Sweetmantra: Domain Name Strategy

The Seven Deadly Mistakes to Avoid When Buying a Domain Name from Someone Else

For over two decades I’ve had the privilege of helping hundreds of business professionals acquire domain names that are of strategic importance to them. As part of the client onboarding process at my domain buyer brokerage company Name Ninja, we always ask the client if they’ve made any previous attempts to acquire the domain. Most clients are shrewd enough to not try to acquire the target domain on their own – they leave that up to us – but we’ve also seen several overly enthusiastic clients make some innocent domain buying mistakes that have hurt their (and our) chances of getting the desired domain for a reasonable price.

Because we keep seeing people make the same damaging mistakes over and over again, I’ve compiled the following list of the seven most important things people need to be aware of if they hope to buy a domain name that’s owned by someone else.

1. Never try to contact the domain owner directly. This is the single worst move you can make because it risks revealing your identity as the buyer to the domain owner. Think about it from the perspective of a domain speculator (a person who specializes in re-selling desirable domains): if someone from a Fortune 500 company is contacting you asking about buying a domain name, wouldn’t you demand a higher price? On a related note, please don’t try to outsmart a domain speculator. If you think using a free email service like Gmail or Hotmail and a fake name is going to hide your identity from a seasoned domain speculator, you’re dead wrong. These guys and gals specialize in uncovering who a potential buyer is, and you are probably giving them all sorts of clues about your identity without realizing it.
   
   
2. Don’t keep re-visiting the landing page or Website associated with your target domain name. Not only are you increasing the traffic to the domain, which most domain speculators use as a metric to help them determine which of their domains are more popular and therefore warrant a higher asking price, but you risk revealing your identity as the buyer. If a savvy domain speculator notices that one of her domain names is suddenly getting a lot of traffic via the IP address of a major bank, she’s going to assume that the next purchase inquiry coming in (even if it’s anonymous) is from someone representing that bank.
   
   
3. Don’t submit an inquiry or offer for the domain name via your domain registrar or the domain’s landing page. By doing so you not only risk revealing your identity as the buyer (yes, even if you use an alias) but you are also expressing unnecessary additional interest in the domain name. Worse, you may also inadvertently be contractually obligating yourself to pay a brokerage fee to the registrar regardless of whether or not you end up buying the domain through them.
   
   
4. This one seems obvious but you’d be amazed how many times I’ve seen people screw this up: Don’t publicly announce the name of your new venture until you’ve gotten your target domain name. I remember one client who prematurely issued a press release about the name of their new spin-off venture and within 24 hours the list price of the target domain they wanted tripled. The owner of the domain, a very savvy domain speculator, had seen their press release and immediately cranked up the price of his domain name, and who could blame him? I still refer to that incident as “the $10,000 press release” because that’s how much extra it caused the client to fork out for the domain.
   
   
5. Don’t register a bunch of alternative TLD versions of your target domain immediately prior to you attempting to acquire the target domain. If you do, you are telegraphing to a savvy domain speculator that you are really, really interested in their domain name because why else would you have registered the .net, .org, and .info versions at the same time. Already registered some other versions of the domain? Please make sure they are hidden behind a Whois privacy shield … and for heaven’s sake don’t forward these domains to your corporate Website, which blows your cover. Once again, a seasoned domain speculator is going to investigate what other versions of the domain may already be registered and will use that data to try to figure out who the buyer is.
   
   
6. Hold off on filing a trademark until you’ve gotten the matching domain name. You probably didn’t realize this, but trademark applications are posted online in several searchable databases. Some unscrupulous domain hustlers monitor the trademark databases for new trademark applications and then immediately go and register the matching .com domain name in the hopes of re-selling the domain for profit. Even legitimate domain speculators (as opposed to the ‘black hat’ hustlers) will check trademark databases to see if someone has recently filed a trademark that matches their domain name. This is all part of their standard procedure for trying to figure out who the potential buyer might be.
   
   
7. Don’t get ‘married’ to your target domain until you know for sure you can get it. Far too many times I see clients fall head-over-heels in love with a domain that they will never be able to get. Avoid painting yourself into a corner by assuming you’re going to get a specific domain name. Make sure you have multiple options (or at least a Plan B) and give yourself (and your domain buyer broker if you’re working with one) enough time to find you a suitable domain name that can be acquired.

