I’m Going Big Game Hunting – Who’s With Me?

Do you ever look in the mirror and say to yourself, “Time to step-up my game?” I do every single day and work my butt off to do everything I can to step-up my game. Back in 2007/2008 I was working hard to build-up passive income. In 2009 I stepped-up my game by adding employees and learning that I could grow faster if it was more than just me! Now in 2010 I’ve added Domain Sales to the fold and am on a mission to make it a larger part of my revenue stream.

I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open, talking to everyone and putting-together a strategy. For those who know me you know I’m a “Go Big or Go Home” kind of guy. It’s almost October and Linton Investments is still nowhere to be found on any DNJournal list. However thanks to great advice from experts in the industry I’ve been able to see some of the places I can improve and take action, step-up my game.

There are two kinds of people in this world, those who give-up at the first sign of a challenge and those who slug through it, no matter what, until they become successful. I’m the slugger, the guy who just won’t quit and it’s time to really get in the game. I’ve been working hard to grow my list of buyers and now have over 1,000. I’m building-out specific lead capture sites like ExactMatchDomains.us and advertising on Google Adwords.

I’m reaching in the community and out of the community to build a BIG database of buyers. 1,000 isn’t much but it’s a start and growing parallel lists with buyer preferences should help me figure-out very quickly if we can move a particular domain. I have a good team with one broker on the West Coast and one on the East Coast. I guess right now it’s a bit like College Basketball vs. the NBA – established brokers have a big advantage – they have all the pro players, or in this case the BIG domains.

So it’s time to go Big Game hunting. I’m starting here with this post, and I’m not stopping until I secure some really good inventory. I’ve been paying careful attention to the names listed in auctions and what sells – a lot of what we’re currently brokering just doesn’t make the cut. I’m getting the B-Team domains and it’s time to change that, time to step-up my game.

I can’t offer the same kind of connections that the big guys do, I don’t have a nice list of domains sales to boast about. I’m not old and experienced. Oh, and I’m not rich. I am, however, hungry to make some big sales, to do things differently, and to give a few select people an incredible amount of focus. So let’s start with what will be different:

  • I will reach-out to my buyers first – these are people actively buying domains so the best place to look for liquidity
  • Next we will create a one-page PDF really selling the domain/business
  • Using the Estibot Lead Generation Tool we will get a good list of potential end-user contacts
  • Emails will be sent to those contacts
  • If we don’t get an email response after a few days, we’ll start calling end users
  • There is an End – after all this if there is still no interest we’ll let you know that we can’t sell your domain

I think one of the big problems with brokerage is that sometimes you don’t know if the broker is actively promoting your name and there is no end, the broker seems to just try forever. I’m not afraid to be honest with my clients – we’ll try all that above, anything beyond that is a lot of work with very little chance of success. Remember, great .com domains get offers on a daily basis, if your domain is not good enough that after going through all this nobody is interested it’s time to move on.

Next – focus.

My brokers and myself will only broker one domain at at time. I said I’m going Big Game Hunting right? We are looking for names we can sell and really believe in, and we’re going to each just focus on one name.

Finally – submission process.

Our submission process is now amazingly simple. Rather than wasting both of our times by sending your entire list of domains just make sure each name passes the test below:

  • Domain must be a .com
  • Domain must already have traffic and revenue above $100/month
  • No TM or Typo domains
  • Buyer must have realistic expectations – do you?

That’s it folks. No more joking around – time to take this thing to the next level. So as the post says, “Who’s with me?” If you have domains that meet this criteria and are willing to give us a chance I hope to show you what we’re capable of. I want to see Linton Investments on the DNJournal charts before the end of 2010 – but I can’t do it without you!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton