The #1 Reason Domain Investors Fail

Stop Dreaming

Hello and happy Friday! Today I wanted to quickly touch on a topic that will hopefully get any new investors or investors who aren’t making money to change what they’re doing. What I want to talk about is the #1 reason that Domain Name Investors fail. While the answer might seem obvious, it’s amazing how many people just keeping on moving forward making the same mistakes, over, and over, and over again.

So let’s get to it. The #1 reason Domain Investors fail is lack of focus.

Every domain name quickly becomes a new idea, a new project that “could make big bucks someday.” The problem is, you need to make money today. Every week I get emails from domain investors that are struggling to make money in the space, they’ve typically spent a small fortune on domain names and are now wondering why the sales aren’t pouring in.

I ask them what their revenue model is for their portfolio and they look stunned. What do you mean revenue model? Aren’t these things worth money? Shouldn’t people be buying them from me, I mean each one has so much development potential!

Sorry but it doesn’t work that way. Usually the same investor has little five page mini-sites built on a handful of their names hoping this will bring in the “passive income” they’ve been looking for while they wait for the sales to come rolling in.

As a very successful domain investor said to me at TRAFFIC, “If you have over a handful of domains in your portfolio you are in the buy/sell game, not the develop and monetize game.” That’s right, if you have 200 domain names, you aren’t going to develop 100 and sell the other 100, chances are you have developed a few and their making nothing, and you’ve sold a few and made very little.

Like most businesses time and focus are what’s needed, but you’re spending your time buying expired domains or hand-registering future trends waiting for your big payday to come. Stop waiting and start doing. Get focused and start getting proactive. If you think a domain you own is worth a lot of money to the right end-user, great. Find that end-user and call them on the phone, if you can’t get in touch with them don’t get up and move on, do what it takes to get the decision-maker on the phone.

So the Director of Marketing says their not interested. Did they even run it by the CEO? Were they even a decision-maker?

Want to make money developing and monetizing domains? Start with one domain and expect to spend real money building it out and building a team around the business. If you only have $1,000, don’t expect to build a thriving business bringing in $50,000+/year, that’s just not realistic.

The point is simple and I’ve said it many times before but going into this weekend you should think about it long and hard. Focus. That’s the key. You can’t do it all and you can’t successfully run three different business plans simultaneously, especially if even one of them isn’t working. Take this weekend to pick one domain, one strategy, and one goal and ride it through to success.

Don’t spend your weekend buying more domains with dreams attached to them, stop dreaming and start doing.

Photo Credit: lrargerich via Compfight cc

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton