Morning Folks!! If you are one to believe that opportunities like domaining come often than you are a person that has likely not accomplished much in life or are too young to appreciate the historical opportunity you have. Even at this stage you will be hard pressed to find a better opportunity in your entire lifetime or that of your father or grandfather. So at least, put it in its' proper historical perspective. If you think you will get many more like this, think again. You have an historic opportunity. Don’t blow it. You will live to regret it if you do. This is not a time to worry if you are popular. This is a time to put your nose to the grindstone and create the vehicle that will change your life. If you do it now, you will never worry in the future. If you blow by this window, your future will be filled with worry. It is never too late to get on the right path. Never too late to succeed. Never too late to change. Those that are not succeeding and not willing to change will die on the vine. Don't be one of them. Did you read every post thatFrankyhas made? If you did, you probably understand exactly what I am saying. If not, then you need to and read other accomplished domainers as well. The only thing they are looking to do is help others have success. Life changing success. So throw mud. How unfortunate for you. The answers are all out there. Those that are not lazy will find and seek and succeed. The others will just rant and rave and keep doing the same things that lead them to failure. Failure on many things not just one. Be methodical, logical and try to make the best decision possible with as much info as you can gather until that info is instinct. That will make you successful whether it be in domains or anything else you try and tackle in life. The negative folks in life will always try and twist your motive or try and figure out the angle. They have a hard time taking things for face value. It may because they are the ones that always have a motive and an angle and they can’t understand how others may not. I would just rather see 90 out of 100 succeed instead of 10. I am not capable of holding anyone back. Nor would I want to. The only one that can either propel you or imprison you is yourself. Not me, not your parents, not you professor, not your next door neighbor, not anyone. Get mad at yourself. Become a winner. Become an eagle. Become a great success. It won’t happen overnight. It takes years! You in rush?? If so, fine, you will fall off the ladder of success each and every time until become methodical and only focus on the next step of the ladder. Not 2 steps not 5 steps, the next step. Build it one step at a time and I absolutely guarantee that you will have to try to fail. Failing does not happen when you come at things from the right mind set. You may have set backs, but you don’t fail. You don’t let obstacles consume you, you consume and overcome those obstacles while others simply give up. As I stated yesterday and probably the ones that need to believe it don't, I will try one last time to make this extremely important point. How do you explain to those that have an attitude that if Franky, Kevin, Mike and myself went thru a list of 100, $1000 domain names right now, that we would likely pick the same few domain names and the rookies with the big mouths would pick pigeon shit? You can’t blame it on not being there in 1995. You can’t blame it for not being there in 2003. This is 2010 and until you figure out what makes one domain have value and one domain worthless, won’t make any difference what year it is. You either learn to spot great domains for WHATEVER REASON or you don’t. Asset or liability. Sure many will make fun of me and my 'Pigeon Shit' statements, but the only ones that do that are the ones with the most pigeon shit to begin with. Go figure. Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
39 thoughts on “Success or Failure is Your Decision. It is Determined BEFORE you Start by Your Attitude.”
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UFO
Rick,
You should get a list of domain names and get the pro’s to chose the top 10 and max they’d pay at drop… but let the punters have a week to look at them and see what they’d choose.
Stefan
Maybe we should make some small domaining quiz, just to see how many people understand difference between gems and crap.
I think I understood.
P.S Rick don’t let pigeons like anunt disappoint you, I believe that most of readers understand what you are saying and appreciate your will and energy to educate masses with valuable information.
George
Yes, thank you Rick for enlightening us day in and day out when you don’t have to.
I have already started to go through my portfolio and have separated my”assets” from my”liabilities”… and you know what will happen to the liabilities when renewal time comes :-)
brian k
Hi Rick
you talk about pigeon shit domains and I was wondering what makes a domain pigeon shit?
If a domain has no type in traffic but can make a great mini site and earn 1-3 dollars per day is that pigeon shit?
How many type ins per month do you like to see before you aquire a domains.
I have aquired a few with 300 or so type ins a month.
