Morning Folks!!
A Good Business Can Work Hard
and Smart to Become Great with ANY Domain Name but a Great Domain Name can
Transform a Good Business to GREAT…Instantly
By Danny Welsh
The highest and best use of a Category.com domain name is either a
hungry growth-oriented company that is qualified and passionate with big ideas
and big ambitions to grow into a category leader (think: Melville Candy now owning Candy.com) OR an established
company looking to increase their dominance online leveraging existing
products, services, and relationships in the “category” of that business just
doing more sales online (think: Bank of
America now operating Loans.com)…
And either of those companies already had a “domain name” matching
their company they could have done just fine with…so why does Bank of America
with its established brand want Loans.com so bad they pay big $$$ for it? Why
does a company in business for decades suddenly want to change its branding to
Candy.com as the very FIRST move in wanting to increase market share?
It’s easy to realize once you realize, but until you do…people wonder,
is it really THAT valuable to operate a business using Category.com?
Yes…it IS.
But Category.com the branding
tool isn’t for the most part in most industry categories being used for that
young, hungry company that wants to be in the Inc 500. And Category.com the asset isn’t for the most part in most
industry categories being leveraged by that established company that is already
part of the Fortune 500.
How do I know this? Because all you need to do is type in a dozen
examples off the top of your head for www.PRODUCT.com or www.SERVICE.com and
you’ll find a few websites that obviously belong to a REAL business selling
REAL products to REAL people, and a few that obviously…don’t.
If you look over the available domain names on JointVentures.com you’ll
see ASSETS with only a fraction of the fantastic opportunity packaged within
them for making SALES being exploited…one nickel at a time earning income through
a monetization strategy called “domain parking”.
And all the rest of the benefits that causes a Bank of America earn
millions with a Loans.com or Melville Candy company earn millions with a
Candy.com is so far being SQUANDERED in the case of the shrinking number of
listings available each month from the month previously on JointVentures.com,
as each of those assets is in the hands of someone who does NOT have a
“Category” business.
The questions people ask is WHY aren’t the owners DOING anything constructive
with that crappy website filled with nothing but pay-per-click links on
DOMAINIWANTTOBUY.com?
There are many reasons. But it all comes back to supply and demand,
need and want, opportunity and probability. And an incredible story of risk and
ridicule on the part of 500 or so entrepreneurial people 20 years ago…that in
the coming decades I believe will provide Harvard Case studies for a century or
more in MBA classes.
If you’re reading this blog,
increasingly you found it because you want to buy one of those scarce generic
.com domain names, only now you’re realizing maybe you waited too long
and you simply can’t afford to make the investment to acquire the ONE domain
name you want MOST for your business without forking over more money than you’re
yet sure that branding tool or asset is worth…
And
you’re hesitating…wondering if the .com you want that is available for
$8000/quarterto LEASE is truly THAT much better than
the .net available for $8.99 to BUY.
You’re afraid to make a mistake, either way. Am I right?
I can’t blame you. You see, I was there not long ago when I stumbled
onto this very blog in 2010 with my eye on one of those domain names to use in
my own business.
Of course, if the PRICE is justified we business owners will invest the
money to acquire an asset that makes us more money…but IS IT really justified?
Is it really possible that something could sell for $100 twenty years ago and
the guy who owns it in 2013 and wants $10,000,000 this year OR $10,000 per
month is not simply full of shit?
Welcome to my world, my new friend. The world of eRealEstate, where a
www.Clothes.com is an asset that trades hands for millions of dollars between a
small company that gets bought by a larger company even when it hasn’t even yet
been USED properly, while a www.Clothes.crap ain’t worth…well…crap.
Come in a little closer
because we don’t want your competitors to hear this explosive information that
you’re going to be reading about in Inc, Fortune, Forbes and Entrepreneur
Magazine VERY SOON.
The CEO at your competitor’s company is too busy chasing sales when
you’ve just stumbled onto what may very well be the most powerful way to
ATTRACT SALES that the 20th century wasn’t yet ready to realize,
that even 5 years ago most companies on Main Street America still had no clue
about…
But that a small group of 500
very smart men and women called “domain investors” realized 20 years ago and
‘bet the farm’ for 20 years that one day you’d be right here, right now,
reading this and saying “What do you
mean, what I want to buy and am offering cash money for is NOT for sale?”.
So slow down, settle in, and get educated by your future business
partners (that’s us).
Your small and already successful business can become INSTANTLY more
successful if you make the RIGHT.com choice, and/or your start-up idea you’re
passionate about bootstrapping into a commercial success can be INSTANTLY
railroaded into a mistake that will cost you for years if you make the
www.wrong.choice
Are you following me?
Allow me a small history lesson, news
you will probably be SHOCKED to learn but that not a single investigative
reporter on the planet can refute.
Just about 500 men and women who had a VISION for the
FUTURE in 1994 that many people thought were CRAZY now own most of the PREMIUM land
under which the “developments” on the Internet are built…
And they own most of this .com “internet real estate”
OUTRIGHT.
One of them is named Rick Schwartz, a man many people are bitter
towards, calling him a “greedy cyber squatter” or a “lucky bastard” or simply
and eloquently quite often a “Fucking Jew Asshole” .
Please forgive my language here, but it’s true. We could show you
HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of emails that have come to Rick Schwartz alone
UNSOLICITED offering to BUY his internet real estate and when for 18 years he’s
told people it’s not for sale…they scream bloody murder and call him every name
in the book. Does screaming “So and so is a bad person” make that person a bad
person? Of course not!
(Multiply that by 500 and you’re getting an idea of the world these
people live in daily, people who own the very BEST of .com domain names like
those available exclusively through JointVentures.com… and maybe you’ll get an
idea why they don’t many times even have enough TIME IN THE DAY to respond to
all of the “I’ll offer you $xxxx for Product.com” emails some well-meaning
folks like you and me—and some nuts too—send them when you were ATTRACTED to
their retail location on the internet hoping to use the same location to
ATTRACT your future customers.
Rick Schwartz…
“greedy cyber squatter”?
“lucky
bastard”?
“Fucking
Jew Asshole”?
I don’t think so. This is the same very giving man who has
successively become my eRealEstate landlord from whom I lease a domain name I
would have preferred to buy, who has become a mentor, and now a partner to me
with JointVentures.com.
If you’ll allow me to, I’ll show you how Rick Schwartz the “domainer”
can be generous AND selfish at the same time, but at no time is he simply lucky
or has he done anything wrong.
Rick
Schwartz and the other 500 VISIONARIES like him have been looking for YEARS for
the way to FAIRLY make the most of their so-called “luck” to invest every dollar they could get their hands on one $100 bet after another to register .com generic domain names HOPING, THINKING,
PREDICTING, and finally KNOWING that years later you’d be right here, right now wanting to BUY for $xxx,xxx what’s
simply not for sale…
They’ve been looking for YEARS for ways to offer the market the
profitable use of an asset that they were called crazy to risk 1/1000 of that
amount to buy that you’re trying to give them today only to be told your offer
is simply too low.
And they are NOT the “bad guys”,
really they are not.
How can this be, when they have what you want and won’t let you have
it?
It’s because they were the underdogs 20 years ago that beat the
Goliaths to the punch, who saw what the internet would look like and predicted
how human nature would cause things to evolve…
Before there was a Google
even to search the internet these 500 visionaries were investing in “.com”.
Before everybody was
Twittering all over your Facebook, these smart people made a BET that
has turned into an investment in that which has become the most widely used
IDEA in the history of mankind in little more than 20 years.
Before there was a
Godaddy.com running commercials showing you how “easy” it is to get
your “cheap” domain name to use for a website and email in minutes, they
labored through a painful and time-consuming process to register domain names
$100 at a time and paid for them by MAIL.
They BOUGHT ALL OF THE LAND
WORTH OWNING UNDER THE INTERNET…and they did it one investment at a time to
build a portfolio of .com “domain names” 20 years before you even knew you’d want
a website for your business, or that when you DID want one…that if you wanted
the very best location for your online store it would need to be built on that
LAND they owned— or alternative land that was inferior in so many ways.
Now here we are today in 2013.
I have convinced 100 of the most successful visionary domain name
owners in the world to give ME an opportunity to give YOU an opportunity.
To allow me to marry a great domain name with a good business that
wants to become GREAT…or a GREAT business that wants to keep any good business
in their niche category from using this tool to knock them off in the future as
that competitor who’s small now becomes GREAT.
Cue the music for the story about FTD and 1-800-Flowers anyone?
It’s the same horse race that happened with vanity phone numbers, only
bigger stakes.
Here’s what I told
them: “Mr. Domain Owner: You can offer deserving small companies an affordable
chance to build a great business and brand on the great generic premium .com
domain name and take a nice cut, or big companies an affordable opportunity to
lease the domain name they’d have bought if it were sale at a price you’d
accept while it continues to go up in value every year even though you do
nothing. And both sides can be protected
in case of success OR failure with all terms fully spelled out going into the
deal.”
They said YES.
And as we roll through 2013, a record number of companies doing
creative deals to get the ONE domain name that can change their business for
the better forever are saying YES too.
ATTRACTION is a powerful thing, is it not?
Danny Welsh
JointVentures.com
Joe
Unfortunately not every business can afford to spend 6-7 digits on a domain name.
Rick Schwartz
But they sure can afford a $1000-$2000/month equipment lease or it ain’t much of a business to begin with.
Rob Sequin
Great article!
Businesses will dump $10,000 for a full page ad in a magazine for one month but not see the value in a great domain. Some companies still spend lots of money on yellow pages, guides and newspapers but don’t appreciate the power of a good domain. Strange.
