Earlier this week, I’ve mentioned that perhaps Sedo should turn GreatDomains into a “once per season” (4 times per year) thing rather than a monthly event so as to be able to put more appealing inventory on the table. Perhaps an attitude like this benefits the reseller market as a whole and I’m practicing what I preach here with my own newsletter.

I receive a fair number of submissions, primarily because my 5% commission is 3 times lower than the industry standard but most of those submissions are names that just won’t sell because:

1) the domains are just not investment grade
2) the domains are investment grade but overpriced

Now at one point, my newsletters were a weekly or bi-weekly thing but for 2017, I’ve decided to focus on quality rather than simply releasing newsletters for the sake of it.

In other words, I say no a lot more frequently than in the past.

Quite frankly, I’d much rather send one newsletter per month or even once every two months but with genuinely good deals than do it weekly but with “filler” inventory.

Just like you, I’m subscribed to a lot of newsletters and follow several marketplaces. The common denominator is the presence of primarily “filler” inventory and that has to change in my opinion.

I want people to look forward to my newsletters, knowing that I only send them when I have good deals for potential buyers.

At the end of the day, newsletters and marketplaces shouldn’t be museums.

I love the idea of trying to sell Money.com (random example of a blockbuster name) on my newsletter but if the seller wants $50,000,000 then what’s the point?

I’m just wasting space.

I mean I could contact 100 owners of domains like Money.com and ask them “Hey, want me to try to sell your domain for $50,000,000?” and a lot of them will agree… so what?

At the end of the day, nobody will buy the domains at $50 million. They’ll just be trophy newsletter submissions which will result in me making exactly $0 and the seller making just as much.

The thing I appreciate about the recent NamesCon auctions is the fact that they have high sell-through rates and aren’t just looking for trophy submissions that look good but don’t sell.

I think this kind of approach should become the norm.

Personally, it’s what I will try to do this year as a broker. Only go after names that are genuinely priced to sell. In other words, I’d rather list WXQ.com (random example of a LLL chip) at $30k than Web.com (random example) at $50,000,000. Why? Because WXQ.com will most likely sell, whereas Web.com certainly won’t and I’d much rather make $1,500 than $0.

So for me, 2017 will be the year of the anti-blockbuster listing.

I don’t want trophy listings, I don’t want to look cool. This year, I’d much rather make money, thank you very much 🙂