On Rick’s private board there is a discussion about how to start in the domain business with 5K or 50K. I thought to push this to the next level: How to start in the domain business without any sort of funding? I discussed this a little on DNJournal but thought why not to elaborate more?
Here’s a proven formula, and when I say “proven”, I mean I related this exact concept to a friend back in 2001, and that person, a good friend of mine for many years, followed through. Millions later, to say that he is a highly successful domainer/investor today would be a complete understatement. I also have done this myself as at times certain domains I inquired about were priced too high. Why “skip” if you can turn these inquiries to real dollars, hundreds of thousands of them?
Before we continue, a little background about who we are targeting here: domain investors. Investors have one main problem they can never solve. That problem is time. They can never have enough time on their hand to find all the best deals out there. In addition, the second part to remember is all active investors, especially the good investors, have preferences. they understand there’s money in anything and everything but the more they know about an industry or a segment within an industry, the more comfortable they feel making deals. Focus means the world to them.
So taking these two ingredients, time and expertise, what a beginner investor could do is identify potential investors, relate to them he is looking to help them out finding deals, discuss their preferences, negotiate a commission, and go hunt for deals for them.
How does it all come together?
1. Identify potential investors - Quite easy. Log on to DNJournal.com weekly sales report data and see who are the active buyers. It is easy to find those who spend, either through the WHOIS or through the “Contact Us” on a given domain.
2. Relate your intentions - Introduce yourself, get to know each other, create comfort, relate your intentions (finding deals for them)
3. Preferences - During discussion, find out their preferences, simply by asking what kind of domains or deals they are looking for.
4. Negotiate commission - The investor has nothing to lose as you are not getting paid until you found a deal he likes. Basically, no risk and negotiating an agreed commission of 10%-20% should not be a problem.
5. Go hunting - The beauty of this is as you find deals and relate to your investor, and he/they decline them, ask “why”. This is most important as you want to understand how they think, what makes a deal a good deal. This is the most important part as it is knowledge that creates wealth, not money.
(One of the quotes that irritates me more then anything is “It takes money to make money”. It really isn’t true and it is one of the most limited beliefs in the world which I believe holds hundreds of millions of people back from making their dream life come true.)
As you save few dollars from commissions you will be able to pick and choose what to pass to investors and what to keep. You will be able to create momentum.
Important point to remember - You can either work for one exclusive investor or have a group of potential investors. I personally like the idea of a group better but It can work either way.
Side bonus: This formula isn’t just for domains but is about making it in the world without funding. You can go to a shoe store and offer the store owner to buy inventory for him, and it will work exactly the same.
Looking forward to hearing your success stories!
Resource is http://www.conceptualist.com/
