The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Evening Folks!!

This line that I authored and started using about a year ago is popping up over parked pages everywhere. In just a few weeks domainers have turned the corner and taken back their destiny. Whether you use it in conjunction with JointVentures.com or not, I will predict it will be on over 1 MILLION parked pages in the next few WEEKS! Maybe more! Why? Because it is powerful and it works.

Stop selling your best assets. Sell the crap and take those dollars and find leaseable domain names. The future really is here. If you owned a building in Times Square would you rush to sell or would you lease and have income for the rest of your life?

Have a Great Evening!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

My partner with JointVentures.com is busy working on our next phase for 2013, but has provided me with a few guest blog posts in a series he’s written to help folks get to know who he is and why I specifically chose him to help spearhead the next phase in my 20 year plan. This one is about the value in the pumping of oil and distributing it versus the selling of land with oil included. Here’s what I know in my gut...not a single one of us among “the 500” will live long enough to unlock the FULL value of what we own. I’ll let Danny explain what we both see in his words that smooth out some of my rough edges.

Rick Schwartz

By Danny Welsh

Parking domains is not the greatest way to tap the oil well, but it’s the best of what domain investors have had easily available for a number of years to unlock the value of the oil pumping up through gushers on their property (while leaving OCEANS of the most valuable oil deep down beneath the earth…out of reach).

No matter how many parties these domain parking companies throw for their customers, though… Rick Schwartz and I both believe that parking income is going to become the lowest common denominator for monetizing a great domain name as things evolve and the Net matures and mainstream business catches on to the sales potential of pairing a great domain with a great business.

No matter how pretty and ȕber-technical the platforms are that these domain sales churn-mills have created for domain owners to use, here is our position loud and clear and on the record for the record.

Any cash-only sale in the next few years for the BEST .com domain names
WILL prove to be a short-term gain giving up the possibility for
ongoing income…and even generational wealth.

Domain parking to me is the equivalent of a horny guy asking 25 women in a row 'Wanna have sex?' until finding one that will ‘double-click his mouse’.

It works to get a result— I can speak from experience in my early 20s ;) — but it ain't the best way to go about dating…much less starting a long-term relationship.

That said, I do agree with many that the best easily-implemented (and scaled) monetization solution for the next couple years may very well be parking companies owned and run by domainers, that cut the fat and negotiate pricing per click direct with the Google or Yahoo upstream providers of the world.

That's Frank Schilling's model with InternetTraffic.com and there's no surprise Rick Schwartz as well as many of 'the 500' have made the smart decision to become Frank's customers.

But what about after that next couple years?

Is domain parking alone as a monetization model for the rest of your life all you want for the very best of your premium dot com domain assets?

Are you content to sell the little bit of oil that bubbles up without effort from your oil well, and get paid in dribs and drabs while an OCEAN of VALUABLE CRUDE OIL lies beneath the surface on your land?

If so, roll the dice and hope the parking model continues that long!

(a little birdie with a big mouth tells me that parking earnings are off
90% from highs right now…and the BIG $$$ SQUEEZE is on for folks
that have bloated portfolios focusing on quantity, not quality)

Is selling your best premium dot com assets for today’s 6 or 7 figure price offered to you when you KNOW in your gut that their VALUE will continue going up all you want?

If you don’t think domain parking alone is the best solution for your best domain names, and you don’t want to sell your BEST properties for cash alone…you're probably right now like Rick himself has been in the last few years-- diligently searching for a new formula to unlock MUCH more of your property's value than parking income.

And if one cannot be found, maybe even like Rick have been tinkering with the idea of even creating that formula yourself.

In my inaugural guest post on RicksBlog I said I’d be posting in the future to answer this question:

How much difference is there between selling the oil for distribution, and retaining the land with the mineral assets versus selling the land itself and letting someone else have the produce of the wells drilled for oil? What are the parallels of the richest oil fields with the very best internet properties owned by domain name owners?

From what I can tell other than RICK SCHWARTZ it is RARE that a company agrees to buy a domain name (or an “oil well” in this analogy) with ongoing royalty income to the previous domain name owner.

There are LOTS of reasons for that,
but it ain't the VALUE of the oil well.

Billionaire ‘wildcatter’ oil man J. Paul Getty could explain it if he were still alive.

That's the guy known now for saying IIRC 'If you can physically count your money, you don't yet have a billion dollars.' The guy who in 1966’s Guiness Book of World Records was named the world’s richest man…that guy.

Early in his career, Getty saw the same thing in the parallel of oil companies: the longer-term, big-money, residual profits in the pumping of oil and distributing it for sale by the barrel (the deal J. Paul Getty wanted) versus the short-term, small-money, one-time profits in selling of land with oil included (the deal the oil buyers wanted).

He had to FIGHT to sell the oil he found by the barrel because the biggest players among oil buyers only wanted to buy the LAND and cut him out from residuals.

They SUCCEEDED in cutting out many other entrepreneurial ‘wildcatters’ that took the same risks Getty did and did the same work Getty did to FIND and TAP the same kind of oil wells. Gave ‘em a check and sent them on their way, to go on to make ROI’s unheard-of in history.

But not J. Paul Getty, oh no.

This guy had vision (and balls).

The man who would go on to become the richest man in the world was WEEKS from losing everything with billions of barrels of oil stockpiled in warehouses he could barely afford the lease payments on even while borrowing every dime he could get... facing a powerful group of companies that were offering to buy his land and oil wells but who REFUSED to pay per barrel for the oil the wells on those lands were producing.

