A post about selling domain names on Noobworld.com, was brought to my attention today entitled “How to sell domain names to clueless end-users?”
The article which goes on to chat about Frank Schilling, Mike Mann, Rich Schwartz, Kevin Ham, Richard Lau and Brian Wick starts with this:
“”Have you ever visited TheDomains.com? ”
“The owner of the domain blog runs MostWantedDomains.com and WWMI.com. ”
“Michael Berkens is a master of misleading the end-user with unreliable sale data to score major domain sales. ”
“You want proof? VisitBerlin.com article/check comment section. Michael assumes his former VisitBerlin.com domain is comparable to VisitFlorida.com. ”
“He owns many top domain names worthy of high domain sales, but he seems to oversell less than appealing domain names at much higher prices.”
“Michael’s blog readers are essentially his robots, acting as he is like Moses leading them through the Red Sea.””
So welcome all ye sinners who dare to sell a premium domain at premium prices to end users who know exactly what domain they want and why they want it.
All kidding aside I’m confused by the article which starts out insulting me for asking for I guess what he considers to be “too much money” from the poor innocent end users, and ends with don’t be the guy who sells Klout.com for $5K.
I’m also confused of why VisitFlorida.com isn’t excellent comparison for the valuation of VisitBerlin.com or why that sale isn’t an excellent FMV for other like domains.
In my experience most “end users” who write you are all college students, unemployed down on their luck guys with offering the last $1,000 they have in the world for your domain, or those who are going to use the domain for charitable purposes.
Funny never got an email from anyone who says ” We are a Fortune 500 company with a huge budget, what do you want for this domain?” or “We are a company that just got $5M in VC money and have an idea to turn your domain into a $100 Million dollars company what do you want for it?”
So are we are now 40 days into the new year I can tell you we have sold including domain names pending in Escrow.com almost $400,000 in domain names.
Two are under NDA but the rest are opened to full disclosure once they all close.
I guess Lady Gaga has her “Little Monsters” and now I have My “Robots”
Welcome to the club.
Wow, now that’s a version of The Bible i would be interested in reading, moses and mindless robots!!.
Not sure what goes through some peoples heads when they write articles, jealousy? maybe, ignorance? probably, still always a good read anyway.
The post on Noobworld is totally incoherent. I’m not sure why you even bothered to write a blog post in response to it and draw undeserved attention to a poorly written, poorly argued piece.
I posted this on FB
. . . sharing . . .
I don’t agree with the article…
And I wanted to state that PUBLICALLY…
MB is knowledgeable and interesting… (so there)
~Patricia Kaehler – Ohio USA – DomainBELL
Mike this is Jason Goodlin funny he has a domain blog but did not want to call you out there but calls you out on a why park site. He runs domaining mojo .com
He ripped your boating industry .com sale
In August he said he was done with domaining
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
DomainingMojo.com & DomainNameMojo.com are up for sale: My domain journey ends today
After carefully thinking about my situation, I decided that I want to move out of the domain industry. I will be selling my domain names and blog names domainnamemojo.com and domainingmojo.com with backlinks.
I experienced too much stress because of the domain industry. I think it is time to make that decision to exit the domain industry to save my future. Whereas I know a lot of about the domain industry, I don’t find any excitement with domains. There are no goals I want to accomplish in domaining.
One popular domain blog owner refused to look at my portfolio. He didn’t understand the full extent of my struggles. Domainers spend a lot of time on these blogs to make these people more money. They can’t spend two seconds to browse a list of domain names. The two dot me domains are of quality. Another elite domainer declined since they only wanted to purchase revenue generating sites.
I read that blog the guy seems depressed he blames wealthy domainers for not helping him.
he said It sucks that rich people only look to make more money, and then gloat about their domain sales. Domainers follow these domain blogs to make these domain blogs think they’re important.
I don’t see the thrill in domains. I’m tired of writing about Google de indexing my Whypark sites or overpriced domain sales. It’s boring stuff. I lost valuable time with domains. I could’ve gone after my real goals. Now I wasted another few years and I have nothing to show for my time and dedication.
MHB rocks, beep beep !
@#%&…. does not compute… no such file exists..
Did the owner even write that article? The domain is parked at WhyPark and they could’ve added that article.
Why in gods name would you give a fuck what this dude thinks?
One of the finest compliments a man can receive is to be criticized by fools.
