Plan for Domain Profit - What’s your Plan B?

One of the things that’s exciting to me about domain names is there are so many ways to profit. There are also some ways to lose money. I don’t want you to be like the guy yesterday who auctioned off his portfolio of 383 names for $40.99. That’s about 10 cents a name on his investment that was originally about $3,800 (depending upon the registrar he was using).

So what do I mean by plan B? Whenever you are looking to buy a domain name you need to purchase with the end in mind. Buying is the easy part - you just click your button on the shopping cart. Now that you have it what are you going to do with it?

Whenever I’m considering a domain name I like to consider what I’m going to do with it - am I going to auction it? Is it an orphan? Am I going to develop it? I like to have two or three strong options. I chose the one that offers the most profit potential and see it which one meets the timeframe I want - quick profit or longer term revenue. That way if the first one falls through I go to Plan B.

Let me give you an example. Here’s the 20 second explanation of the orphan method of domaining. Basically what it means is you buy a .com domain and then offer it to the .net owner for a profit. You may have all of the reasons why .the net owner should buy - .com is a stronger extension, it might be getting existing traffic, easy low cost way to boost their business, etc. It might make all complete sense to you. But remember the business owner might not be internet savvy and it just might not make sense to the .net owner. I was trying to sell an orphan domain to a business owner of the .net name. Even though the .com equivalent of the name was both DMZ and yahoo listed, had traffic, etc. the .net owner wasn’t interested in any price.

But at the price and with the statistics it was a bargain I just couldn’t pass up. The orphan strategy didn’t work so I went to plan B. The first thing I did was go to Google and search on the domain name. Remember with the Internet the world is your oyster. So a business owner with this exact name, in this particular town in California wasn’t interested in purchasing. So what! I didn’t waste any tears. A Google search showed thousands of businesses around the country with the same exact name. Hear a no? Just think next! Go to the next one in line or to Plan B.

Be open to possibilities. One of the things I did a while back was to flip cars - buy used cars and resell them for a profit at auctions. (If you know what you are doing its a good way of making a signifcant income.) When people have to sell their car they often need cash bad and they need it NOW. So one of the names I picked up was www.carcashfast.com. My original idea was just to sell it at auction. But when I mentioned it to the partner I had on some of the past car flips he flipped. Knowing the business, he knew the potential and what he proposed is that we become partners. I handle the web and marketing and he handles examining the cars, and setting with the auctions. Perfect fit. I’m already doing that so web and marketing won’t be a problem for me and I’l certainly get a lot more as a parner in a business than I would by parking or other types of monitization.

So remember when you are considering a domain name start with the end in mind. What am I going to do with it if I get it? - how am I going to turn it into a profit? Have a couple of alternate plans so if one doesn’t work out you can go to plan B. Make sure you have a viable plan B before you start. In the orphan domain example I gave above I checked and found out first that there were many other businesses with exactly the same name that might be interested. But remember to stay away from trademarked names or known company brands. You don’t want any legal complications - and besides their pockets are probably a lot deeper than yours. Well that’s it for now. Let me know what you would like to hear more about. My next post is going to be “How to know if you are going in the right direction!”

In the meantime, for some practice go to HotDotAuctions.com Go through the list of names imagining that you were going to purchase a few. For each one come up with a plan A for turning a profit, a Plan B, and maybe even a plan C. How realistic are each of those plans? Do you believe that each one of you alternatives could be successful? If you are confident you have several strong plans for monitization and you’ve done the research to show you the value then this might be a domain you can turn a profit on. But for now we are just practicing. I want you to make sure you are going in the right direction. I don’t want you to end up like the other guy with a portfolio of 383 names no one wants. (Well someone wanted them for ten cents a name) That’s it until the next post tomorrow. Happy Domain Hunting.

All the best,
Ted Sudol
PS Don’t forget to practice and just in case you are in a rush here’s a few auction names for you to practice with.

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Tags: domain name, domain profit, Domain Value