I figure i get 10% to click on a google ad and will make enough to hold onto the domain for free or for a slight profit until it flips.
What are your thoughts?
Dean
I have to agree with George, when I came into Domaining I threw myself headlong into it registering everything that popped into my head without considering the various factors that make a Domain potentially valuable.
Now is a time to separate the diamonds from the charcoal, and polish those diamonds in the rough that have potential, while dumping the liabilities.
In my faulty or irrational way of thinking, I justify the 200 mistakes I made (or registered)and weigh that against the future potential of others. In other words what if I did spend, $2,000 registering 200 bad Domains, but 50 or let’s just say even 5 are future killers worth $100,000 or more? Again, in my fucked up way of thinking, I think it would have been worth the loss or risk.
If you don’t step out on a limb you will never get the good fruit because all the low hanging fruit was picked years ago.
It’s all part of the learning process, it’s just about surviving the interim in between.
Altaf
What a STRONG statement Rick! Bravo! We admire you as our teacer for futur road. The time will tell the rest.
Have a nice day!
steve
I gave up on people.
Domaining isfor the few with the guts and belief in their skills to get it done.
Anyone with a working system isn’t going to share it as it took years to build.
Shiphouse
I suggest everyone buy the Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. In my this book elaborates on what Rick is trying to say and is a useful tool for anyone no matter if they are at the beginning of middle of their journey (I don’t say end because I can’t imagine not working and improving unless I am dead.).
Juanita
Rick,
Thank you for sharing this advice. :)
David
Well said.
Experience can be a hard fought battle, but the mindset is the key to getting things accomplished.
emma
Folks, don’t let anyone fool you. If you have money you can use any name to sell anything, you just need money to adversise your product. You can use banana as a domain name and be selling houses, computers, water or anything. What the domain name godaddy.com has to do with the business of registering and auctioning domain names? Does the domain name godaddy suggest registering or auctioning domain names?
It’s not easy to sell a domain name, specially nowadays, because people already understood that the success of a business does not reside in the domain name you are using but rather on the money you have to advertise. That’s the reason why you see even the companies using domain names like cheaptickets.com, cheapflights.com or cheaptravel.com still need to advertise their products on various means of advertisement. But one thing is true. If you have a domain name that’s easy for people to remember and use it for a business you will have more advantage than those with domain name that are difficult for people to remember when advertsing. You have to advertise your business no matter what. Having an easy-to-remember name does mean a shit if you do not let people know what you are doing with that domain name. And you should know that Easy-to-remember domain names are and will always be abundant, they will never be gone, so I don’t see why someone would register or buy a difficult-to-remember domain name, or buy a good name from a speculator. People who made money domaining are those who were lucky to get into domaining business in the 90s, when people where naive, when people were thinking ohhh without a generic name or an easy-to-remember name you would never be able to make a business. That’s when they sold domain names for miilions, and most of them were sold to speculators, not end-users, because even at that time not many people were believing in paying so much money for domain names. Today is even harder to get those naive people, not even speculators, they already have understood that making money on domaining is a fallacy, a myth, bacuse at the end of the day no domain name would be bought by an end-user because they just don’t see the need to pay the kind of money domainers demand for the domains. End-users would prefer to create their own domain names and register them, that’s why you see the 2 well-known domain auction websites (sedo and afternic) are able to sell only 20 domain names a week where there are about 2 billions registered domain names on sale worldwide. If you are lucky to sell a domain to an end-user, all they can spend is 100 to 400 hundred on a domain name. Sedo and Afternic sometimes would list ficticious domain sales to give false impression to the public that they are really doing better. In fact expecting to make money on domainingg is just like hoping to win lottery one day.