If you’ve read this far you might have gotten the impression that buying a domain name from someone else can be a complicated and risky affair. You would be right. If you go about things in the wrong way you could end up delaying your important launch, overpaying for the domain name, or ruining your chances of getting the domain at all. I’m not saying you have to hire a domain buyer broker to help you (although that would make my day), but I’d strongly encourage you to avoid making any of the seven innocent mistakes I’ve described above.

Good luck and happy domain buying!

A Domain Buyer Broker’s POV on which Domains are Most Wanted

As you may know, I spend the majority of my time working as a domain Buyer Broker helping clients acquire domain names that are owned by various third-parties.

My clients are typically “end-user” buyers of domains versus domain speculators. Most of my clients are startup founders, serial entrepreneurs, or marketing executives and when they approach me (via my company, Name Ninja) they usually have a specific domain name – or type of domain name – already in mind. That target domain will usually be put to use for a new or upcoming business, product, or service.

Because I was curious and had the data on hand in our CRM, I recently did an analysis of 500 of the most recent domains we have been asked to help clients acquire. I had a hunch as to what the results might be, but I figured I would let the data speak for itself. While I cannot reveal the individual domains due to confidentiality clauses, I am pleased to be able to share the high-level results of my analysis.



Before we get to the summary results, keep in mind that this data set consists of domains that are already owned by a third-party. Not only are these domains already ‘spoken for’, but our clients want these domains badly enough that they sought the help of a professional domain Buyer Broker. It's also safe to assume that the buyers of these domains are willing to pay a premium for these domains. In other words, these are domains that are seen as valuable assets by the buyers.

Now on to the results…

Type of Domain

What type of domains do my clients want to get? Generic domain names are by far and away the most sought-after domains by my clients. I suspect this is because my clients want a domain that positions them and their business as the category leader, which is one of the benefits of a generic domain name.

68% - generic (e.g., robots.com or robotparts.com)
15% - invented (e.g., botzilla.com or fluffyrobot.com)
6% - phrases (e.g., herecometherobots.com)
6% - abbreviations/acronyms (e.g., HCTR.com)
5% - surnames (e.g., asimov.com)

Number of Words

Apparently size does matter, and in the domain space what matters is brevity. Half of my clients want a one-word domain and most of the rest want a maximum of two-words. This is not surprising because the shorter the domain the easier it is to type and remember.

50% - 1 word
44% - 2 words
6% - 3 words
<1% - 4 words or more

Domain Extension (TLD)

Despite the introduction of hundreds of new domain extensions like .xyz, .club., and .site in the last few years, my clients clearly believe that .com is still king. Eighty-four percent of the domains I get asked to help acquire are .com domains (94% of the 89% that are gTLDs) with country code domains (ccTLDs) being the second most popular at nine-percent. I rarely get asked to help a client acquire a new TLD domain, although part of the reason for that may be that the new TLD domains are relatively easy and affordable to acquire (compared to a .com) and therefore don’t require the assistance of a Buyer Broker.

89% - gTLDs (global top level domains)
- 94% .com
- 2% .co*
- 2% .net
- 2% .io*
- <1% other gTLDs (.org/.tv/.me)
9% - ccTLD (country code top level domains)
2% - new TLDs (new top level domains)

* Although .co and .io originated as country code domains, they are now commonly used as global top level domains, especially via startups.

Bottom Line

In summary, based on the most recent inquiries I’ve seen, the most sought-after domains are generic, one-word .com’s (like robots.com) and generic, two-word .com’s (like robotparts.com). Invented, one- and two-word .com domains (like botzilla.com and fluffyrobot.com) are a distant second in popularity, followed by one-word ccTLD domains like robots.ca or robots.de.

Personally, I am very open-minded and can see the merits of all types of domains regardless of the domain extension or length. I’m therefore always happy to help a client acquire their dream domain name, no matter what that dream domain is. I do find it interesting that my data reveals a strong preference by our clients for a certain type of domain, which also explains why I’ve even been asked by different clients to help them acquire the same one-word .com domain. That always cracks me up when it happens, because many clients are surprised to learn that someone else wants or wanted the same domain.

