strategy, to locate a bargain
a. In the stock market one can use screens and searches from a variety of websites to find under-valued stocks. It is not so easy with domains. You need to search message boards, auction sites, drop lists, and a variety of other places to find under-valued domains. Having a strategy and constantly looking for new outlets is necessary to continue finding value domains.
3. decent valuation strategy
a. The stock market has price to earnings (P/E) and price to sales (P/S) ratios. The domain industry has been using 18 times monthly revenue. Which is essentially 1.5x Sales. Why is this the metric you are using? Is there another metric that would give you a better valuation as a buyer? Can you explain your reasoning to the seller? During times when the market is down, metrics tend to drop also, are yours?
4. diligence - discipline and patience
a. Have the discipline to sit on your cash if the right deals aren’t coming along. Many of the world’s best investors don’t buy today simply because they have money – they buy when the great deals come along. If your money is burning a hole in your pocket, you may as well burn your money. Hang in there until you spot a TRUE value according to YOUR valuation strategy.
I also like the fact that you brought the “luck proposition� into the equation. I have purchased a few books on the effects/affects of luck recently (but haven’t had time to read them yet). I think luck with regards to what you are discussing could be summed up in two quotes. One is J.Paul Getty’s Fomula for Success (a more successful contemporary of Daniel Plainview in Upton Sinclair’s “There will be Blood�). The other by golfer Gary Player.
Formula for success: rise early, work hard, strike oil.
J. Paul Getty
The harder you work, the luckier you get.
Gary Player
In the end it doesn’t really matter whether you are lucky, diligent and patient, or hard-working you have to recognize value. The very definition of value is subjective. Yet, even though there are different methods for estimating value, “it all comes back to trying to buy something for less than it is worth.�
I think value has more to do with attitude and focus than it does in a tangible result of the moment. It also has to do with faith, momentum and the gifts you receive when you are on the right path. It is more of a long term return. If you plant grass seed, you will see results fairly rapidly and get one result. If you want to plant trees, that requires more time, more patience, more faith. Both produce value, but neither reward you until sometime in the future. If you plant the seed and just walk away……you may never see the result or the value. You may just mistake it for a failure.
The real business and the real value is what you can’t see. What you can’t explain. The hidden tide and word of mouth. Value comes wrapped in different packaging and different sizes. Some may be misleading. It is more than a spreadsheet. Some things can’t be measured with a spreadsheet. Sometimes you can disturb an invisible piece of a puzzle and the whole thing can come tumbling down. Most things of value are invisible. But it doesa not mean it isn’t there.
Like Kevin asked Wednesday morning…..”What is the value of my children?”
So this is too complicated a question to answer from one vantage point. Value can be defined in so many ways and it is a never ending conversation. Value as it relates to going to TRAFFIC is what you put into it. The right people are there, the right opportunities are there, many of the deals in the industry have been born there. I think the more you go to TRAFFIC, the easier it becomes to spot and CREATE opportunity. It is that opportunity that is really at the heart of the value. I think you could go to any meal, sit at any table, meet whoever is sitting there and walk away with another opportunity to develop after the show. So the true value continues long after the show ends. We never even talk about that part. So I hope in the scheme of things people can look back at the various TRAFFIC shows and realize that all in all, it was a good investment of their time and money. It was a value and added value to their lives and businesses.
So many great comments guys, thanks so much for participating!!
Sahar
I have been traveling since we met at TRAFFIC so I hope this contribution is ‘better late than never’.
Sahar you have lifted the lid on what I consider an immensely important subject that of ‘value’ and in context talked about Dr Kevin Ham’s address on ‘success’ which I was fortunate to hear. Naturally value means different things to different people…just like ’success’.
Believe it or not, whilst an avid reader, this is the first blog I have ever posted, leaving it to those who understand the industry far better than I ever will. However this subject is really about life and one upon which I feel qualified to comment.
For many both value and success is embodied in family and friends, for others both can be measured in dollars and cents. Neither view is right or wrong but consensus would almost certainly combine the two in the ideal analysis.
The perspective of the individual defines our personal value system. Many people are shaped and driven to achieve by the often philosophized ’super natural’ purpose within community and it is in this context that we often see extraordinary success where value is exposed and delivered.
