Over the years I’ve seen many declare they have closed on a great deal or that development paid off big time however, when examining closer, you see it isn’t as sweet as first presented. What I’m talking about is those who tend not to value their time as you would value yours. They will go on and on spending their time to achieve something, and sometimes succeed to a certain degree, but if we look back at all time spent for the project, then add costs, effort, risk, and other essential elements, the picture isn’t as bright anymore.
This also applies to many domain sales ROI I heard of over the years. One will come and say something such as “I’ve just sold a domain for X,000.00 $US, that is a so and so ROI on purchase!” but is it really? What about all the other domains who did not sell, will never sell? What about the time invested mining them? What about negotiating the deal?
I will give you an example from a recent sale of ours, a domain we bought for approximately 100.00 $US and sold for over 200,000.00 $US.
One can look at that domain and say “that is a great ROI!”, that it only took 10 minutes to negotiate it, but what do I see? I see over eight years of hardly selling anything. I see thousands of email reading and hundreds of replies that resulted in no deal whatsoever, and at times, insults. I see many thousands of other domains in our portfolio that will never sell for anything. And what I don’t see? I don’t see this sale repeating itself anytime soon!
See, the ROI equation is bigger than the product you sell. It encompasses all other elements of a deal. The question is, how much do you value your time? When you answer the next inquiry, know that while it may not convert, at the end of the day, it is an essential part of the equation.
Have a great day,
Sahar
What to say? It’s simply the truth and it’s well said.
Well said Sahar,
Another good post,
Everyone thinks there making money but often forget about all the domains they never sell, even some they pay good cash for!
i.e. - I bought FastFoodRestaurant.net - For a small sum but cant shift it - Last offer I got was lower than what I paid!
Regards,
Robbie
p.s. sounds like a nice deal, lot of work though - $100 - $xxx,xxx - Love to hear the name if you didnt sign an NDA!
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Yea, NDA in place. I can tell you though, you wouldn’t have registered it for 10$ if it was free right now. This worked out just because we declined thousands of other sales prior to it. No way you could predict it.
Sahar
Thanks for this very honest and down to earth post, Sahar.
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Thanks Tony,
Sahar
I see millions of people everyday working their tails off. Many never having enough to retire on and pensions that get eaten up by the companies that they for so long have slaved to help. I think the time and afford paid to these web names, businesses and assets are well worth the ROI, ROR, TWS (TimeWellSpent.com) no matter how you slice it I do not think there is a better game out there. Hopefully you are engaged in a web business that you enjoy and have fun creating and developing. That is not work in my opinion.
Hi Sahar,
This isn’t an attempt at a rhetorical comment, but you’ve said that you have privacy on your names, so how do thousands of people get in touch with you to inquire about various domain names? I have an interest in a few domain names of high value - where I will pay end user prices (or more) but I can’t seem to get past the Whois privacy to talk directly with the owner.
Thanks,
Elliot
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Hi Elliott,
Domainers and domain owners who use privacy services (like Moniker for example) do get emails when sent to them however, their private email addresses is just not visible. It isn’t a “reachability” issue. If you do not get a reply it is likely that your email does not stand out from the crowd. To stand out, consider putting a dollar amount, something that will make the domain owner want to respond.
Hope that helps,
Sahar
BTW, I completely agree with your post. You always need to consider your time as a financial investment.
Sahar - well put. I know not everyone likes to admit what it takes to develop a site or sell a domain, but some times it’s hard to break even. Unless, you consider 40 cents an hour competitive.
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Now that is funny!
Sahar
You know, I couldn’t agree with you more. Our branding firm Arrow Branding (among other things) markets premium domains to corporate America. For every domain we sell… hundreds are still rotting on the shelf. Hundreds of hours monitoring, marketing, promoting, and advertising these domains results in an occasional sale. What’s the value of the sale? The sum total of my time marketing the whole enchilada. HTTP://www.arrowbranding.com while still a relatively unknown in the domain marketplace, is starting to build steam. Premium domains and very high-end logos create a corporate identity package that keep executives salivating. Check us out. Thanks -
Sahar,
Of course you are right about the monetary value of time and effort put toward the whole domain portfolio in order to sell one domain at what appears to be a profit but isn’t when looking at the big picture.
But for the determined, astute domainer that first sale might set the course for all the future sales. And as the domainer makes a sale and takes time to really think about what he has and hasn’t accomplished he will learn from the out right failures or short sales and go on to real success if he just persists.
Then there’s the pure joy of beginning domaining and web development. Those small moments of discovery when you first learn to register a domain name and see a parked page come up the next evening and think, “That’s mine! I’m so cool”. Then you find out you can register more domains for a third the price. And you do.
Then you build a website to help market your domains. And it works! Nobody buys anything but the website actually works. And then you figure out some cgi or php or get some widget to work. And you’re now ten feet tall! For a day or so anyway.
And somebody asks for you advice, to look at their site or asks you to make them a cool website. Like yours. And you learn DNS. And you get a leased webserver. And you’re scared to touch that Linux server but you do and that works. There’s so many little victories on the way.
Some disappointments too but you ignore or work around those and continue on to that first sale. Then the first big sale. And then the sale where you really do make some real cash. It’s all good if you focus on the good while faintly remembering the bad. Remembering just enough to learn but not dwell on the mistake. Or mistakes. And mistakes!!!
And then there’s the people. I’ve met some great people online while domaining. And a few people I really, really admire. Friends and heroes. How do you value that?
So win or lose, if your perspective is focused on what really counts, it’s really a win, win if you stay the course.
“That is not work in my opinion.” . . . we really do have it made.
Sahar You seem to be saying you’ve figured out that it isn’t so great of a return. I mean you did take the money so it couldn’t be that bad, but in the example if the $200,000 isn’t really a great return, how bad is it ?
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It isn’t bad, but it certainly isn’t as sweet as it sounds if I just said the two common elements you usually would hear, purchase price and sale price.
Cheers
Sahar
clearly your business experience has been worth more to you than any MBA ever would have… what you just explained is what normally takes two years of study and about $50,000, lol
@eric shannon:
Which university are you talking about?
The stuff that was posted here is just plain and simple common sense, no need for “business experience”. I’m not sure if you even know what you are talking about.
Regards
Michal
Sahar you are spot on - Great post.
Great response by all especially by Michael Castello
“What about all the other domains who did not sell, will never sell? What about the time invested mining them? What about negotiating the deal?”
Creating a sales price for a domain on domains you did not sell, will never sell, time you have put in obtaining them…emailing, etc will potentially create a unrealistic sales price…but then again you’re not primarily interested in selling domains so this odd strategy doesn’t hurt you Sahar