My data set is only 500 domains so I would caution you about drawing any major conclusions from my numbers. The insights I’ve gleaned are from the perspective of my boutique domain buyer brokerage and may not accurately reflect what other people are seeing or experiencing. In other words, I hope you found the results of my analysis interesting, but please remember that your mileage may vary. ;+)

Why Choosing the Wrong Domain Name is Like Burning Money

I often get asked if it really matters to a company’s bottom line whether or not they have a better domain name. While there are quite a few intangible (and therefore debatable) reasons why a higher quality domain name is beneficial, such as the company being perceived as having ‘market leadership’ because of their intuitive domain name, here’s a very concrete example of why a better domain will actually save you a lot of money. And for the record, “better” doesn’t necessarily mean a .com domain; this advice applies equally to domains in other TLDS, new or old.

When I’m on a road trip in my car I like to listen to satellite radio. One of my favourite channels, CNN Headline News, features commercials for an eclectic variety of products and services. Almost all of the commercials end with a ‘call-to-action’ of some kind, and usually that call-to-action is to invite listeners to dial a toll-free number or visit a Website.

I’ve heard hundreds of commercials during my road trips, and I’d estimate that one-third of the Website addresses featured in these commercials use problematic domain names that are not intuitive at all and quite literally fail the Radio Test. What’s the Radio Test you ask? It’s a measure of the intuitive nature of a domain name and focuses on whether or not someone who only hears the domain name (versus seeing it) will know how to correctly spell it. So, for example, the domain WritePanda.com (while not a bad name and domain in general) would fail the radio test because people might not know whether to type “Write” or “Right”.

Now keep in mind these are 30-second commercials and the advertisers are paying thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars a week for their commercials to run. In the commercials featuring the problematic domain names, the announcer usually has to spend five or more seconds explaining how to spell the unintuitive domain name. So, using WritePanda.com as our example, the end of the commercial features the announcer saying something like, “To learn more, visit Write Panda dot com, that’s W-R-I-T-E panda dot com.”

Let’s do the math. Five seconds out of a 30-second commercial is 16.7% of the total commercial time wasted explaining an awkward domain name, time that could have been used for something more productive like describing the product or service. If an advertiser is spending $5,000 a month on radio ads, and that’s a modest budget by typical advertising standards, that advertiser is wasting $835 a month explaining their problematic domain name to listeners. That’s over $10,000 a year from their advertising budget that's going up in flames because of someone’s decision to choose and use an awkward domain name.

And you know the craziest part of all of this? Most of the domains these advertisers use are quirky, two and three-word .com domains where the better, radio-friendly version of the domain could probably have been purchased for under $5,000. I honestly get the impression that for many of these advertisers someone in their marketing department had the choice of spending $2,000-3,000 on a better domain name or registering an awkward domain name for $15 and they chose the awkward domain because the better domain name was considered ‘too expensive’.

Well guess what? They might have ‘saved’ three grand on the domain purchase, but their short-sighted decision is actually costing them thousands of dollars (or more) a year in wasted radio airtime.

If you intend to advertise your Website on the radio and you pick a domain name that fails the Radio Test, you’ve just depleted the potential effectiveness of your media budget by nearly 20%. When you think about it that way, that better quality domain name isn’t so ‘expensive’ after all.

Here’s a handy rule of thumb to remember: If you have to explain your domain name to someone when telling it to them in person or over the phone, that’s not a good domain name to use for radio advertising -- and probably not a good domain name in general.

I’m Heading to Collision to Discuss Startup Domain Name Challenges

I will be attending the Collision startup conference in Las Vegas May 4-7. According to conference organizers, over 10,000 people from around the world are expected to attend this downtown Las Vegas event devoted to the fusion of entrepreneurialism and technology.

To stimulate dialog about the many domain name challenges facing startups, my domain name consulting firm Name Ninja analyzed the domain names of 491 startups attending the upcoming conference.

Our analysis revealed that 79% of the startups at the Collision conference may be using a “risky” domain name that could play havoc with their marketing efforts. Choosing a hard-to-spell name that fails the “Radio Test” was the number one problem we uncovered, followed by not having the exact match .com domain.

Here’s a link to the official press release about the results of our analysis. We also published a handy infographic that summarizes the results and includes some startup domain name best practices, common mistakes to avoid, and other useful information.

