Don’t Believe the Headlines: Corporate America “Gets It”, You Just Have to Have It

Despite all the don’t get it headlines out there, corporate America knows the value of good domains and high quality websites and are actively spending money adding them to their assets.  For every “this company settled for the dot net and didn’t secure their dot com” is another company secretly negotiating to get the domain they want and often paying top dollar. Or buying a website that has targeted and acquired a position in their own little niche of the Internet.

Over the last year I have seen a great bit of consolidation and acquisitions among people I work with online and in business.  Plain and simple, they are being bought out or selling their domains to people that have more money and want to get ahead.  Today the Name.com acquisition was a great story but wasn’t a surprise to anyone.  Name was a great company that was ripe for a larger company to add to their coffers.  As soon as someone within reported they actually were showing profitability I knew they were as good as bought.  The same thing happened today with a friend that owns a stone statuary company. He’s done a great job and shown profits every year over the last 10 years.  And today a larger statuary company bought him out.  I had another friend that recently sold his highly trafficked, three year old, design site to a major Internet company for $1.5 million. In both cases, a large corporation wanted whatt he had and had the money to buy in.   They wanted to save time and gain market share using their cash. Two thing a good website and/or a domain can offer. It doesn’t happen when one side of the equation is missing. Companies get it but you have to have it.

Corporations want good domains and are willing to pay money to get them.  What they pay often comes down to who is negotiating and how badly the domain owner needs the money. There are reasons why Michael Berkens and Rick Schwartz always get high dollar.  They have a good collection on premium domains (they have what they want) and they don’t need the money.  The perfect combo.  And you?  My guess is that most of us are lacking one of the two or both. But somehow the lack of price and want from corporations is them not knowing the value of our domains.

In 2012 you should have had more offers for you domains that at any time.  Most domain investors I talked to had a banner year for sales.  If you didn’t, you have one of two things.  You have really good names and realize they will only get more valuable (and didn’t need any money) or you don’t have names that people want to buy.  If it’s the latter I have good news.  There’s still time.  It’s still very early in the overall scheme of things and there are plenty of great domains to be had. There is still a chance to make millions. The only thing different is the good names get a little more expensive every year.  If there is anything I can guarantee in this business is that and LLL.com will be more expensive in three years.

So take the advice from the part time, know nothing, domain blogger.  Take a look at your portfolio, your websites and ask yourself a question.  Do I have assets that if purchased would add to the profitability and growth of the purchasing company?  Are there similar assets that could be had that are better than mine?  Have I put forth effort, money and time into my asset that will give the buyer a head start?  Plain and simple, why would someone want to pay good money for this? Put those questions to most domains and the results will probably be, no.  Try and make websites and buy domains that return yes.