Available Domain Names

The following guest article was written by Philip O'Neil, owner and editor of LLLL.com

TRUST

My name is Philip O’Neil. I started learning about the domain name industry around 5 years ago. One of my first experiences with domain names was to visit a domain and saw nothing on the site. I contacted the owner who asked for $1000. It seemed a lot at the time but in retrospect, it would have been a good buy. I talked with other people who would have been affected by the purchase. We wondered who this person was. Was this somebody who knew us and knew that we would pay this much? Was this somebody thousands of kilometers who took a punt when buying this domain? Who was this seller? Where was this seller? Why did this seller justify pricing the domain at $1000?

One thing was for sure. We did not trust the seller and based on discussions with the seller, he (she?) did not trust us. The deal did not go through and I settled on buying a name for registration fee. The idea of giving money to another person and waiting for them to give us a domain was way too scary.

Building trust is one of the most important parts of business. The domain name industry is dependent on trust to operate effectively. My experience has been that those who trust you will always pay more than those who don’t. Below are elements of trust that I believe all domain name professionals need to understand.

HONESTY

Trust and honesty go hand in hand. Often people will short change themselves by being dishonest over small things. When the big opportunities come around for them in life, they lose it because they didn’t earn trust with the small opportunities. They often feel sorry for themselves and angry that they miss out on great opportunities but the reality is that they have the opportunities and throw them away over small things. Never underestimate the opportunities that are in front of you!

The money making deals are often preceded by a smaller trust building small deal. I have seen this happen with my business many times and made thousands in sales after a small trust building deal!

RELATIONSHIPS

The biggest mistake in business is the danger of thinking that business is all about money. It is not! It is all about relationships. The more people get distracted away from relationships and focused on money, the more they send out the subtle message “I do not care about anyone but myself”. Studies have been done to show that businesses that solely operate to get the most money possible adopt characteristics that psychologists commonly associate with the characteristics of a psychopath. Always remember that you are dealing with humans, not dollars when you want to perform business as nobody likes dealing with psychopaths.

RISK

The more somebody trusts you, the higher the risk they will be willing to take. $100 is a high risk for a poor individual but $2000 a low risk for a wealthy individual. When dealing with domains, you usually don’t know who you are dealing with. Get to know your clients and when you have had made a sale with them, try to think of some way of keeping the communication open with them to learn more about them and also to attract more potential business.

Selling to established customers is usually easier than selling to new customers. My experience with domain sales is that you often have only one opportunity to leave a lasting thought in your clients head. Carefully plan what this thought is going to be or you will lose the opportunity for future business. Examples include a survey question, a mailing list, an invitation for further business, an invitation to visit a website, etc…

If you can afford to, take a risk with some customers. Taking risks builds trust.

TIME

It often takes years to build trust but seconds to destroy it. Patience is a key part of domain name trading. One customer may take minutes to trust you while another takes years. Often it looks like a new business has become popular from nowhere but in reality it has been around for more than ten years. If you think of performers like Kylie Minogue and John Travolta, they are respected because they kept performing in the hard years before attracting the mass markets with “I’m spinning around” and Pulp Fiction.

Look for ways to help your customers trust you quicker. This will improve the speed of trust and develop more business for you. Examples include using escrow, online trader ratings and testimonies.

DIPLOMACY

Keeping your mouth shut when somebody upsets you is usually the smart thing to do. Everybody usually upsets everyone eventually. Sometimes people upset you because they are right and you aren’t. Other times they are just saying stupid things. Diplomacy is not about being a doormat but about carefully picking the right times to fight.

BEING ORGANIZED

If you are disorganized, you can’t afford to make many promises as you don’t know if you can keep them. In addition to this, there are certain standards that people will expect of you that are considered unspoken promises when dealing with customers. Less is often more in business. Work out how to deliver to customers what they expect and don’t give them the impression that you can provide services you can’t or you will find it very difficult to succeed.

BRANDING

What has branding got to do with trust? People don’t trust you if they don’t remember you. Good branding is essential to building trust. They say that most people don’t buy from you until they have seen at least 7 advertisements.

CONFIDENTIALITY

A simple concept people should understand is:

The wealthy protect their assets while the poor have very little to protect.

Confidentiality is a key part of domain name trading as confidentiality reduces the potential expenses related to protecting assets for your clients. Some people love to boast about their purchases and their collections. However, the common financial advice that wealthy domain owners receive is to keep their cards close to their chest. Excluding people from working with you by not respecting their confidentiality can cost you your best customers. A business deal is usually between 2 people, not the whole world.

SURPRISE

Here is a trick I have learned. Surprising people is a brilliant way to generate business. Give people more than they expect or give to people when they don’t expect it. I have used this trick and generated thousands in sales. In relationships I find that you can give somebody a small $2 gift when they don’t expect it and this will often be more valuable than spending an extra $10 on a birthday present as the surprise element adds more value to the relationship. If you think of ways to creatively surprise your customers and give them a little more than they thought they were going to get then you may be surprised at the additional business that comes your way.

LAST NOTE

I hope you find this article useful. I am trying to develop useful domain name investing advice at my blog LLLL.com where I focus on the 4 letter domain name market. The domain name market has a lot of opportunities but it is also a highly competitive market. Building trust is just one element of the domain name market but I think it is one of the most important.

-Philip O'Neil

 

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