But he didn't bow to the pressure to sell his assets without ongoing income.
“No, the land is not for sale”, Getty said. “Oil only”
[paraphrased]

You want to see a dozen Pure Domainers among the “500” on the Forbes billionaires list down the road? You want to have a chance for the mainstream business world to catch up and realize just how valuable these oil wells owned by top generic domain investors are (as they are realizing more and more by the DAY). You want to position yourself and your family for generational wealth?

It’s the same formula Getty used I believe, and it ain’t reinventing the wheel. It’s just looking at history and how things unfold, and assigning a value to what you own…refusing to accept less no matter how great the pressure gets.

(And you ain’t seen NOTHING yet if you think the pressure to sell at today’s price is great right now. Wait ‘til the media gets ahold of what is happening with this growing trend of domain name owners refusing to sell their best .com properties for cash only. The first mainstream stories in 2013 will NOT be pretty. They will paint domain investors as greedy. Scavengers. Squatters. Assholes. Inhibitors of progress. Infringers. Every name in the book.)

This year we’ll share many more deals completed using the formula for unlocking ongoing 'forever' value with royalties that was CREATED FOR RICK SCHWARTZ BY RICK SCHWARTZ that now others too can use and share in— IF their domains are of top-shelf quality, and they too want a part of the 'forever' vision for earnings as a great domain name becomes part of a GREAT business run by a passionate and qualified end user company.

But our deals are only part of the equation. The real power lies in the community of the 500, and that small number of domain name owners beyond that fortunate 500 that have one or more domain names that are valuable enough as of RIGHT NOW to be leased to the right company for 100x parking income.

You want to really shake things up among the big oil buyers?

Imagine thousands of the most premium category-defining domain names in the world, all owned by independent companies, and for each “How much is this domain to buy?” inquiry, the reply is: “Not for sale, lease only!”

Pair that resolve with a firm stance not to accept any sale (at any amount) for your best domain name properties that does not include at least some ongoing royalty revenue or other income. Pair that with a string of growing Candy.com success stories that will show that we are proposing a WIN-WIN, and not taking advantage of any company, and that will make the media back off and change their tune that will be calling domain investors “greedy”.One day they will call you VISIONARIES, just like they do the Getty’s of the world. Even Frank talks of Getty from his post nearly 3 years ago.

So let the oil flow downhill, where it’s going, for now. Sell the trickle of oil that comes up in your wells with no effort via domain parking. Keep the income coming in, without any interruption. So will Rick Schwartz for the next few years, with few exceptions for different crazy marketing tests I talk him into. :) That’s fine.

But do this too for the next 3 years and we believe you cannot lose: Tell the companies that want to buy your oil well itself that it’s not for sale in a cash-only transaction. Tell them you KNOW how big the OCEANS of oil are underneath. Tell them you MUST share in the upside with a fair ongoing income once the well is worked to bring that ocean of salable oil to the surface.

Whether you’re part of our 300 with JointVentures.com or not this year, the game is the same.

Now is not the time to fold. It’s time to double down on the bet you already made.

Channel your inner wildcatter.

Because, to quote the man Getty: “The meek may inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights”.

Morning Folks!!

Some folks are unemployed and some folks have no jobs. And yes, there is a difference.

Unemployed people react on one way and those without a job might look at things differently. First of all even if you are unemployed you can be a 'Consultant' if you have real experience in something. So a Consultant may be between jobs but he is not unemployed. A distinction with no difference? I don't think so.

One may be home getting an unemployment check and the other out shaking the bushes trying to make something happen. Both have the same circumstance. No income. The guy shaking the bushes likely does not even get unemployment benefits because he/she may have been in sales. So there is no weekly check. Those folks need to make something happen.

I think that is where 'Sweat Equity' comes into play. Just like the old farms of the west. They could not afford the 'Hands' but 'Hands' would show up hoping that the harvest would yield dollars for them too. They had faith and they did not have much more than that.

Today everything is a start up. It's much better than being a consultant. But it still at a point where no income is coming in. How do you get something going? Those hands of the west are now folks willing to work with 'Sweat Equity'. Few do that. It is a rare bird. A rare bird that will work with passion and walk away each day with zero income and come back the next day even more passionate and eager than the day before. Where failure is just not an option. Where a vision is so strong it overrides all the bullshit that comes your way.

Sweat Equity. Only problem is you need a talent to start with or there is nothing to sweat and no equity to be had. So what can you bring to the table? How can you make FIRE?? Fire is made with 2 sticks. Opportunity is made with the mind and thoughts. Both can change the world. But it is hard when all most folks do is look for matches. Look for the quick and easy answer. Afraid of the heavy lifting required to really make a difference.

Sweat equity means believing in yourself to reach a specific goal and probably a common goal among a few....or many. It means that challenges are met with solutions and solutions are what gives you the passion and motivation to press on. Any team is only as strong as the weakest link and when you have a groug of gung-ho people striving for something sensational, then that energy feeds on itself. It makes things rise and makes things happen.

Why ever have a job again when you can own your future. When you can contribute to something that has the potential to become very big. The true challenge is knowing there are a million barkers on each corner and only a few have anything of true value. So you figure out a test. A bar. A minimum that something must meet. For me, the bar I seem to use most these days are NEED, WANT, DESIRE. Those seem to be the comment elements on the way to a sale. On the way to a deal. On the way to Broadway.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz