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

Morning Folks!!

After a 30 second discussion early this morning, Howard and I have agreed to do TRAFFIC West just before the ICANN meeting in San Francisco next March. T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ICANN RETREAT.
This show will be a uniquely different TRAFFIC of which details will be coming out in the days ahead. We will announce those details in South Beach. You may see a few hints a little later in something that will be published soon. But T.R.A.F.F.I.C. ICANN RETREAT will be another milestone in the story of domains and domaining.
Now back to your regularly scheduled Monday and remember, ticket prices go up $300 on Friday for TRAFFIC Miami.
Rick and Howard

Morning Folks!!

In this post I will give you some rapid fired do's and don’ts that will change how you make more sales for more dollars and KNOW when you have reached THEIR top dollar. Nothing worse than a guy having a $250,000 budget for a domain that you end up selling to them for $250. Want to avoid that?? Pay close attention.

1. DO NOT set a price right away

2. Don’t answer questions

3. Ask Questions

4. Ask more questions

5. Answer the questions they pose with a question

6. Buy time

7. Don’t commit, think about it

8. Do the research.

9. Don’t be lazy

10. Know the difference between a domain name that has value that others want and pigeon shit that only one person in 6 billion thinks is valuable. That is why TYPE INS are the key. I don't care if the get 5 a day or 55 a day or 55,000. Just stay away from ZERO because when you double ZERO you got ZERO.

11. Be vague

12. Do not commit

13. Keep is ALL in writing

14. Don’t get weak knees

15. Don’t flip out when you don’t hear back for a few days or weeks or even months.

16. NEVER, EVER, EVER, contact them back before they contact you back. That is WEAK and that email or phone call will likely cost you dearly as they FEEL your weakness.

17. Don’t “Pitch” the domain name. If they contacted you, they already know why.

18. Look at it as a game. Nothing more, nothing less. Those that are busy getting pissed never win the game because they are too busy being pissed.

19. Anything goes in a negotiation so don't take anything seriously until it is all over and the buyer and seller can have a beer. Then you can each tell the other how full of shit you were during the back and forth and have a GREAT laugh! That's what you get when both parties walk away happy and as winners.

20. Deals are about formulas. Just because the first ones does not work does not mean you give up. By asking questions you find out what is important to them and you can work with that. So be creative and imaginative. Keep coming up with ideas until you find a fit.

'When you see John Jones through John Jones eyes, you will sell John Jones what John Jones buys.'

No one post will make you a salesman. It takes time and practice and more than that, replaying where you went wrong when you don’t make a sale. Many books have been written on selling. Many are great and will change your life because you look at things differently.

Some sales are very easy because there is no bullshit. A conversation of what each party wants can do wonders. But you have to be dealing with more savvy folks that know what they want and a realistic outlook.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

Everyone always wants to know what my technique is for selling a domain name is. Problem is when I tell those techniques I am met with all types of people telling me I do this wrong or that wrong when in fact, they are wrong.

First, don’t take it too seriously or personal. The chances of you selling a domain for big money is small. However you can sell something undervalue and do it easily. Like selling $100 bills for $85. Do you REALLY believe you need a talent to do that??

I rarely send out the same reply as each offer is unique. Well almost unique. 98% of offers are a waste of time. But most get sucked in and WASTE THEIR TIME! They get hooked by weeks of back and forth email. Me, I blow them away with one email. One email let’s me know who and what I am dealing with. Usually a one word answer or whatever I feel like. I WANT TO PISS THEM OFF!!

This is the time that everyone starts shaking their heads. Keep being wrong. You can’t piss off a REAL buyer! A REAL buyer has their eye on the prize and they just laugh and get back to business. The 98% get pissed off and that proves my point.

Now you can’t do this unless you have a UNIQUE item for sale. If 50 people sell the same thing at the same price, then you need to find a way to kiss ass. To do a lot of things. But domains are different and if you don’t know that, you are wrong again.

Of course it is always good to have something of value to sell to begin with. Does not work so well if you have pigeon shit. But, if you have a domain of value, most domineers leave MOST of the money on the table and goes into the pocket of the buyer not the domainer.

Selling a domain is much more involved then just sending back a price. You need to do research. You need to think. You need to think well into the future. You need to find someone with a BIG idea. THAT is part of the sale. The domain is only as valuable as their idea. Again, blow away the 98% asap and stop wasting your time.

DO NOT answer emails from other domainers. Oh, you don’t know how to spot SPAM from a domainer?? Then learn! Pretty obvious. But so many of you jump up and down when you get an inquiry on a domain and most are other domainers. Wrong direction!

Now I don’t have all the answers and I am sure most of you won’t agree. But most of you have not sold 6 and 7 figure domains as a habit. Sometimes my domain is not that good. BUT I AM! I know what to look for. I know the elements of a big deal or a whale on the line. I know by so many things by the words they use, by the tone, by the signature. Everything is a clue.

We also have our own techniques that may work for me and won’t for someone else. But those skills and techniques need to be learned by practice. But even practice has limits. Limits because the #1 factor is human nature and until you learn to read and interpret human nature, the results will never be what they could or should be.

Just like this post. 80% of you won't agree with what I am saying here. But I am talking to the 20% that gets it and the 80% have the same opportunity to understand what I say. But they are too busy being pissed by my words which is what I described above. That is because I understand the human nature aspect and you ain't buying no matter what I say and no matter what proof I present. So why waste the time convincing them?? I have 20% that are willing to understand and that is a much better investment of time. Clear out the 80%. The NOISE of life.

And of course the most important word in selling is saying “No”. So when folks ask me how I managed to get $750k for iReport.com I tell them the TRUTH. I said NO a hell of a lot. For months. Month after month. Learn to say “No” It is the most powerful tool in your tool box.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!

Last week we ran a contest for a Cabana at TRAFFIC South Beach:

'T.R.A.F.F.I.C. SOUTH BEACH will be as hot as South Beach itself. Our Security Guards will have the best legs on the beach. But, before the show even starts, T.R.A.F.F.I.C. will be giving away a free Poolside Cabana to the Domainer who can explain to folks why T.R.A.F.F.I.C. is virtually free because of all the business they do. Perhaps just one event that changed your destiny. One deal that will pay you forward for a lifetime. What value did that really have as opposed to the expense of coming? Just send us a short story or essay by midnight tomorrow by return email. Winner will be announced later this week.

Each cabana will come stocked with a bottle of Champagne, bottles of water and soda, a flat screen T.V. (to watch football, of course), 6 Chairs, towels and of course service by one of our HOT cabana girls. The T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Cabana Girls will make your weekend a little more enjoyable. A little more pampered. We expect more than 100 folks for the weekend before the show even starts.'

And the winning comment came to this from a guy that travels half the world to come TRAFFIC and has done it as much or more than anyone.

Michael Gilmour Wins TRAFFIC Contest for Poolside Cabana!!!

'Anyone that doesn't get value fromTRAFFIC is either blind or dead.'
Michael Gilmour of ParkLogic.com

Congratulations to Michael for telling it like it is! I am sure Michael wants to invite ALL domainers to HIS cabana for some fun with the girls of Modelstore.com. :-)

And Mr. Gilmour is right of course and everyone knows it. That's why TRAFFIC means BUSINESS! That's why a guy that pays much more to get to TRAFFIC than anyone else can make a statement like this and leave his home and family for a 24 hour flight each way for almost every show.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Afternoon Folks!!

We are still ironing out the details but as you know the last breakfast is not that heavily attended as folks are partied out andf getting ready to check out. But this year will be different. Don't run anywhere. We plan to host Rob Monster's SwapFest right at TRAFFIC.

Details to follow.....

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

My job was the same as the gold miner EXACTLY 100 years before. Mine as much gold as fast as possible and don't worry about anything until you lay your stake and get back to town. Their premise with a different booty. Their trail with a different prize.

Coincidentally I was in Alaska in 1998 on a cruise. The centennial of the gold rush. I did not know that before I went and when I found out, my body shuttered. We were walking an historical parallel. I already knew that and with oil wells I based my everything on that viewpoint. But what I had were gold mines that were also spewing oil. And they were not in Alaska, they were in Times Square and by the Ocean and other places people pass and are interested in going to.

But the moment I learned of the EXACT time and there was a second parallel, it did something to me that I will never forget. I never looked back after that moment. The moment that destiny proves you are on some exact path and your job is to stay on course no matter what the naysayers say. No matter the snickers. No matter the laughs. No matter what. I became an Evangelist. Not for religion, but for domains. For increasing business. For beating your competition. For being the best in your category. For reaching the next level no matter what that level is. I preached since 1996, but now it was a different level. Now I had confirmed what it was that I saw and could go out with a bolder more confident message.

The Internet was still the enemy. Most companies were yet to have an online presence let alone doing any ecommerce. Media wanted to put a dagger thru the heart of this beast and kill it. Today you can see why they were so scared. But then, who knew?

And then there was that one other magical moment on that trip. We were one day behind Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and an all celebrity cruise. It was just then that Gates had been crowned the richest man in the world for the first time. I was on some sort of a magic carpet and whatever doubts I may have had before that trip, never surfaced again.

But I bought a miners hat on that trip and started to wear it. See I was thankful that while many thousands died searching for gold, I had the luxury of sitting in my bathrobe in a warm safe home and do the same thing they did. It was my tribute and my guilt.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Afernoon Folks!!

I accidentally stumbled on my ORIGINAL eRealestate.com site. This is circa January 1998 thru April 2000 and has not been updated in over a decade. This was my running collection of thoughts from that point in time adding as needed. It was originally my DomainSeller.com circa 1996-1998.

So for those that need a place to start or need a tune up or need some perspective and history or need some motivation or whatever, see it thru my eyes back then. No Google. No PPC. No domain tools of any sort whatsoever. The Internet was the enemy of Main Street and the Media. They never missed a moment to remind us how risky online purchases were. NSI was all we had and that was pitiful. The majority was just getting their first email address but only about 20%-25% until that point.

So I left a bread trail of words and thoughts and ideas from day one for anyone that cared to see what I saw and go where I was heading. Or not. I never put a gun to anyone's head. To this day the trail only has a few hundred on it. But when you realize that almost everything in the future starts with a domain name, that is a far cry from a decade ago. That was insanity. Life is good when you are crazy. The trail will turn into a street and then a highway as more and more see the future.

Here is the key comment among a lot of jewels:

'But just like a 5 year old child......you can't blame them for not being 20! You must be patient as the child or in this case until the net matures.'

This is the transition site as Domainseller morphs into eRealEstate.com

My BEST, most important papragragh I EVER posted on the Internet came from this page. Circa 1996:

Why is this medium becoming so powerful?
'One reason may be that in cyberspace nobody knows if you are black or if you are white, if you are rich or poor, tall or short, fat or skinny, clean or dirty, handicapped, healthy, Christian or Jew etc., ....They know only two things....the content of what you have to say and a way to communicate effectively to people from all walks of life and from around the globe. Plus the value you put on your own character. Consisting of your credibility, your honesty, your integrity, and your devotion to do things the right way without taking advantage of others. This will be either your greatest asset or a liability that will inevitably be your downfall. You don't judge a book by its cover, In cyberspace you are judged by your content.'

Check out the News from 1999 and Vote on which Flash Site you like best. The designer is a very famous domainer today from South America.

Had I not looked at the Internet in a way that showed the mountain it really was, the EPIC marathon to come, I would have been off the path from the get go. Though I sprinted on a daily basis I knew then that it would be a long hard slog composed of countless sprints. My job was the same as the gold miner EXACTLY 100 years before. Mine as much gold as fast as possible and don't worry about anything until you lay your stakes and get back to town. The next post talks about the Gold Rush and the parallels with domaining.

Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz.

Morning Folks!!

The Men.com deal was headlines around the entire world from CNN to some 125 newspapers and more. If not for that sale, I doubt TRAFFIC would have happened in 2004. The Men.com sale gave me more mileage than anything else I ever did. But did I want to sell? No.

I was divorced just months before. I did not see it coming and most of my cash went with it. Some $5M at the time between cash and property. But most importantly, my domains, home and other critically important things were kept. (Maybe I should have talked to MM) But it took me out of the 'Domain Game' during a very important point in time. So I missed a very potent unique opportunity and had to focus on rebuilding my life until 2005 when I purchased Property.com to replace my previous 'Crown Jewel'.

This is the first time I am ever telling this story. I think I only realized the impact on my life when I looked back earlier this summer and began to analyze things. But hey, you deal the hand you are dealt and make the best of it every day of your life.

Could have been a lot worse.

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz

Good Evening Folks!
There are certainly a lot of deserving people in the industry that should get this Pioneer Award from Epik.com and I accept it in behalf of every one of them. Nobody can pioneer an industry alone. It takes a lot of people pushing something that has yet to prove itself and have some level of success doing it. So for all the pioneers, this is for you. I am merely one spoke in a wheel that few understand just how big and meaningful it is. Time will prove that. History will prove that. The numbers are proving that.

As I have said since the get go, “Domains are a unique opportunity in time” and “no commodity in the history of mankind will go up so far so fast” and continues to skyrocket. There is no doubt that the best years are still in front of us.

I know not everyone has liked my style or my thoughts. But I also hope they notice they have benefited from all the pioneers that put themselves out there and push things along. Sometimes we have successes, and sometimes we have failures. But even in failure we know that progress is made. That we are just a little closer to the goal for the next attempt.

Babe Ruth was the best Baseball Player in history. But he did not make the most money. The big dollars came many decades later. So no matter what domains sell for today, it is but a fraction of what they will be in a decade from now. That is why there is still so much opportunity. While other asset classes are losing value, or even imploding, domains keep increasing and going against every thing else.

So I want to thank Rob Monster and the other members of the selection committee of Epik for choosing me to receive this very special award of recognition. I have worked thousands of hours in behalf of the future of domains and what we all do and love. This makes it all worth the time, effort and arrows.
The video tribute was quite moving. It brought me to tears.So good to see such good friends and qualified domainers saying such nice things. Priceless. So a special thanks to each of you and the comments here. Special Thanks to Mike and Judi Berkens who went way out of their way to make this happen. Danny Pryor for putting it together and Owen Frager for jumping on another windmill.

Plus such kind words from all of you. Ari Goldberger, Warren Royal, Rob Grant, Mike Zappy Zappolin, Chuck Hatcher, Frank Schilling, Dr. Chris Hartnett, David Castello, Michael Castello, David Carter, Monte Cahn, Grant Keiser, Aron Meystedt, Bruce Marler, Vern Jurovich, Ron Jackson, Owen Frager, Mike Mann, Danny Pryor, Howard Neu, Mike Berkens, Judi Berkins and Bandit.

Epik Reaction from The Domains on Vimeo.

Thank you. Truly Priceless.
Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

All too often I see companies that strike gold and sellout
to the first buyer that comes along waving $$$ in their face. But why sell?? If
you hit a gusher, why not keep it? I think the hardest thing you can do is have
a successful business. And if you do have success, why get rid of it? Why sell it?


Unfortunatey sometimes this actually stunts growth and
progress. If my memory serves me right, many years ago IAC bought utrade.com. They bought them because imho they were a threat to uBid.com (which I believe sucks and sucks really bad) and quickly dismantled it. I have seen this play out over and
over again.

Had uTrade.com stayed on the scene with the plan they had, we would
have all been better off. To this day, they had the single best co-branded, lead generating program that was ever on the net imo.

My traffic was growing. My earnings were growing. They were growing. They paid a $5 bounty for each signup. No BS. Each time they got a valid name and member for free it was $5. They new the value of that sign up and they knew the rest was up to them to convert. That added up to about $1300/day with my eBid.com and was growing every single day. It was when I truly learned about ratios and closing rates and targeted traffic.

1 visitor in 1000 to signup was really potent traffic. Normal was 1 in 10,000 or more. The thinking at the time was the best was about 1 in 800. Well the book got rewritten by ebid.com. We broke not only 1 in 800. Not only 1 in 500. Not only 1 in 100. But imagine 5 in 100?? Absolutely unheard of at that time. But THIS is the spark that happens with a perfect match of a site and traffic. So while others debate, I already know and it has been proven.

Then via Avenue A, they wanted to buy my eBid.com. Their offer was $60,000. I laughed in their face. I explained they have been buying the traffic for $30k a month, why would I sell for $60k?? To that, they stopped buying my traffic and have never had contact since.

Today, utrade.com a parked page and owned by Match.com. eBid.com is a parked page and is still owned by me and has earned many times that $60k offer so many years ago. I always get offers, but the earning power still makes it a keeper. uTrade.com was a model to copy, not destroy.