Often the competing needs of the business and the inner desire of the individual conflict resulting in some challenging intraspection and often compromise.
I applaud Kevin Ham’s courage to address sometimes controversial non business issues because for me success and value can never be defined in pure materialistic terms no matter what the media tries to tell us. For anyone to make such public comments puts one under scrutiny and makes one vulnerable. So Kevin took a risk because none of us can really ever live up to our own ideals completely….we either stumble along the way or discover another higher level of commitment from which we fall short. However the conviction I took with me relates to the compromise of values with respect to family and friends in the pursuit of success no matter how worthy the motive may be. Such compromise I struggle with almost daily.
Sahar touches on the value, as part of success, of making a difference in the lives of others and in particular I know that for many years RMG’s assista.com project has been a major passion and driver in his business pursuits among other things. We have spent hours exploring the difference this tool will make to the lives of ordinary people for generations.
In my address to TRAFFIC last week I was one who acknowledged the value of the friendship and assistance freely offered to me by Sahar early in my short domain experience, when few would even engage in serious conversation. Community is about putting something back, about values beyond our own business agenda.
To be truly successful in life I believe we need to find balance and incorporate ‘making a difference’ in our lives and corporate values. I commend the subject and those that raise it.
Sahar,
I arrived back in Australia and immediately wrote a blog on TRAFFIC and not surprisingly my thoughts echoed your own. I find the many people view conferences like TRAFFIC as expenses rather than investments that mature over time.
I know that when I see the same faces appearing at each conference it gives me more and more confidence to invest time into the relationships. I really enjoy meeting people for the first time but the decision to invest additional time relates directly to the other person also willing to invest in events such as TRAFFIC.
For example, my wife is my best friend. If I only asked her to do things for me and didn’t invest time into our relationship then I shouldn’t be surprised to find myself in the divorce courts. The fact is that we spend quality time together and from this is built a great marriage with three kids that we love dearly.
In a similar fashion business relationships take time to build and when a positive investment is made then you can expect that investment to mature and provide dividends both financially and personally.
This is a topic I could go on and on about…..but I’d better let others have their say!
Hi Sahar, et. al.:
I got a technical degree in college, and most of the skills I learned in college (for mainframes) I re-learned in the real world (client/server and Web). However, most of what I took away from college were the intangibles - most from being the manager of my college radio station! Would that be considered worth the money? To me - yes!
I attended my first domainer conference at DOMAINfest a few weeks back. I had ideas on what I would expect to see and learn, but not completely. The driver for me going was to absorb and try to validate some of the ideas I had for expanding my work as a domainer within my Internet consulting business. Did I get this from it? Yes, and then some! I met a community of awesome people and learned a lot not just about domaining but about business - there was an entire conference full of entrepreneurs!
If you look at many things in life purely by the cost, you will decide not to pursue it. And many times there are intangibles you can’t enter on the general ledger of your company’s books. I probably will not be attending another domainer conference in 2008 but that has to do more with other events scheduled in my business and life more than cost.
It sounds like TRAFFIC Vegas was a great event - I wonder if anyone recorded Dr. Ham’s speech, as I would pay to watch it!
mp/m
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Hi Mike, thanks for participating, and hope that somehow you will find the time to attend a conference or two. At times I think to myself, it is not if you can afford them, the real question is, can you afford not to?
Dr Kevin Ham’s speech, as I last heard from Rick, will be available
onlineby DVD soon. Contact Targeted Traffic for more details.cheers
Sahar
Hi Sahar,
As usual, you come up with a great topic post that encourages a lot of prominent domainers to submit their comments. Although I don’t fit in that group, I have a comment that represents one of my most constant efforts in the past two years. Those who know me will probably bypass reading this.
The value of a domain can only be applied to the real word application of that domain, whether it be by traditional advertising of the domain brand, or whether the domain brands itself, as in defining its generic real world manifestation.