Anyone who knows me is aware that I sympathize with the challenges that startup founders and other entrepreneurs face when it comes to acquiring the optimal domain name. For those on a tight budget, free tools like LeanDomainSearch.com and NameBot.com can help an entrepreneur come up with a name and matching .com domain name for their new venture.

Since I will be in Vegas attending the Collision conference, I am going to make myself available to any startup founder that wishes to discuss their domain name challenges. Startup founders that would like to book a complimentary in-person meeting with me can do so by emailing collision [at] nameninja.com.

See you in Vegas.

 

How to Lose $800,000 by Doing Nothing: Domain Acquisition Roadblocks

As a domain name buyer broker, I make my living tracking down the owners of domain names and convincing them to sell their domain names. I love the challenge and excitement of what my team at Name Ninja and I do, but I would be lying if I said we don’t face some major obstacles along the way.

The three biggest roadblocks to us acquiring a domain name are:

1. Figuring out who the actual domain name owner is (if the ownership info is private).
2. Contacting the domain owner.
3. Getting the domain owner to respond.

Figuring out who the actual domain name owner is a fun exercise and requires investigative legwork and creative thinking. It’s one of my favourite parts of the assignment, especially that ‘ah-ha’ moment when we uncover the identity of the domain owner. It might take a while, but sooner or later my team and I will be able to piece together enough clues to figure out who owns the domain. This is usually a temporary hurdle and rarely a permanent roadblock.

Contacting the domain owner is pretty straightforward and simply requires having current and valid contact information (phone, email, business address, etc.) for them, or at least current and valid contact information for someone (a colleague or friend) that knows the domain owner. Social media can certainly help in this regard, but – to my great surprise – I’ve found that old-school communication channels like faxes and registered letters can be the most effective way to make contact.

Getting the domain owner to respond can be the toughest challenge and biggest wildcard of the whole endeavour. If we don’t get any responses to our emails or phone calls, my first inclination is to re-confirm that we have the correct contact information. Assuming that we do indeed have the correct contact information, we then ask ourselves a series of questions:

• Is the domain owner on a business trip or vacation at the moment? Are they in the military serving their country? Or have they recently passed away? Any number of these scenarios can be verified by using classic investigative techniques.
• Is the domain owner unable to understand our messages for some reason such as a language barrier? Additional research and sending messages in different languages or through a local intermediary can help to overcome this problem.
• Is the domain owner not receiving our messages due to a technical issue? Here is where we start to consider and explore if their voicemail system is not working or if our emails are mistakenly ending up in their junk folder, etc. Sometimes, however, the roadblock is a human one: the recipient’s emails are being ‘managed’ by a secretary or executive assistant and they are not passing our messages along to their boss. You’d be amazed by what a gift of chocolate or wine will do in situations like these!
• Last but not least, is the radio silence due to the domain owner deliberately choosing to ignore us? This can certainly happen, despite our best efforts and intentions. Of course I do realize the domain owner is not obligated to respond to us and nobody’s saying they have to sell their domain name. It's a free world and the domain owner can do (or not do) whatever the heck they want. Since I am extremely patient and persistent, we keep trying to make contact for as long as our timeline allows. That can be days, weeks, or months, every project is different.

By now you may be wondering where the $800,000 fits into all of this. Here’s how, and this is as close to me going off on a rant as you’re ever likely to see…

There’s no doubt in my mind that on a handful of the domain acquisition projects I’ve worked on the domain owner has deliberately chosen not to reply to us. They probably think this is a genius negotiation ‘strategy’ on their part – playing ‘hard to get’ – but I find this behaviour borderline passive-aggressive. I genuinely believe that the professional and courteous thing for them to do is reply (even if it’s just to say “I will never sell this domain.”) but I am aware that not everyone out there is professional or courteous and I certainly don’t take their behaviour personally.

Interestingly, I’ve never seen a domainer (domain speculator) pull this stunt; it’s always been a member of the general public. Nine times out of ten, I'd rather be trying to buy a domain off a domainer than a member of the general public because at least with a domainer they are inclined to sell and usually have some realistic sense of what the domain name is worth.