Anyway, if you don’t mind some self promotion, I am happy to talk with any small to large business about acquiring category defining or brandable domains for their business with my domain buyer broker service.
Curious
I agree that generic domains are a smart buy…for the right price…but paying 3 million for candy.com was just plain dumb in my opinion. Why does Rick own”more” of candy.com as he posted weeks back? Started at 1%…now what is the number did Rick say? hmmmm – how much more could he possibly own next year?
Curious
It always amazes me how much companies promote Facebook and Twitter for FREE! Crazy…they should just spend their money on a really good – easy to remember – domain name…promote that and then if they must put one of those little social network logos on their page…when will they learn? Never…
Rick Schwartz
It’s called”Exercising an option”
But when you can only make one dimensional sales……..folks can only negotiate dollars.
That is not the future IF you own category defining domain names.
mjnels
“But they sure can afford a $1000-$2000/month equipment lease or it ain’t much of a business to begin with.”
maybe, but there are TONS of”not much of a business” type things that exist out there and still have value.
i may not be”much of a business” or the target for a”prime generic .COM” but i’ve never had a full time job and have worked for myself on the internet the last 10 years…it simply funds living life.
RaTHeaD
morgan linton had a nice post today… http://morganlinton.com/3-common-mistakes-startups-make-when-picking-a-domain-name/
DonnyM
Yes They can afford to spend it and they will.
If they can spend 5-10k for a yellow page advertisement with a shitty name, then they will spend a few thousand a month for a solid two-worded generic name that they can remember. It is a matter of educating the business about using the right name. This is where JV is going to connect it all.
Same goes for billboards,radio, and print. Bad name = Bad results.
DonnyM
Curious
On jointventures.com this is stated,”In 2010, the small candy company that now operates Candy.com in partnership with our company recouped their $3,000,000 investment in buying the domain name within about 12 months by way of new sales and business growth”
Wow! So the domain name costs 3 million and almost right away they”net” 3 million! Is that right? That would be amazing…
ri.sk
What exactly is the domain ‘value’ that businesses
are leasing via jointventures.com?
Are deals based solely on the traffic they get?
Ramahn
The problem is that a lot of companies feel their biggest shot at reaching a large potential customer base is to get”likes” or”followers” on social networking sites. whateve.r the craze of the year is…they are all on it…and when that craze fades away…they go on to the next flavor of the year. If you want to be a big dogg …OWN your industry.com…OWN your niche.com. Then you get to play on YOUR land, go by YOUR rules and get ALL of the traffic to yourself.
Jeff Schneider
Hi Donny,
I could not agree with you more. Words leave lasting impressions in our subconscious minds, much as words to a catchy tune we can’t get out of our minds. Words have the power to heal or to wound. Many of our thought driven actions are based on words. Words are the gateway to understanding and then reacting. The right words have unlocked the door to untold rich’s now and in the past.
Some things never change and these truths are opening the doors for some already, and soon many many more.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact group) (Metal Tiger)
Danny Welsh
RE:”What exactly is the domain ‘value’ that businesses
are leasing via jointventures.com? Are deals based solely on the traffic they get?”
No, but good question. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some leasable domains– Rick has taught me to recognize them– have almost zero traffic but they have real generic meaning matching nouns and some adjectives/verbs as modifiers. .com with a real word or phrase that matches a product, service, audience etc.
Most leasable domains, however, get significant”type in visitors” (at least the ones we’ve been concluding deals for do in most part).
What’s funny is that when I wrote the content for JointVentures.com a lot of it was pulled from the archives of this very blog…and polished up a bit, angled only to the end user and not the domainer…but a lot was also my own research on the benefits of domains as a guy who HOPED to buy one of Rick’s eRealEstate properties.
I was like a detective, trying to figure out if this guy Rick Schwartz really was full of crap or what to charge $3,000,000 for something that was once available for $100.
The results of my own findings are written up in a persuasive oriented fashion designed to educate other business owners that just don’t know much about domains. Good place to start is the”benefits” tab.
HTH
Danny Welsh
JointVentures.com
Vishal
Great Post.
I have said this before in one of the comments and I will repeat it again. Whether the end user is young or old – the fact is they relate to .COM. Maybe they are brain washed or as we say”creature of habits”, .COM is established and people relate to it.
Every few weeks some client will ask me to acquire a .COM. I tell them its out of their budget. Why don’t they look at .DE or .CO.UK and nearly always I get the answer – .COM is global. I even argue that you only cater for UK and still I get a similar response that everyone knows .com.
I am talking about small businesses here who may not be able to lease domains at 500$ or 3000$ a month but you can clearly see that they value a .COM. It is similar with end users. They know a .COM whereas the new tld’s only make the .COM stronger because who remembers these crappy tld’s. They only dilute the market which works in favour of com. When there is too much choice and confusion – people go back to what was there, is there and will remain there.
Jo
Brilliant.