I keep touting a future where businesses will try to buy all the generic domains that describe their catalog of products or services. Essentially, a business has a product to sell. Most advertising companies will build a campaign around their clients’ products, and use traditional methods to promote those products (ie. TV, radio, magazine, newspaper, industry periodicals, etc). Now a lot of those advertising agencies are following “New Media” approaches more closely. Buying banner ads, getting pinpointed demographics on searches for similar terms that can apply to a company’s products are important online.
However, a domain name STILL is a nebulous marketing factor in most businesses. These companies don’t understand the value of owning the keyword generic domains of their products. Why? Because the advertising agencies don’t want them to know the power of these descriptive domains. If you watched TV in primetime for three hours, from 8pm to 11pm, you will most likely see a national or regional commercial where at the end of the commercial, a domain name is presented at the bottom of the last few frames of the commercial.
That domain name doesn’t really represent the client’s product clearly, but it DEFINITELY describes the AD AGENCY’S CAMPAIGN idea. It’s almost fun to watch, and I encourage all domainers to take part in this study. Watch a commercial, and if the company is a national company, think about the power that company would have if they owned the “root” domain of their product. For example, if the company sold “ice cream sandwiches”, the ad agency would never encourage their client to buy the domain “icecreamsandwiches.com”.
If the ad agency was pushing a campaign to sell their client’s product, and chose a funny marketing campaign that had people dressed as varieties of flavors of the Ice cream sandwiches, and the consumer could win a trip to Disneyland for their family if they sent in an email that identified the “most popular flavor” of ice cream sandwiches, the ad agency would register a domain like this: “pickaflavor.com” or even “whichtasteisbest.com” or “mostpopularicecreamflavor.com”.
The ad agency would never pick “icecreamsandwiches.com” (I don’t own this domain, and I didn’t check to see who did, this is just an example). Why won’t the ad agency pick this domain? Because this domain will work WITHOUT the ad agency, and they know it. The ad agency will only buy domains that match their campaign titles. And therein lies the rub, people.
Businesses need to know and understand the value of domain names, especially generic and geo-related domains, to their products/services. That HAS TO BE THE FOCUS OF THE DOMAIN INDUSTY, or the sad state of domain auctions we’re seeing now will continue. We need NEW BLOOD in our industry. We need a powerful coalition of domainers and domain companies to POUND the business sector with easy to understand reasons why they need to buy the domains we own.
This is my vision for the future of the domain industry to be successful beyond what we see right now. If we can’t organize this type of educational campaign and promote it, then stagnation will set in and lots of domainers will start seeing no value to the domains they own.
Thanks Sahar, for asking me for my opinion on this question you posed. I hope I made sense for your readers.
Stephen Douglas
Successful Domain Managementâ„¢
BLOG: http://www.Successclick.com
DomainRelevance.com
“Own Your Competitionâ„¢”
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“Although I don’t fit in that group..” - You most definitely do. Thanks Stephen for participating.
You bring a good point, which is why businesses do not pay as much or any attention to generic domain names. Running actual businesses, going over emails from industry peers who send us generics for our businesses, I believe it is worthwhile to try to uncover the mystery of miscommunication, misunderstanding, between domain owners and business owners. I will write about this topic soon.
Cheers
Sahar
I think sometimes we try to make things to complex. I believe value, much more than beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
I was looking down on Manhattan and saw billions of dollars worth of real estate but all I could see was the priceless beauty of Central Park. Just the fact that it was not developed makes it priceless, in the midst of such wealth, what people value in real estate and all the things in those apartments. We have the equivalent in Vancouver, Stanley Park. It’s like the Mastercard motto, some things in life are priceless. How much did Priceless.com sell for?
Value is created by need. Sometimes you don’t realize how valuable it is until you lose something. Imagine this. If you had no air to breathe for four minutes, what would you trade for a breath of air? If you lost your eyes, what would you give to get back your vision. Your hearing? Your legs? Your heart?
Then there are values, great ones like honesty, integrity, humbleness. But show me a man who is perfect and flawless, and I will show you God. Even then, there are critics who claim flaws there. And we struggle with our conscience, to do the right thing, to live beyond ourselves. Each person in this world, six billion and counting have different things they value and different needs. And yet, some things are very common, that are able to bind our hearts and work together for a greater cause, beyond our needs.