My advice is this: if you have been domaining for more than 3 years and you never made money, then the best thing you have to do is invent a product, choose a domain name for that product and develop that domain name or you just quit domaining otherwise domaing will ruin your life. Why don’t you want to invent or innovate a product so that you can develop and use your domain name? Why do you just prefer to sell domain names than developing them? Is it because you think the people who would buy your domains names find it difficult to create a domain name than to invent or innovate a product to be sold online, and that’s why they need you to create a domain name for them? Think about the answer of this question, you will make a good decision. Someone who can innovate, invent or compete with people selling the same product most likely would also be able to create a good domain name for the product he came up with. Open your ears now and read this: the more domainers who expect to make money one day there are in the world the better for the domain registrars and domain conference organizers or domain auctions websites. They are making money on that ilusion. Domainers would register more new domain names, they would go to domain conferences paying $900 to attend, and would advertise their domain names on sedo or afternic for money. All of the above agents companies would make money except the domainers who never made noney. That’s why they create positive-sounding news about domain names business and send it to all domainers so that they can make them have hope that one day they will sell a domain and make money. They have to use peole like schwartz because of the influence ,
emma
Folks, don’t let anyone fool you. If you have money you can use any name to sell anything, you just need money to adversise your product. You can use banana as a domain name and be selling houses, computers, water or anything. What the domain name godaddy.com has to do with the business of registering and auctioning domain names? Does the domain name godaddy suggest registering or auctioning domain names?
It’s not easy to sell a domain name, specially nowadays, because people already understood that the success of a business does not reside in the domain name you are using but rather on the money you have to advertise. That’s the reason why you see even the companies using domain names like cheaptickets.com, cheapflights.com or cheaptravel.com still need to advertise their products on various means of advertisement. But one thing is true. If you have a domain name that’s easy for people to remember and use it for a business you will have more advantage than those with domain name that are difficult for people to remember when advertsing. You have to advertise your business no matter what. Having an easy-to-remember name does mean a shit if you do not let people know what you are doing with that domain name. And you should know that Easy-to-remember domain names are and will always be abundant, they will never be gone, so I don’t see why someone would register or buy a difficult-to-remember domain name, or buy a good name from a speculator. People who made money domaining are those who were lucky to get into domaining business in the 90s, when people where naive, when people were thinking ohhh without a generic name or an easy-to-remember name you would never be able to make a business. That’s when they sold domain names for miilions, and most of them were sold to speculators, not end-users, because even at that time not many people were believing in paying so much money for domain names. Today is even harder to get those naive people, not even speculators, they already have understood that making money on domaining is a fallacy, a myth, bacuse at the end of the day no domain name would be bought by an end-user because they just don’t see the need to pay the kind of money domainers demand for the domains. End-users would prefer to create their own domain names and register them, that’s why you see the 2 well-known domain auction websites (sedo and afternic) are able to sell only 20 domain names a week where there are about 2 billions registered domain names on sale worldwide. If you are lucky to sell a domain to an end-user, all they can spend is 100 to 400 hundred on a domain name. Sedo and Afternic sometimes would list ficticious domain sales to give false impression to the public that they are really doing better. In fact expecting to make money on domainingg is just like hoping to win lottery one day.
My advice is this: if you have been domaining for more than 3 years and you never made money, then the best thing you have to do is invent a product, choose a domain name for that product and develop that domain name or you just quit domaining otherwise domaing will ruin your life. Why don’t you want to invent or innovate a product so that you can develop and use your domain name? Why do you just prefer to sell domain names than developing them? Is it because you think the people who would buy your domains names find it difficult to create a domain name than to invent or innovate a product to be sold online, and that’s why they need you to create a domain name for them? Think about the answer of this question, you will make a good decision. Someone who can innovate, invent or compete with people selling the same product most likely would also be able to create a good domain name for the product he came up with. Open your ears now and read this: the more domainers who expect to make money one day there are in the world the better for the domain registrars and domain conference organizers or domain auctions websites. They are making money on that ilusion. Domainers would register more new domain names, they would go to domain conferences paying $900 to attend, and would advertise their domain names on sedo or afternic for money. All of the above agents companies would make money except the domainers who never made noney. That’s why they create positive-sounding news about domain names business and send it to all domainers so that they can make them have hope that one day they will sell a domain and make money. They have to use peole like schwartz because of the influence ,
Rick Schwartz
@Emma you make some good points. But when you go into the GUTTER to make accusations about motives of folks that you don’t even know, I will tell you and others of your ilk to SHOVE IT!
