Always Be Selling

Always be selling is a phrase that I now live by. It has completely changed the way I conduct myself as a domain investor and has given me the clarity I need to consistently generate sales. If I’m not always selling then I am doing something wrong.

For me always be selling, means that a portion of my domain portfolio needs to be generating revenue each month. I don’t care if the names are being flipped or if the names are selling products. As long as one of the two are happening I am happy. Lately I have been edging towards the develop and flip model. This has worked out well for me and will be something that I continue to do through out this year.

This has been a slow month and I’m really just getting started. I’ve had a few personal setbacks which have required my attention, but I was still able to stick to the always be selling concept. I have an auction which closes in nine days with five bids and even though I haven’t had any time to promote the auction I’ll have another sale under my belt. I know one thing, I will always have always be selling on my domain investing to do list.

Do You Enjoy Buying, Developing Or Selling More?

As a domainer I’ve learned to enjoy buying, developing and selling but I don’t necessarily like all three equally. Out of all three, my favorite would be buying. I hate to admit it, but I am guilty of it. I enjoy the hunt of finding and registering the next great name to add to my portfolio.

In 2013 I’m making more of an effort to spend more time doing all three. Since I enjoy buying I tend to focus my efforts on acquiring new names, but that is going to change. I ended 2012 with a few sales and I am convinced that if I focus my time on buying, developing and selling that will make better use of my time and turn into more revenue being generated from my domain portfolio.

What do you enjoy more?

Outfits.net Sells For $2,500 On Flippa

Outfits.net sold for $2,500 on Flippa 16 hours ago. The auction was listed by benben on the 15th. This is the second time Outfits.net was listed for sale on the site. According to the auction listing, the original buyer didn’t follow through with payment.

Benben is one of those Flippa users who has an extremely solid track record when it comes to flipping domain names on the site. His total value of Flippa domain auction transactions is $10,300.

He’s done well with one word .com, .net and .org domain names. I wasn’t suprised to see a name like outfits.net sell for $2,500 and want to congratulate benben on yet another solid Flippa sale. Congrats to both the buyer and seller in this transaction. As a side note, benben is a great person to follow on Flippa as his domain listings tend to sell the majority of the time.

Weekly Reflections – Missing Affiliate Summit And Preparing For Webfest Global

This past week I had to make the last minute decision of missing Affiliate Summit. This turned out to be a great decision, as it allowed me to rest and now I am feeling much better. Since I missed Affiliate Summit I am really looking forward to attending Webfest Global. I’ve only been to two domaining conferences and can say each was quite informative.

This time around I look forward to attending as many sessions as possible. For me, this means less late nights and more sleep! Since I live in Los Angeles I will be commuting to the Fairmont Hotel. It’s about a 20 – 30 minute commute from where I live which isn’t bad but it is important that I time it with rush hour.

In the next couple of days I will be designing and ordering a new set of business cards specifically for the event. There’s a great deal of networking which occurs at this conference and I want to make sure I am ready for it. There’s nothing worst than not having a business card to exchange with your fellow peers. Even though business cards are a bit old fashion I find them to be the most effective way to exchange contacts.

Over the years I’ve learned it is important to walk into a conference of this nature with a few goals in mind. With that said, I’ve set a few goals for myself and am really looking forward to taking a few steps closer to those goals during the conference. If you will be in town and would like to meet up, feel free to contact me via the blog or via twitter @jasonthompsonco.

Three Reasons Why Not To Send End-User Emails With A Free Email Provider

Sending emails to end-users with a free email account is very tempting. The email accounts can be setup within minutes and you can register as many of these accounts as you like. You can also configure the majority of these free email accounts with your favorite email client utilizing POP or IMAP.

Up until today I was using Gmail to send out emails to potential end-users, but the problems I have experienced with the free email provider outweighed the benefits.

Here are three reasons why you should not send end-user emails with a free email provider:

1.  It doesn’t look professional. How do you expect for a person to take your email inquiry serious if you are sending emails from a free email provider? It might of worked a few years ago, but these days you need to separate yourself from the rest and choose a domain name that you feel best represents you as a domain investor. You will be taken more serious this way.

2.  Sending limits can trigger your account to be locked for 24 hours or more. When you are sending emails to addresses that may or may not be correct you are going to experience a number of bounce backs. As a precaution to reduce spam, free email providers like gmail will lock your account to reduce abuse. I’ve experienced this first hand and it really stops you in your tracks when you are trying to email new leads or follow up with old ones.

3.  Spam filters aren’t kind to free email accounts. Have you ever wondered why you are not receiving any replies? There is a chance that the end-user on the receiving end didn’t even have the chance to view your email. Since a great deal of abuse tends to occur with free email accounts some people have taken the extra step to automatically deem the majority of emails coming in from a free email provider as spam.

I was inspired to write this blog entry because I’ve used a few free email providers to send out end-user emails. Lately it has been more troublesome for me to continue down this route and I’ve decided to move forward with a paid solution. When I say paid solution, I am referring to sending emails from my hosting provider or a 3rd party service. I’ll discuss more about this later, but for now I just wanted to share my experience with you.

To sum it up, let’s just say I don’t want to ever see this sending limit box again:

Domain Spotlight Thursdays: WindowDude.com

I just watched the Clippers win and the Lakers lose tonight in back to back games with my Dad. I’m a big time Clipper fan and have been way before Chris Paul joined the team. I digress, but I am very proud of how the team has conducted themselves this year.

Today’s domain spotlight shines upon WindowDude.com. How’s that for a creative small business domain name? I spotted WindowDude.com while I was driving through Beverly Hills to pick up a ticket to a New Years eve party. The name is extremely catchy and it was really hard for me to stop thinking about it. Yes, I’m a domain nerd at heart and nothing beats a great domain name!

The window dude made sure you were going to see his domain name and in my opinion he chose the perfect place to showcase his advertisement. What’s even more interesting is the story window dude tells on his website. In his story he discusses the different jobs he has worked in his life and really gives you an inside view into who he is. You can view the story here.

Here is my favorite part about window dude’s story:

And, more importantly, I am growing my company, offering the same opportunities to my crew, giving them the chance to get into the job market and take care of their families. I have some great guys who work for me. So, by supporting The Window Dude, you are actually helping America get back to work. I like to say, we are rebuilding the economy… one window at a time.

If you’re in or around Los Angeles and need someone to clean a few windows this is the guy to contact! I’m pretty sure you’ll have a hard time forgetting the brand he has created. Great job on the brand and choice of domain Window Dude. Unfortunately my window doesn’t give your ad much justice, especially since my car window was dirty when I took this picture.

Domain Bloggers Keep Up The Great Work!

You might not hear it often enough, but keep up the great work. Every single one of you is an important asset and I appreciate all of the hard work that each of of you has contributed to covering the domaining landscape. We all come from diverse backgrounds and have unique perspectives on what we feel is important. In addition to this we all have our target audiences we tend to write for.

Domainers are based all around the world and the blogs that represent domaining do a great job of reflecting this notion. If you are concerned about being critiqued for what you write, my reply to you is to keep on blogging. I learn something new from all of you on a weekly basis and I am sure many others do as well.

I take pride in the fact that many of you weather the positive and negative storms of praise and criticism. This is what I like to call balance and it’s something that we all seek in life. Focus on the positive comments and let the negative ones fall right off of you. Regardless of what you might think, your unique writing styles are ALL appreciated. There are a select few who will try to challenge you on this, but then again this is what they have built their reputations on and again it is this unique writing style which they have developed and honed in on over the years. Controversy sells and it’s no different when it comes to domain blogging, so don’t take any of it personal.

I’ve been a part time domain investor since I flipped my first couple of names in college. I used to frequent the domaining forums at this time and I can tell you not much has changed as far as praise and criticism are concerned. Would you expect it to be different, when there are so many various ways to make money as a domain investor? I certainly would not and that’s another reason why it’s important to keep on blogging. Your unique perspectives are what makes me visit your blogs time and time again.

Let’s just say you would be amazed at which blogs I tend to read. As we start 2013 and inch towards Webfest Global let’s continue to cover domaining like it deserves to be covered and leave no angle untapped!

Live Event Media, Inc. Issues A Press Release About A New Domain Aquisition

Today Live Event Media, Inc. announced that it completed the acquisition of Eventure.com. The press release goes onto say that the new version of their social calendaring application will be launched using the Eventure.com domain. As a domainer, I love seeing press releases which are issued about domain acquisitions. The company will also operate under the dba “Eventure”.

I found this press release while scanning the news headlines for the keyword domains. Positive news like this just puts domain names in the forefront of people’s minds. Here is the press release:

Live Event Media, Inc., dba Eventure, Announces Domain Name Acquisition eventure.com and the Creation of a New Social Networking Category: Social Calendaring

From planning, inviting, attending, capturing and scrapboarding, Eventure truly redefines how one organizes life’s most memorable moments. For the first time ever, consumers and professionals now have a Social Calendar to use, so go ahead and Plan It … Live It … Share It with Eventure.

Costa Mesa, California (PRWEB) January 15, 2013

Live Event Media, Inc. (OTC Markets: LEVT), announced today that it recently completed the domain acquisition http://www.eventure.com, where it will be launching a new version of its social calendaring application.

Going forward the Company will operate under the dba “Eventure” and will use the tagline “Capturing all of life’s adventures.”

About Live Event Media Inc., dba Eventure.

In any given day, there are tens of millions of events attended, where billions of photos and videos are taken, with almost all of these not organized in a way that timestamps or organizes the memory. Quite annoying actually, so the Eventure Team set out to develop something crazy easy to use with the most basic goal of eliminating the pain of a disorganized calendar and camera roll … a year later, dozens of white board pens drained, there is now Eventure in beta release.

At http://www.eventure.com, you’ll find a simple, yet elegant web-to-mobile application where individuals can easily create, capture and organize life’s memories. From the most basic lunch amongst friends to the most elaborate star-studded gala, Eventure allows everyone to chip-in during the planning of an event, easily check-in when you arrive at the event, capture and stream pics/vids during the event, then scrapboard the collage of activity when all is said and done.

From planning, inviting, attending, capturing and scrapboarding, Eventure truly redefines how one organizes life’s most memorable moments. For the first time ever, there is now a Social Calendar to use.

Safe Harbor Statement

Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on current expectations, but are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. The factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties relating to the availability of additional funding; and the Company’s business, product development, marketing and distribution plans and strategies. These and other factors are identified and described in more detail in the Company’s filings with the SEC, including, the Company’s current reports on Form 8-K. The Company does not undertake to update these forward-looking statements.

Are You At The Mercy Of Programmers?

An interesting headline on Slashdot.org reads, “Learn Basic Programming So You Aren’t At the Mercy of Programmers“. The headline itself immediately grabbed my attention and was sparked by an entry that Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby wrote on his blog.

Personally, I agree with Derek 110%. Although great programmers are extremely hard to come by, you don’t necessarily have to be one yourself to grasp the basic concepts. At times programming can be looked at as being a mystical art form which some people will always appreciate but never really take the time to understand. As the Internet continues to evolve, entrepreneurs and employees in the tech industry are expected to at least have a rough understanding of HTML.

I wouldn’t consider myself a programmer because I tend to do more scripting than programming. My server side scripting language of choice is PHP. I wouldn’t know anything about PHP if I hadn’t made the effort to teach myself more about the language. The motivation for this stemmed from being disappointed by a few of the outsourced programmers I used to use years ago. It’s funny how a bad experience can be used to motivate you to learn a little more.

As a domainer who tends to build basic websites I find myself using both HTML and PHP on almost every project. As I stated in a previous blog entry there will be a learning curve and it is really up to you on how much time you want to dedicate to this. If you have the money there is nothing wrong with hiring a solid programmer, but you might just pay a premium for it. If you have the time and are willing to learn, then crack open a few tutorials and start reading.

A great site for tutorials that I’ve used countless times is WebMonkey.com. The tutorials cover a wide array of languages and can help provide you with the basics to get you started. Master the basics and you will be amazed on how you can rely on yourself to get those smaller jobs done.

Weekly Reflections – An Extremely Slow Week

This past week has been an extremely slow one. I’ve been sick since New Years and am now just feeling a little better. Unfortunately I had to cancel my trip at the last minute to Las Vegas for Affiliate Summit. Lucky for me Webfest Global is right around the corner and I will be more than ready for it!

It’s been a little cold here in Los Angeles and I found myself buying weatherseal for the first time to better insulate the door ways and windows at my place. So far it seems like it is working, but I won’t get the full effect until I take care of all of the draft points.

I’m looking forward to getting back onto a normal schedule Monday and am ready to hit the ground running with my weekly goals. We will also be announcing the details of our next meetup fairly soon and a great sponsor to go along with it! If you are attending Webfest Global, make sure to sign up for the Southern California Domainers meetup group at meetup.com/domaining.

Hopefully all of you had a wonderful week!