It’s not tied to money. If you wait until you have lots of money, and most of the time, you spend what you make and so you have very little savings, it will be so difficult to do big things, when you have not been accustomed to doing things on a small scale. Donating $1 when you only have $2 is a lot harder than donating $1,000,000 when you have $2,000,000.
I am not perfect by any means and people can judge me for this based on what they read, but as they say, don’t judge a book by its cover. Do I have faults? Just ask my wife. In my short life, I’ve watched babies die, healthy people die, my own mother die and I’ve watched dozens of children come into this world, including my own. I’ve saved lives and at other times, I felt helpless and just watched people die, as a doctor, as a person, as a father, and as a husband.
Life is full of value as our time in this world is finite. Value each breath, value your dreams, value the people around you, even though they are imperfect. Those are values and that is the most valuable thing in life - life itself.
Life itself is a miracle, greater than anything we could ever know and yet we exchange our lives, our time, in return for a paycheck because we need to provide shelter and food for ourselves and our family. But in our inner self, we long to be fulfilled. We feel good when we make others feel good.
This morning, a little child looked me in the eyes and smiled and said, Good morning. That made my day. Then later in the elevator, this man looked at a picture frame I was carrying and he said, “Very nice picture frame.” I thought he was mocking me because he was looking at the backside of the picture frame. Then I turned it around. It was a gift from my associate, who had put a picture of me in a frame and I showed him the picture and then he really smiled and said, “An award. Congratulations!” Just that very morning, I found three $20 bills in the school parking lot and asked a lady if it was hers and she said, “No, but wow, that’s a lot of money.” I asked my wife to give it to the school office as I thought one person’s gain is another’s loss and I thought about how bad the child who had lost it must have felt.
So we go through life with our experiences, our biases, and we look out for ourselves. But how can we add value to others?
Domains and parked pages? Far from it? Build skyscrapers in Central Park? Develop out all undeveloped land? There is a time and place and we all are limited by the imagination, by resources and mostly by time. There is a lifetime of value that we can create, each day, starting with a smile, with a thought and saying and moving up from there. Let’s look back in five years and look at the value we have created, how we helped others in some way, indirectly or directly.
This is getting a little long winded but my fingers can’t keep up with my thoughts and they come unfiltered. I am still yet young in years, and have much to learn, much to go through, but we stick our necks out there because we want to make a difference to someone. And the more you want to make a difference, the more difficult it becomes, because we are all human and many a times, we err and from these mistakes, we learn and we grow. But inside, we all have value, to someone, somewhere and if we can touch that person, who needs it, that person can touch someone else and who knows, perhaps one of those people will make such a profound difference to a great number of people.
If you had $6 Billion and you gave every person in this world a dollar, people would still ask for more. But if you touch their hearts and you give them hope, show that life is full of value, even in the midst of hardship and poverty, you will start to see a twinkle in their eye. I’ve witnessed this many times doing medical missionary work in Mexico, Poland, Thailand, China, the Philippines as well as here locally in North America. And of course if you can, you help with their physical needs, their health and teach them. In the end, we are all accountable, some say to God, some say to your conscience. We reap what we sow and so we should sow the seeds, for in due time, some will be fruitful and beautiful.
I tell my daughter that she is beautiful but I would like her to be beautiful inside. Yet I buy her books that show outward beauty, because that is what people see. But when they get to know her, they will be more amazed by her inner beauty.
Value life. Life value.
Kevin
Sahar,
As always your posts and insight not only to the industry but to the business community as a whole are invaluable or better put for the purpose of this post “priceless� and while I do often ponder many things and their value as the financial overseer for our organization the TRAFFIC convention is one I will never question its value. For those of you whom are unaware, Sahar, Jeff and myself all met at the first TRAFFIC and that was the foundation or “seed� as Rick put it for the formation of Recall Media Group, how could any of us put a value on that or base an ROI on that.
Over the years we have invested a lot of time, energy and money at each of the TRAFFIC conventions and often do not see the fruit of those efforts for months even years sometimes if at all, not ever contact or relationship is going to yield a quantifiable cash return however the ability to pick up the phone and call someone whom you respect and/or trust that may be able to help lends to the value and needs to be considered when calculating value not only in this scenario but in all scenarios.