Just like anunt, who can dish it out and do it in a nasty way, then can’t take it when it is reversed on them. Very thin skin.
So whether it is you or any other MORON that posts accusations out their ass. STFU because it just voids all the rest of what you have to say. It shows that YOU have an angle. Guys like you cheat on their wives. See what it is like to be accusatory with nothing to back it? Probably beat your kids too!
You think that is nice? Well, I think I am gong to start behaving like some of the jackass posters here and start shoving it back up your asses and make things up and post it simply to demean you in front of everyone.
As far as developing. Maybe time for domainers to realize they are domainers and not developers. Time to partner up with folks with that talent.
Rick Schwartz
The domain industry is made of 2 major groups of people. Some of the greatest and coolest people and some of the biggest assholes. That was why TRAFFIC was by invitation only for so may years. I don’t like hanging with assholes and as you can see by the comments, there are a lot of assholes still in this business.
Fortunately the assholes are still out numbered. However there are so many in the making following the lead and behavior of other assholes, that soon the good folks will be in the minority and folks will want TRAFFIC to be by invitation only again.
I am allergic to bullshit and assholes. Can handle any thing else. Folks that swallow bullshit, may eventually turn into assholes themselves. It is contagious.
Luckily assholes are easy to spot. Usually the moment they open their mouths.
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
We all know that Google is cutting revenues to domainers. I am launching a search engine channel UseBiz.com in the near future. We pledge to all domainers everywhere that we will even the playing field for direct search revenues. MSN,Yahoo and google all follow each others practices to the domainers disadvantage. If you all want the old days back again get behind and support the launch of UseBiz.com. Spread the word and promote this happening and we can all accomplish great things when we work together.
Gratefully,
Jeff
emma
Hey Rick! this is about people giving their opinions politely. You are supposed to be a well-respected and self-respecting person. I am surprised you are unable to give an argument, you prefer to bully and insult those who do not agree with your comments. I never expected this.
Rick Schwartz
@emma
I don’t agree or disagree with accusations and nonsense. Nobody”Uses” me There is nothing to”Create.” Facts and past sales speak for themselves.
“That’s why they create positive-sounding news about domain names business and send it to all domainers so that they can make them have hope that one day they will sell a domain and make money. They have to use peole like schwartz because of the influence ,”
emma
TRAFFIC was by invitation only? They make it look like that but it reality is not by invitation only, you can go to traffic if you pay your way. My friend went to Milan without being invited. He asked to go. He paid his way and went there. He told me there were various ways of making money there. People made money selling food, drink and place to stay to attendees. Why don’t they publicise the result of the conferences you organize (the number of attendees, how many domains where on sale and how many were sold, how many investors attended). This should be know before organizing another conference somewhere else.
Rick Schwartz
@Emma,
The invitation requirement for TRAFFIC was removed nearly 2 years ago.
Why don’t you post who you are? What you own? Every thing you say is second hand info?? You are ignorant of any FACTS and obviously way too lazy to go find out this information for yourself.
emma
lol lol lol lol, rick does not want to be left alone in the domain business. He wants to be with so many other domainers who do not make any money, who hope one day they will sell a domain and make some money, and this is good for rick because he is one of the few making money domaining ( being invited and speaking in in conferences and writing encouraging articles for various domain magazines or journal owned or co-owned by him or his friends). Rick, let me be frank to you. There is nothing in the domain world that you are doing for free. Everything you do or write you do it with the purpose of getting money direct or indirectly. If you are making money domaining, which I believe you do, then is fine, but don’t influence others when you know it’s too late to enter the business of domaining, and you just doing it because you know that will help keep on making money domaining, if not or if nobody has the impression that you can get rich domaining then you Rick will no longer make money domaining. How bank robbery rate in USA can down significantly? It came down when the banks came up with the idea of making the robbed money explode soon after it’s robbed, that discouraged bank robbers because they realized that there were no longer money to be made robbing a bank. Why robbing a bank if you will not make money? and why domaining or buying domain names if you can’t sell them. Domainers who don’t make money please quit. I don’t want you to waste your precious time, or develop your domain.
Rick Schwartz
No reason to answer”emma” directly anymore. HE has way too much time on his hands and is a FOOL at best. This is what they resort to when everything else fails. Keep talking, jerkoff
Just so you know, just between us”Girls”. I still think you are a loser.
An angry frustrated loser that could not make a living in a diamond mine.
Rick Schwartz
And speaking of PIGEON SHIT……I guess it was only to be expected that the frustrated pigeons would get all upset and come around and shit on me and you. Way too predictable”Friend”
If you put as much effort and time into your business you might find some level of success. Why waste it shitting here?
Jeff Schneider
Hello Rick,
The big boys are monitoring your site closely IE Yahoo,Google,MSN. After I made4 my comment about launching a search Channel IE UseBiz.com they all slashed my link count by 1500 links. Gee are you guys worried about some competition?? You all know who I am and you will try to bury me. Good Luck !
If you cannot beat them join them and then Beat them, but never, never forget where you came from. Yahoo, MSN, Google If you worried half as much about truly serving the people instead of protecting your turf it would be wise of you.
Gratefully,
Jeff
Domain Advisor
@Jeff – You need to redesign that UseBiz.com page. It’s cluttered looking and really hard to read with the colors and font face and size you have on there.
Michael
Hi Rick, I created the pigeon test today! I took a 100 $1000 domain names and made it so people can pick the 10 that they think are the most valuable. You hit the button and you see the results of everyones picks. I was wandering if you could pick out your top 10 and 10 top pigeon shit domains out of this list? I would like to put your picks in with the results so people can see the how a pro thinks. Thanks
http://www.3was.com/pigeon-test.php
Rick Schwartz
@Michael
That is actually a very good list of domains for the most part. Many of those would be absolute bargains for $1000. Many worth considerably more. A number of which could fetch 6 figures (Maybe more). That list is better than most folks portfolios. If somebody started there they would not fail. Most are developable and there is an audience for a number of them.
Compare that to the domains I receive on a daily basis, most drops. and then folks would truly understand. I just don’t want to embarrass anyone but I get lists of Pigeon Shit all day long.
Rick Schwartz
@Michael
One or two questions. How did you arrive that these are $1000 domains and WHEN? Are any CURRENTLY $1000 and on the market? And if not, what exactly was the point??
The only thing that would have TRUE value is assembling a list of CURRENT domains on the market for $1000 which this is obviously not. Should I put a domain I paid $100 in 1999 on the list? Or ones for registration fees?
Nice try, but you have to do it RIGHT, to come up with a REAL result. This is fun, but provide no real data or information. I hope you will take the time to do a true test as that WOULD have value. This is fun, but bogus.
Rick Schwartz
Folks, doing testing is very important. But you have to devise a true test not one with preordained results. When you do a REAL test you find out the answers. Even the ones you don’t want to find out. From there it is a matter if you can accept your own data. Some folks just test to get the result they want. So they go and follow mirages. So then it becomes a transparent agenda. Not a test. Not an experiment. Nothing controlled. Just an agenda to further a cause.
A test has to be methodical, deliberate, exact, controlled, not too many variables. Not too long, not too short. Once you miss those elements, you have no test. You are trying to accomplish something other than looking for an answer.
Rick Schwartz
So now that these are not $1000 domains and the entire premise of the test is false, it has no meaning. Any result you get is one you want to invent not find. That is a HUGE difference. I really do hope you take the time to come back and do the test in the right method to find a real result. That is 100 domains on the market TODAY for $1000. That would have meaning. The result would have meaning. This does not meet any requirements of a test. Just an uncontrolled group of domains that sold for various prices that you decided to label at $1000 each. Come on!
This is not a test. Do you understand that??
Take the time to do it RIGHT! Not trying to beat you up. Trying to show you that the results you get will always be flawed because of the way the test is. You deserve to get a result if you put in the time!