That guy will never succeed in life let alone domaining if he can’t see the blame for his faults starts and ends with himself. To blame others and throw digital jabs is very childish on his part. I wouldn’t pay him a single bit of attention. I got into domaining late in the game (2008) and have made a nice sum of money by learning from those that came before me, not putting them down.
if your planet is all women except for you and me, I’m in.
Quick! Someone register JasonGoodlin.com!
Mike,
I’d like to think that I’ve gotten to know you pretty well over the years.
I’ve never seen you walk on water or part the Red Sea.
😉
If he is the DomainMojo guy (aka, “WHY AREN’T MY RESUME DOMAINS SELLING?@?!), he’s one of those people who cannot stop blabbering, ever, long enough to learn anything. Everything with him starts from the perspective of his own impeccable insight, but it’s the entire world that ‘doesn’t get it’.
Life is very hard for people like that. The poor guys ‘domaining career’ didn’t make it through a single renewal cycle.
The one area where he deserves credit, though, is that he gave up, realizing he was destined to fail. Sometimes, ditching a loser can save you more money than many ‘winners’ wind up making. There are a lot of people who can learn from him.
Quick! Someone register JasonGoodlin.com!
—–
Domainer scumbag impulse.
Danger Will Robinson, Danger
Give not attention to those undeserving of such.
@MHB
Happy to be one of your “robots” 😉
Well I suppose jealousy is a normal human emotion. And maybe there are more than one or two guys out there who buy a few names in hopes they’ll be making six figures flipping Ifoundanunregistereddotcomtoday.com. Its pretty easy to look at the list of domain sales every week at Sedo and start thinking that way, if you don’t do the math and realize only .00001% of Sedo’s listed inventory sells every week. Domaining is a tough business, and certainly there are people out there failing at it. So if anything maybe its surprising they don’t vent more often. But sorry it was directed at you. This is clearly one of the best blogs on the net for domainers.
LS
I don’t but too good of a quote to pass on
Secure
I’s rather be able to do that water into wine thing
The guy is just jealous of Michael and others that are successful. Michael has helped me make sales, gave me great advice, and one of the reasons why I have done good and I thank Michael for that. I was taught to watch and learn from succesful people from my dad at a early age, and that is the smart thing to do.
I took the smart road and http://i.imgur.com/AfJRS.gif
Everyone is ready to mind your business and tell you how to run it and what’s right to do what’s wrong to do. Most from Negativity Jealousy. Most of time it’s just a crap shoot and nobody’s business how you run your business
If you hadn’t brought up the post no one would ever have known, but it’s funny to read. You have one of the best domain blogs and provide a lot of good information to the domain industry. Strange why someone would be critical of another’s success, but those kind of people exist. Looking forward to you reporting the domains you’ve sold recently that aren’t under NDA.
Most of the comment here do sound like goddamn mindless robots! Having said that, Mike is no Moses.
The guy’s criticism do have some points in it, but I believe he directed it to only one guy instead of the a group of guys.
@Michael
Im not asking for you to make water into wine for me , but please bless me with domains into money!
Cheers
Just another case of some frustrated guy afraid of being successful.
“Domain investors assume they are intelligent”
– Not me – I just want to work hard and make dough so I can play hard. “Intelligence” is for the genius politicians in the White House and Capitol Hill. If anything Domain Investors should assume they are students – like me.
“rename all desperate end-users the end-losers”
“Orangefield could have easily invested $15 in Orangefield.co.”
– the buyer – who we did not know until after the sale – was smart enough to know .co’s (and all the rest of the non.com’s except .xxx) cannot be branded and their only value is whatever bill-of-goods can be sold to someone new to domains – based on this thread nOObWorld caters to “End-Losers”.
well, in fairness, some of what he says is accurate. not with respect to this blog, or any particular domainers, but in general.
e.g.
sales data, especially when it’s reported by those individuals and entities that sell domains, serves a purpose, one which is in their favour.
and end-users are indeed naive.
but the later point applies to all things relating to computers/networking/internet, not simply domain names.
the good news is that end-users have the resources to educate themselves… to an extent never before feasible. they might not have “perfect information” but they have more information than ever before. and they have devices that are sufficiently powered to process this data, if they choose the right software. the cost is time and effort.
postal mail, telecommunications, radio, tv, … many industries are converging this one medium. those older industries were not structured in ways that allowed almost anyone with a mailbox, a telephone, a radio receiver or a tv set to learn about how they work and get involved. whereas now, if you own a computer and are connected to the internet you can learn a great deal about both computers and the internet, and you can get involved. the cost is time and effort.
one thing end-users might learn is that these issues with, e.g., dodgy data, naive readers and exorbitantly priced “domain names”, are symptoms of the design of a system: the domain name system (dns). without changing this system, which we use as shorthand to keep track of internet addresses (the system was not designed to used for branding), or without getting people to stop using centralised, commercial dns (icann), the issues will remain, and end-users will be taken advantage of.
successful domainers are wise enough that they are not expending any effort fighting to fix these flaws in dns. instead they keenly discover and exploit them. they are not battling against the current and incoming surf. they wait patiently and observantly, and then ride the waves, with the power of the sea at their backs.
Berkens, Schwarz, and one other guy, sold a DOT me for close to $5 Million dollars, I still haven’t figured that one out yet.
@Tim Davids
“if your planet is all women except for you and me, I’m in”
While we are dreaming, what kind of women? Because, that’s kinda’ important.
I remember him, I think it is mostly frustration and some jealousy talking.
“So are we are now 40 days into the new year I can tell you we have sold including domain names pending in Escrow.com almost $400,000 in domain names.”
No wonder you make such a great Prophet 😉
ps) I ‘ll give you $10,000 if you can turn expiring .info into .coms !
Never heard of this guy, sounds frustrated and jealous.
Yeah, yeah, I can see Mike as Moses. Leading us all to the promised land of “profitable” domain sales. Right of the…..red sea and left of the Ten Commandments. Mike, you rock and are a rock star. You are our domain name Rabbi and our teacher. Moshe Rabbenu. They don’t call you a prophet for nothing bro…. Doubt the doubters. Respect and Kudos’ to you and the tribe.
Ignorance not so much a motivator, jealousy – HUGE!
But who knows what’s driving this fella?
Hope he has better days ahead.
Berkens,
I came back to give you a friendly advice:
you had better slow down, the rate your ego is swelling, you may not fit through your doors if you keep it up.
Mike,
That poster needs to study the Bible. He said, “Michael’s blog readers are essentially his robots, acting as he is like Moses leading them through the Red Sea.””
The Israelites who followed Moses came out OK on the other end; http://bible.cc/exodus/14-29.htm (not so for the Egyptians, who had different motives).
You do a great job here. This poster’s kind of noise was the reason I stopped reading most “domain forums” years ago. I prefer to follow the better minds and bloggers in the industry like yours.
@ Dr. Chris –
“Right of the…..red sea and left of the Ten Commandments.”
Those are deep profound words from a guy who figured this stuff before most of us.
I can’t wait to see Moses Berkens on Rapper.tv 🙂
Gazzip
“” I ‘ll give you $10,000 if you can turn expiring .info into .coms””
I don;t think Moses himself could have done that
Uzoma
“Berkens, Schwarz, and one other guy, sold a DOT me for close to $5 Million dollars, I still haven’t figured that one out yet.”
We sold it for $450,00o.
Thanks for running such a great blog Mike! Your willingness to share your knowledge and opinions FOR FREE will continue to be appreciated by many, including me. Thank you!
It just dawned on me, if youre Moses I am Joshua…no real I am Joshua. LOL
You’d have to know a little old testament to understand the joke 😉
so counting the .me you really sold 850K this year
The end-user article is proof that most of you listen too much instead of forming your own opinion. It was noted that Mike, Rick and another domainer sold Meet.me for $450,000. Why mention the domain sold for $5 million? Again, another clueless statement.
Many of you domainers are gullible.
@Gazzip,
No jealousy involved. That’s a poor excuse. VisitBerlin.com is not the domain deal of the century. Based on the data, it appears VisitBerlin.de overpaid. Not much action. TheMeditator.com owner also overpaid. Wouldn’t buy Meditator.com for $30K.
@ASDF,
Never gave up domaining. Funny you mention resume domains. The entire resume portfolio sold to an end-user except one domain. The resume domains sold before a renewal cycle. Another resume company paid well to acquire one resume-related domain. I do listen well. I’ve talked to two of the top 20 domainers in the world. I read often.
@DotCom,
Not depressed. Wrong assessment.
@Craig,
What drives me is that most domainers listen and praise the elite. There is only elite domainer who deserves credit, which is obviously not this website owner.
@Scott,
How is a satirical article an insult on a top domainer? The article title spells out satire.
@Brian Wick,
You think every high priced domain sale is good for the industry. Sound like a domain robot to me.
@LS Morgan,
At least you’re always consistent with your tone.