This industry is one of the friendliest and more approachable in the world, have you ever been to a Donald Trump party try approaching someone there and discussing business or asking “do you mind if I give you a shout after to pick your brain a little� security will escort you out the door before you reach for a business card. The fact of the matter is people don’t realize the opportunity they have at their finger tips, the ability to gain knowledge and insight from extremely successful people whom are in their business when attending these shows. People are so stuck on ROI that they often forget the reason why they are there.
But for all of those who are still in doubt I think I can quantify the value pretty easily in dollars (although I highly discourage it and usually reserve ROI for monetary investments and business related expenses) for everyone that may be questioning this or similar investment…Put together a panel of speakers like the Kevin Hams & Chris Harnetts of the world, in total I came up with about 30 (and didn’t even consider the cost of speaking with industry leading attorneys, have you ever had to pay a John Berryhill or Ari Goldberger bill, I have and would gladly swap the price of admission for either…) consider these are some of the brightest most successful people in the industry a group of entrepreneurs and business owners whose net worth are well into the billions, now when totaling it up considering you only have to pay their equivalent salaries or net profit for the day (and by the way they don’t get paid to be there), then throw in the food, drinks and entertainment as well any business you actually got done(if any that’s quantifiable) then divide that number by the number of attendees and tell me the price of attendance.
Guest what guys TRAFFIC is a bargain and extremely valuable to anyone in the domain name or internet business but let me caution you, some will not be as fortunate as others because you didn’t realize the opportunity, life is what you make it and if you continue to question things that are so blatantly obvious then you are already starting at a disadvantage.
Now consider we didn’t factor in the value of the potential relationships that may be developed because that is impossible to quantify but I can guarantee you one thing, if you merely exchange a business card with anyone in attendance it could very well change your life like it has ours. So that is just an added bonus.
I want to give a few more quantifiable examples to help the non-believers:
-Say you signed up at DNZoom.com and by doing so you were able saved one of your valuable domain names (one worth at least $3,000) from being dropped, is it worth it now?
-Say you had no clue there were opportunities to gain addition income from parking your domains and started parking them with one of the fine companies represented at the show and generated a mere
$5,000 annually, is it worth it now?
-And say, by sitting in on one of the panels you didn’t realize you owned a TM (trademarked) domain name and by doing so you realized the risk was not worth the reward and dropped the domain name, thereby preventing a $100k Federal Trademark lawsuit against you, was it worth it now?
These are only a few quantifiable examples of many…
In closing if you answered I already knew those things and still cannot see the value then my friend you have let the opportunities I discussed previously pass you by and now only yourself is to blame for the value NOT derived from this or any other lost opportunity in your life.
Darren Cleveland
President/CEO
Recall Media Group
Thank you Sahar for asking me to put in my 2 cents…
What is value?
To me, value is Happiness! Is it really that simple? I think so.
An entity will normally look at an asset and try to put a value on it. If this asset was based on the ROI and 20 other factors, your heart will make you feel one way or the other no matter. When it comes down to it, somebody has to be “pleased� to make the call to buy or sell. If you are happy, you accept and your value was met. If you decline, your value was met as are not feeling the happiness.
We all value our family and friends the most! Why is that? Happiness!
When you place yourself around people that make you happy, good things happen. It is much easier to make deals with people that share happiness and it doesn’t matter if it is business or pleasure, this is the reason why you value them so much.
No matter if you are putting value on a physical item, a domain name, an employee or friend, if they create happiness, you have true Value!
Jamie Zoch
Sahar,
I couldn’t agree more. Your expansion of one’s concept of value is brilliant. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on value with the domain community. We are all better for it.
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Thanks Alan, just trying to help and create a healthy discussion. I learned A LOT from posts here.
Cheers
Sahar
Thanks for posting this Sahar. Kevin Ham gave an excellent keynote speech at the TRAFFIC conference in Las Vegas, and I’m glad someone was able to capture some of his insights here as well. He really speaks from the heart, and touched on a lot of the more intangible factors surrounding business and life.