Let’s give it a shot then.
The one thing that is on everybody’s mind these days is the economy. While I have no answers here I do suggest to preserve cash, be ultra conservative until things clear out a little. As domainers who are reliant on upstream providers/partners, there is that option that if they go through rough times (and majority of domain partners do these days) we will as well. This is a trickle-down effect that we need to keep in our mind. However, fear and turmoil provides extreme opportunities as well and is providing us with the opportunities of finding income alternatives, explore new territories. I remember when I first started in the domain business back in November 1999 I didn’t get the memo it was rough times ahead for dot com companies, and when friends and associates in 2000 kept asking me how my new internet business was doing and if we are feeling the rough time in the business my answer was “what rough times??”. Many tend to think this time it is different and they may be right, but for you and me, does it really matter? If you keep pushing yourself further, trying new things, learning new skills, exploring possibilities, ventures, and deal making, rough times or not, you end up moving forward, and that of course cannot be bad either way.
And the smartest thing you can do these days? increase your income potential. If you know nothing but domains maybe you should explore learning something new? In my opinion the true measure of financial independence is the ability to create income streams at will. Do you own more than one income stream? Can your business survive if one segment of the industry falls? if one or all of your partners go out of business? Can you keep your lifestyle if your income drop by 20%? and what about 80%? and for how long? You don’t need to answer these questions to me, but if you do take the time to ponder on these hard questions, do yourself a favor and be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, it is not where you are, it is where you are going to be.
Have a great day!
Sahar
Great to have you back sahar!
Times might be hard but we can get through this, I think if we help each other out on forums and look to do deals for fair prices not top end but fair prices.
Rememeber as long as you are making a profit from a deal you can surrive.
Why sit with an asset that may never sell for an over the top price.
Cash is King and shall alway be!
Regards,
Robbie
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It all depends on your srategy. We keep declining offers daily as our business is not reliant on domain sales. I remember the first sale we’ve made, a domain we bought for 12$ and few days after registration got an offer for USD2K. One could say those are great margins and that is correct, however, we were able to turn the deal to a USD200K within a short time negotiating.
And while cash is king I believe cashflow is Queen, and as we all know from the game of Chess, a king without its queen is not as strong as a king could be
Cheers
Sahar
Great questions for people to ask themselves. I can’t help but think about the advice always given about stocks, diversify. Diversifying income streams is critical to having a robust business that can survive hard times. I think it also makes you nimble so you can quickly focus where the money is and then quickly adapt when the business environment changes again.
“Do yourself a favor and be honest with yourself. At the end of the day, it is not where you are, it is where you are going to be.”
The world is CHANGING, because WE ARE CHANGING.
Glad to see another post Sahar. I still have an ink smeared printout of one of your posts that I tacked onto my wall long ago. You wrote about the importance of doing what you LOVE and the TRUTH about what it takes to start your own WEB business. It’s time for us to give back to you.
Take a break, CHANGE is here.
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Hi Jamie,
Glad to hear something I wrote made a difference. Change is definitely in the air and many are exploring new methods to building alternatives to the current upstream providers. What I’m seeing here is the beauty of owning the relationships and controlling the cash register - there really is no substitute to it. I also spoke with another friend today that said that a partnership he put together with a web company worked our good as well. The formula? I’m still with the opinion there are many ways to climb a mountain, each has to find what works.
Cheers
Sahar
Seeing a new post from you put a smile on my face today. Great read! Currently going through domain mess with CPC decreases across the bored, but I’m hanging on! I ended up taking some “on the offer” website assistance “jobs” from some friends to make sure there is surplus cash just in case of further decrease (which there is, yesterday was my lowest day all year).
hi sahar,
glad you posted this and you had called it right on….
your insight, experiences have really helped me and in 09 i really hope its a good year…. decided downsize my domain name count, go after developing things and my passions… weather its forming a mini site, forming an eccomerce site in 09, i am hopping to have a nice business model.
your smarts, how you started out is truly inspiring for all of us…I surly miss your posts each day but understand…your a very busy man with your fun developments going on…
cheers and have an enjoyable, safe holiday sahar!
j
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Hi Jeff, and thanks for the kind words, much appreciated.
Many think I’m a very busy man because of all the things we’re involved with however this isn’t the case. Tomorrow’s post I will elaborate more on this point - thanks for bringing it to my attention!
Cheers
Sahar
Welcome back Sahar, and good advice!
mp/m
Sahar –
Welcome back. I’ve missed reading you each day. You always seem to motivate me or at least make me think. I appreciate that.
Lou
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Thanks Lou!
Sahar
Crisis is an opportunity and we should all treat it like this - not as a disaster. Some will not survive.. but that’s how it is in this world. Keep on blogging Sahar!
Many thanks for that.
Anybody who hasn’t been doing something else besides accumulating domain names… Is really really behind on things. Times have changed right under our noses but there are still plenty of opportunities to be had and always will be if you only open your eyes wide enough… Sometimes they are not so easy to come by but you gotta sniff them out.. Search and you shall find as they say, but diversity is very important as domain parking is on the decline, has been and will continue to fall apart as the whole system is broken and development of domains is the only option or selling off completely… It makes sense to further explore all options on the table that are available and at least give them a try… If you want it to work out, it can..
Mike
sahar,
with all your developments your doing, managing things, numerous sites, watching your team, partners, outsourcing projects, putting deals togethers, cold calling end users to advertise i find that very hard to believe your not busy…sure you have workers behind you, but the bigger you get the more stress, headaches you may face… hey, if your not that busy, more power to you.
with me personally, i used to be a crazy man running a small business, had part time co workers, managing things…then i had a crashing occurance and things fell apart…
the past 3 years i realized that 1. you cant rely heavily on one account, 2. enjoy life and a balance…
sure i miss feeling busy, making money and having a tough time in my life as i run a business, work an odd ball shift with a small weekly check…. i believe in chasing your ambitions, hobbies as your developments…i am slowly learning this, getting one project at a time off the ground or try to lol…
from my experiences, when things were going great on the business front, the working long hours, overseeing things made me push harder but my wife wasnt happy and i kept on wanting more…seems in my life i had more downs then ups…funny how success can change, one year you feel like your happy and things going ok where you can take the wife out to a nice meal, have the 500 dollars in your pocket, and your feeling overall things you formed from the bottom up…
business takes its toll on you, always chasing deals and etc… in the end of things, i am dying to get couple projcts off the ground, i am tired of the cold calling, door to door sales, the hussling and etc…i would rather take the soft sales pitch where its an online business, you can do the google adwords, learn the seo, take one sale at a time and outsource the ” cold calling “….
cant wait to see what you write sahar on things and about life, not being as busy!
sorry for long post and getting off track lol…i tend to be good on that….
regards,
j
ps… the great thing about you from what i have heard from others and reading up on you, blog is that you didnt have a lot of cash when you first entered, you know what a dollar meant to you when you came over here, you did a risky move by the credit card and it paid off very well for you… your accomplishments and where your at in your life is by yourself, not family money, not by given things…its all you sahar… more off the topic issues, lol….
Good to see more new posts; great ideas & advice as always from someone who’s actually walking the walk, and not just talking the talk.
Thanks for all the work you put into your blog, Sahar…
…and Happy Thanksgiving!