So for anyone reading this that thinks that ignoring repeated purchase inquiries for a domain name is a brilliant negotiation tactic, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: it’s probably not. One thing it is for sure is costly to some domain owners who’ve tried this behaviour with me. By my rough count, just based on the acquisition projects my team and I have been involved in to date, domain owners who’ve deliberately ignored repeated purchase inquiries from us have lost out on over $800,000 of domain sale deals.

To be clear, I’m not talking about domain owners with valuable one-word .com’s that they hope (and should hope) to sell one day for enough money to be able to retire on, I’m talking about domain owners with B and C-grade domains (typically two-word .com’s that can be easily substituted by another two-word .com) that have a relatively low fair market value and would normally sell in the four- and five-figure range tops.

Domain owners can go ahead and ignore purchase inquiries all they want. They should know that the cost and risk of maintaining radio silence is that eventually those prospective buyers (or their brokers) will find and buy a different domain name owned by someone that does have the courtesy to respond to serious purchase inquiries.

Buyer beware? I think not. This is a case of seller beware!

Seven Expert Domain Name Sales Tips for Aspiring Domain Speculators

As the Lead Ninja over at domain name consulting firm Name Ninja, I get asked so often by people for help selling their domain names that I figured I should finally write a blog post about this topic that I can refer them to. What follows is some general advice for the layperson that already owns a bunch of domain names and would like to increase the odds of these domain names selling. Although this advice is based on my two decades’ worth of experience buying and selling domain names, this advice is not aimed at professional domain name investors (a.k.a. domainers) nor am I going to cover pro-active domain name pitching strategies. If, however, you are what I would refer to as an ‘Aspiring Domain Speculator’ looking for a few tips to finally move some of your dusty old domain names, then read on…

WARNING: I am going to be brutally frank here, and I may piss off a few readers, but I want you to go into this with your eyes wide open.

Let’s begin with two important things you need to understand and accept:

Most of your domain names are un-sellable
Before I dive into how you can boost your domain sales, it’s time for a reality check. The number one impediment to what is referred to as “secondary market” domain name sales is the quality – or lack thereof – of the inventory. In general, the kind of inventory that sells best in today’s world is one-word, two-word, and three-word English language .com domain names that directly relate to business products or services. If you are holding non .com inventory (e.g., .net, .org, .biz), or domains that consist of invented words, or are phrases, be prepared for the sad probability that this inventory will not move in your lifetime. Of course there are going to be exceptions to this, but they are, by their very nature, exceptions. Here’s something you probably didn’t know: the most sophisticated domain investing companies run by super smart people will pop the champagne corks if they manage to turn 3% of their domain inventory annually. Yes, only 3% is considered a massive victory! The hard reality is that secondary market domain names are not very liquid assets. This probably means that most of your inventory is not good enough quality to ever sell. Sorry.

It’s still a horrendously inefficient market
While the domain name secondary market has made great strides over the last decade, there is still a huge disconnect between the folks that want to buy a domain name – and would be willing to pay serious money for it – and the ability for those folks to actually and easily buy that domain name. Most end user buyers don’t know where to look for secondary market domain names, don’t know how to contact the owners, have no idea how to actually purchase and transfer a domain name, and are generally confused and frustrated by the whole apparatus. The more you can do to soften the edges here the greater the likelihood you will sell some of your domains.

Domain Name Sales Tips
OK, now that I have beaten you up about the quality of your domains and the inefficient state of the secondary market, let’s talk about some best practices that will help you sell your domains.

1. Display a “for sale” message on your domain’s home page
Believe it or not, the number one source of secondary market domain name sales is buyers typing the domain name into their Web browser and navigating to the domain to ‘see if it is available’. The best thing you can do, and really the first thing you must do, to boost your domain name sales is to make sure that your domains resolve to a page that, one way or another, indicates that the domain is for sale and provides some way for the prospective buyer to contact you or purchase the domain right away, whether that be email, phone, chat, or whatever.

There’s a bunch of easy ways you can accomplish this. Your domain name registrar may provide you with a free one-page Website service, which you can use to create a “this domain is for sale” landing page. Alternatively, you can create a single page (perhaps a hidden page hanging off one of your existing Websites) that indicates that your domain names are for sale. You can then forward all of your domain names that are for sale to that one page. If you are feeling ambitious, you can link each of your domain names to its matching ‘buy it now’ purchase page at one of the marketplaces; more on that in a moment. Another more sophisticated option would be to “park” your domain with one of the leading domain parking companies (such as DomainSponsor or the very state-of-the-art DomainNameSales.com) and enable their built-in “for sale” message and contact mechanisms. Whatever you do, make sure that if someone navigates to one of your domain names that they can clearly see your “for sale” message, otherwise you will miss out on a ton of sales opportunities.