Mike
I looked at your list, http://www.3was.com/pigeon-test.php
Many good ones. The list contains Pipers.com which I won at the auction for $1,065 a few months ago. The seller never replied Snapnames’s many attempts to finish the transaction.
David J Castello
@emma:
“You can use banana as a domain name and be selling houses, computers, water or anything.”
Banana.com? Couldn’t agree with you more :)
steve
I can get people good domains in todays market.
The problem is it takes hours each day and I am so tired.
JOBSUPPLIER.COM
WEBCOLUMNISTS.COM
RAFTTOURS.COM
SHIPPINGCLERK.COM
walkerpouch.com
windowretailer.com
windowretailer.com
mnflorists.com for minnesota abbr.
hard to find
Michael Hallisey
Hi Rick, I made this last night and it was 5 in the morning when I finished its program. I read your article and wanted to build the test. I got the list from Silicon Valley 2009 auction. I started at the domains that sold for a $1000 and went up so I got the 1000’s and 2000’s up to 6000 on this list. Looking at it now I did shot over the $1000 mark a lot. I didn’t even think that these names could have already gone up in value. :) I want to make it right, with a new list. I just looked and there is a lot of websites selling domain names for a $1000 and lots of domain names! Before I make a new list do you have any places that you think I could make a good sample list from? Thanks
Emma
Hi Castello. How many domainers made money today, just selling domain names? Sedo and afternic? yes, Sedo and afternic made some money today. Did you Castello make any many today or anyday last week? no, you know I am right. Even Rick said I I am making some sense. Apple is a name of a technology producing company, Yahoo and google are search engines, chiquita means small in Spanish, yet chiquita is a banana distributor company. United is a name used by a successfull airline company where most, if not all other airline companies use names suggesting the service they are delivering. Can’t you still understand that you don’t need a generic or premium domain name to do business online?
Altaf
@Emma: You got points, but there could be better way to say it. Criticism is good when constructive.
Rick is an all time advocate of typeins which get automatic organic traffic without any cost of advertisements. e.g. Hotels.com will be always searched than other branded chains that took decades & advertisement costs to be known to people while the earlier one will be typed in or even searched in SE.
-With AW-who holds all traffic, it’s not easy all could afford or maintain to ads. Do you have others than AW to cite? Is not good to get free traffic? Also most names with typeins will have potential market/development now or future and always. How many branded names are there on the globe? Also you need additional development & maintenance costs of the domains.
-Ricks blog got openness for any views. We saw in the past, he never objected nor expunged any content. Why we need to attack each other with harsh lang.?
With best wishes!
steve
@Emma – Godaddy just emailed me one of my worthless domains sold for $2,000.
You are right about 1 side, but there are many sides to this cube. We found the side that makes money. People want good domain names and they only want that one domain name. So they buy it if you don’t try to rip them off.
It is all about sales and how to sell not about the domains. I let the pros sell for me.
emma
cheapcreditreport.com
rumors.com are not bad domain names, why are not they selling sing years on auctions.
Altaf
@Emma I remember once Rick(I did not know him who he was) wrote @Afternic possibly around 1998,that if only one person out of 6 bn enquired your domain,means you got one unique at least who was interested in your domain(Rick forgive me for not quoting exact theme).That is good that someone liked your name. Now cheapcreditreport.com( a 3 word domain) got less value than creditreport.com or cheapcredit.com ,means it has less demand.But there is certainly someone is watching this domain,let it be dropped & you will see what happens.Rumors.com is a good name not better than rumor.com.Definitely there is a customer,who badly needed this name, not yet saw your name (may be).It is not immediately sold does not mean that there is no potentiality or demand for it in the after market or no value for future. You drop this name and will see….
Be patient!
Have a great day!
Furkat
Thanks Rick for the article.
Do you know in some cultures caughtching a pegion shit is a sign of luck. I caught some shitty domain names in the past, then sold them at premium price. It depends how you market them. You can sell even shit, for example to a farmer :).
Cheers.