Yesterday, I tried to explain that in my opinion, it might not be a good idea to reply to end user inquiries right away so as not to appear eager or even desperate to sell. Some readers disagreed and pointed out that you might lose sales that way.

That’s a fair argument, which is why I’ve decided to write about losing sales today. If you have at least a little bit of experience as a domainer, you probably already lost at least one sale. Maybe you know why it happened, maybe it just happened and you weren’t able to figure out why.

Either way, you started to understand that lost sales come with the territory as a domainer. Snoopy posted two comments to yesterday’s post and in his second comment, explained that there’s always money left on the table with each sale. I agree because at the end of the day, negotiations aren’t exactly 100% straightforward.

Each “move” you make influences the final outcome in one way or another. For example, if you’re “too” flexible, you might get the sale but leave a lot of money on the table. On the other hand, you might lose the sale if you’re too aggressive.

What’s the best approach?

I can’t answer this question because I don’t know anything about your financial situation, your risk tolerance and so on. Rick Schwartz for example doesn’t exactly sell domains often but when he does, the prices he obtains are extremely high. BuyDomains, on the other hand, has an entirely different business model with considerably more sales but a considerably lower average price.

What’s the best approach, you might ask again?

Well, Rick’s approach is probably the best one for Rick and the BuyDomains approach is probably the best one for BuyDomains… I wish I could provide a clearer answer but that’s just the way it is. There are no “one size fits all” answers to such questions and on DomainingTips, my #1 goal is presenting as many arguments as possible from as many angles as possible so that readers are in a good position to make informed/educated decisions.

Alright, back to the actual topic: losing sales vs. leaving money on the table.

It’s important to understand that at the end of the day, it’s a fine balancing act. No matter what you do, there will be consequences. Is losing sales terrible? Well, it’s obviously bad but I’m not sure if it’s terrible because it all depends on the big picture.

If the strategy that generated the loss of that sale also helped you make more money than you would have normally with your other sales, then your strategy achieved its purpose. If not, it didn’t.

Sure, nobody likes to lose a sale but on the other hand, constantly leaving too much money on the table by being *too* flexible can be just as bad or even worse.

Am I saying you should be more aggressive from now on?

No.

Am I saying you should be less aggressive from now on?

No.

Through today’s post, I simply tried to present both dimensions of the “losing sales vs. leaving money on the table” issue in order to help you guys make informed decisions. That’s what I’m here to do, I do my best present the various aspects associated with domaining in an objective manner but the burden of making the final decision(s) is on your shoulders.