2. List your domains in the leading domain name sales marketplaces
Not everyone knows that domain name sales marketplaces even exist, but thanks to the fine marketing efforts of the marketplaces more and more people are figuring this out every day. Since these marketplaces are selling millions of dollars’ worth of domain names every week, it’s important that you expose your domain names to these potential buyers. List your domains for sale, preferably at a fixed ‘buy it now’ price, on these leading domain name marketplaces: Afternic and Sedo. (I will cover Go Daddy in a moment…) Domains with fixed ‘buy it now’ prices are way more likely to sell than un-priced ‘make offer’ domains in these marketplaces, but either way you should at least make sure your domains are listed with these marketplaces. There is no fee to list your domains on Afternic and Sedo, but if your domain sells through one of these marketplaces expect to pay a 10-20% sales commission.

3. Take advantage of Go Daddy’s massive reach
Love it or hate it, Go Daddy dominates the domain market with its greater than 50% market share. If you really want to crank up your secondary market sales, and your domain names are already registered with Go Daddy, enroll your domains in Go Daddy’s Premium Listings service. The Go Daddy Premium Listings service is free to participate in, super easy to configure, and – most importantly – is a major and highly efficient sales channel. In fact, for some domain owners this is their number one sales channel. There are a few catches, however, if you want to take full advantage of this channel. One, you have to put a fixed price on your domains. And two, Go Daddy’s sales commission is a whopping 30%, but worth it in my opinion because they move a lot of domain names. Here’s an expert tip: the typical Go Daddy buyer isn’t as price-sensitive as the folks shopping on Afternic and Sedo, so you can add 10-20% to your list price on Go Daddy without it negatively impacting your sales velocity compared to the other marketplaces. If your domain names aren’t already registered with Go Daddy, you can still get your domains some exposure on Go Daddy via Afternic’s DLS network or Sedo’s MLS network … or if you are feeling really ambitious and have the technical chops you can transfer your ‘retail’ domains to Go Daddy.

4. Embrace fixed pricing if you really want to move your domains
Regarding fixed pricing, this is always a hotly-debated topic in the domain investor community because some people feel that putting a fixed price on a domain means that you risk leaving money on the table. While that may be true, at least you sold the domain name! Most buyers are turned off by the whole ‘make offer’ thing and just want to be able to browse by price and buy instantly if they see something they like and can afford. Frankly, I’d rather have seller’s remorse than go to my grave still holding an unsold domain name, but the decision to go fixed-price or not is all yours. One thing to keep in mind: if someone contacts you directly about buying one of your fixed-price domain names, you can always ask them to make an offer and/or you can always quote them a higher amount than your fixed-price. It is very unlikely that they have seen the list price elsewhere; most buyers are not that sophisticated.

5. Optimize the WHOIS record for sales
Add a “for sale” message to your WHOIS (domain ownership record) information. Once again, the goal here is to make it blatantly clear to Joe Public that your domain name is for sale. You can include this messaging in one of several ways. You can append the owner’s (a.k.a. registrant’s) name or company name with “This Domain is For Sale”, e.g., instead of listing the company as “Acme Inc.” you would list it as “Acme Inc. – This Domain is For Sale”. Alternatively, you could use a custom email address for your domain registrations that suggests the domain name is for sale, e.g., domainsales@[yourcompanyname].com. Trust me, you cannot be too obvious about this!

6. Don’t hide behind WHOIS privacy
If you are using a WHOIS privacy service, remove it if possible. These services are fantastic if you want to hide your identity as the owner of a domain, but they are a serious impediment to sales because most potential buyers don’t know how to contact a domain owner that is using a WHOIS privacy service. It simply confuses them and is a perceived (if not actual) roadblock. Make it easier for buyers to contact you; ask your domain registrar to remove the WHOIS privacy service.

7. Have realistic price expectations
We all hear in the popular media about those rare six and seven-figure domain name sales like hotels.com and beer.com, but what folks don’t realize is that these deals represent less than 1% of all the transactions. It would be awesome if you were able to sell one of your domains for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars (and I genuinely hope that you do), but chances are that’s not going to happen. The typical secondary market .com domain name (which is usually a two-word name) sells for around $2,000, and the majority of the rest of the domains that sell change hands for less than $5,000, so keep that in mind when you price your domains. You probably aren’t going to retire on the proceeds of your domain name sales, but it might help you pay off your mortgage faster. For help pricing your domains, ask the domain name marketplaces for assistance or seek the advice of your friendly neighbourhood domain name expert.

By following the domain name sales tips that I have outlined above, you will vastly increase the odds of your domains selling. I wish you much luck and success in doing so, and please let me know how it works out for you.

My New Domain Name Consulting Firm, Name Ninja, Launches Today

I'm excited to announce that today I unveiled Name Ninja, my "lethal" new domain name consulting firm. This is the first domain name venture I have launched since leaving my dream job at Tucows last month.

I'm the firm's President & Lead Ninja, and our tagline is "lethal domain name consulting."

Name Ninja is a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names.

Name Ninja offers a suite of domain name consulting services to three types of clients: startups, entrepreneurs and marketers; individual and corporate domain name owners; and new gTLD registries and operators. Based in Toronto but serving clients around the world, the firm will focus on domain name acquisition (buyer broker), domain name rescue, domain name protection, corporate domain name strategy, and domain name portfolio management. Name Ninja will also assist new gTLD registries and operators with distribution, marketing, and secondary market services.

With the massive expansion of the Internet namespace due to the upcoming rollout of hundreds of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), the global demand for expert domain name advice and strategy is going to explode. Name Ninja intends to help meet that demand.

I'm looking forward to collaborating with my global network of domain industry colleagues and partners to service the domain name needs of Name Ninja’s clients. I hope to see many of you at next week’s T.R.A.F.F.I.C. domain name conference in Las Vegas.

For more information about Name Ninja, head on over to nameninja.com.

I'd like to thank everyone that has helped make today's launch a reality, especially my amazing and supportive wife, my business advisors and mentors, my close friends, and my creative collaborators (Renald and Andrew).

Get lethal. Go Ninja.

To the Top with Bermuda's Smartest Entrepreneur

I love entrepreneurs, and I meet them in the most unlikely places. In this case, on a beach.

Earlier this year my wife and I vacationed in Bermuda. I had not been there since a child, and I was excited to return to the beautiful island and give my wife the grand tour.

I did not realize I would also meet the smartest entrepreneur in Bermuda.

For our day at the beach, I decided to take my wife to Horseshoe Bay, a spectacular public beach area featuring the famous Bermudian pink sand, all sorts of rocky coves, and great snorkeling. The weather that day was perfect for the beach: hot and sunny.

We took the local bus to Horseshoe Bay, and were dropped off at the main entrance, which is at the top of a steep hill that winds its way down for hundreds of yards. As we walked down the hill towards the changing room area, we started to pass people who were leaving the beach and making their way back up the hill on foot. It's a long walk uphill in the heat, and these folks looked pretty bedraggled, with sweat pouring off them. We realized that we'd probably have the same hot and sticky walk back up the hill when it came time for us to leave, and we were not looking forward to that.

But that would not be our fate, thanks to a brilliant entrepreneur named Dean Ming. For the last 11 years, Dean has been the owner and operator of the ultimate niche business, which he calls "To the Top." (Smart name, too.) His business does one thing, and one thing only, and it does it very well: gives tourists a quick ride to the top of the hill in a small passenger van.

Dean realized that after spending a day at the beach, then showering and changing into their street clothes, a lot of tourists didn't want to then spend 15 minutes walking up that long and steep hill in the heat. So for $2, he gives them a ride "To the Top," and during the two-minute drive shares a few tidbits of historical information about Bermuda. I estimate that on a good day Dean is pulling in about $200 an hour operating his service. Not bad for one man and his van.

Dean's sign says it's the best two dollars you will spend that day, and I think most of his customers would agree. This is a great example of an entrepreneur identifying a very specific need and then fulfilling that need. Smart. Simple. Successful. We can all learn from entrepreneurs like Dean.

Twitter IDs are the New Domain Names

It's 2009, so I would hope by now that any marketer reading this article online understands the importance of securing your company's brands as domain names. In other words, Acme Furniture should own and control the domain name acmefurniture.com (and, if it's a Canadian company, acmefurniture.ca as well) even if you don't yet have a Web site.

My question for you today is, "Have you done the same for Twitter?"

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that is growing in popularity at an astonishing rate. The purpose of this article is not to explain or promote the benefits of Twitter; that topic has been covered by others.

What I want you to understand today is that Twitter IDs (or "user names" or "handles") are the equivalent of domain names.

For instance, the Twitter ID for my personal brand, Bill Sweetman, is @billsweetman (which corresponds to the URL http://www.twitter.com/billsweetman).

Even if you don't understand Twitter or don't think it has a role to play in your company's marketing efforts today, I strongly urge you to still secure your Twitter ID now.

In my case, I do all my Tweeting (as its called) as @billsweetman but I made sure that I registered all my other professional brands as Twitter IDs so that when and if I want to use Twitter for those other brands I already have the most intuitive Twitter ID.

I predict that over the next few years, millions of dollars will be spent by companies buying, selling, and fighting over Twitter IDs. I have already seen a number of nasty legal spats develop, and I have personally brokered the sale of several Twitter IDs already. And this is only the very beginning...

If you are Acme Furniture, you should make sure you get your hands on @acmefurniture right away. Since there is no fee to register a Twitter ID, you have no excuse not to do this. Simply head on over to http://www.twitter.com and sign up for a free account.

Don't be the person who in a year or two is having to explain to their company President why you didn't secure the company name as a Twitter ID. Take two minutes and do it today.

One final tip: Twitter will eventually suspend an account if it has not been used for six months, so make sure you post something once a month just to keep your account active and not risk losing your valuable Twitter ID.

The One Question Every Entrepreneur Asks

If you're like most entrepreneurs, chances are you've asked yourself the following question at least once:

"How do I get more business without spending a fortune on advertising?"

This is probably one of the biggest challenges you face in your business, which is why I'm thrilled to let you know about an exciting event I am participating in on the evening of Wednesday, October 22nd in Toronto.

This event will be very different from other "seminars" you may have attended. It will help you tackle the challenge of boosting your business while at the same time you'll be helping support a fantastic program that helps youth in developing countries become entrepreneurs.

In one evening, you will:

• Learn practical and tactical techniques and tools that you can use immediately to find new customers fast and affordably. (By the way, I personally guarantee this is going to happen because I am giving one of the presentations! More on that in a moment...)
• Be inspired to take action on what you learn
• Have a blast with some "fiery" entertainment
• Experience all of this at absolutely no risk as this is a "Pay only for the value you receive" event. No Value...No Payment. Period.
• Make a big difference in the world. All proceeds go to helping street youth in the developing world become entrepreneurs, through Street Kids International

Sound great? It will be. It's called:

"Big Results For No/Low Dollars: Powerful and Inexpensive Marketing Techniques for Entrepreneurs"

and you can register for the event here.

This evening is part of an exciting, innovative and valuable program of practical education and training, exclusively for entrepreneurs, called Success Circle. The evening will include some amazing surprise entertainment and a roster of expert speakers you don't want to miss. The speakers will be:

• Warren Coughlin, one of North America's top business coaches, will discuss a) the key skills that must exist in your business to allow you to blast off, and b) easy-to-kickstart business building tactics available to any entrepreneur that generate quick leads, very inexpensively.
• The amazing Collin Douma (of Radical Trust fame) will share with you the wisdom he imparts to large corporations eager to exploit social media.
• Some Internet marketing dude named Bill Sweetman will reveal how to ensure you generate profits from the most universally, but non-strategically, applied marketing tool on the Internet. ;+)

How is this evening special?...

You will receive practical, tactical knowledge, tools and techniques you can use right away. This is not about giving you a teaser that requires you to drop $3,000 on follow up courses before you are able to implement. I hate those kind of things, and this isn't one of them.

Join me at this event on Wednesday, October 22nd and you will get knowledge, confidence, tools, and inspiration that will help you add to your bottom line, while making an amazing difference in the world. And you will have a ton of fun... All at no risk.

Register for this event now.

I look forward to seeing you there.