Broker Brooke Hernandez on Selling Million-Dollar Domains and Overcoming Objections | Saw.com

Speaker 1: 0:07

Today on the uncomfortable podcast we have sawcom domain broker Brooke Hernandez, who's been part of tens of millions of dollars in domain sales and has been in the domain industry for over 10 years, and her story of making her way in the domain industry from domain advisors to Uniretistry to sawcom. We cover the top objections brokers receive and how she responds to them. I don't need it, it's only nice to have. I'll just register a cheap domain and SEO the heck out of it. This is a good one and I hope you enjoy it. Comments requests. Send us an email to buzz at sawcom and listen to us on Apple Podcasts, spotify and all the major outlets. Thanks for listening. All right Reporting live from the frozen tundra of Tampa, florida. Today I give you broker Brooke Hernandez of sawcom, domain broker with over a decade of domain industry experience, tens of millions of dollars in transactions. Brooke is known for some of these sales bunnycom, fewcom, pincom, anatomycom, spillcom and pastacom. That's an old one, right, brooke? Oververse mortgages might even be older.

Speaker 1: 1:47

Reverse mortgages.

Speaker 2: 1:48

That's even older.

Speaker 1: 1:50

Mortgages. And what? Cottoncom was another one you sold.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Way long ago.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Brooke has been stuck working with me for a majority of over that decade, through thick and thin, and thin and thick. So, broker Brooke, how are we doing today?

Speaker 2: 2:09

Doing good. Doing good. Thank you for aging me even further than I already feel by saying 10 plus years.

Speaker 1: 2:18

Yeah. So what I like to do with all of our go ahead? No, so what I like to do with all of our guests is hear a little bit about your background and how you got into the business. So why don't you fill everybody in a little bit of your experience and what you're doing before, the domain industry and how it sucked you in?

Speaker 2: 2:39

So before I was a commercial real estate broker, I grew up in the commercial real estate world. My dad was a developer. I was looking to, hopefully, after I was five years of being a commercial real estate broker, I was going to try and be a developer. And then life took a hard turn and the 2008 market crash and I was talking to my dad and I was it was right before I almost even got like a plot of property to do it and he like looked me dead in the eye and he's like you've got to figure something out because we don't know how long this is going to last. So at that point we also owned Craig and I my husband also owned a commercial real estate, a commercial landscaping company, so we thought we'd take a pause and go to a Costa Rica, figure things out.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Came back to the US and was introduced through a family friend domain advisors and that's when I met you and Tessa Holcomb and that you were looking for someone to kind of go into sales. Even previous that, prior even getting to know you guys, I worked for a hot second as a aviation headset sales manager and was doing that which you know, which is really funny. Last week we had to go back to Arizona for our friend's funeral and the boys got to go in the cockpit and it was actually like I was able to talk to the pilot about their heads, which was just a one off like, oh I'm so, so fun of these, so it was just kind of funny. But yeah, and then I was introduced to the wonderful world of the domain industry, which has been a very fun and great business to be in so far, do you?

Speaker 1: 4:35

say so far? Do you remember when oh, to give some people some background Holcomb and I worked together at CEDO for a number of years and then Tessa left first and started her own thing, and then I ended up leaving and we decided to start a business together with Greg McNair, and then Tessa brought Brooke in as a sales person for us at Domain Advisors and then I was helping to teach her, along with Tessa, about the business and I used to call Brooke and say remember I used to call you out of the blue and just be like oh hey, I'm ready to buy that domain. How about you tell me about the F-Roll practice?

Speaker 2: 5:18

Yes, so for both of us.

Speaker 1: 5:23

yeah, so both for both of us in sales, though and I think we both agree is that one of the most important parts is when you get that yes, buyer is being able to make them feel comfortable with what happens next. So what happens next is one of the options is to use a company like Escrowcom or Escrowdomains, and then going through the steps and the transfer process and those things. So I remember doing that with you quite often.

Speaker 2: 5:50

And you always seem to have called the moment, because I've always worked from home and you would always call like the one moment I decided that I wanted to catch like a breath of fresh air and walk around the block. So it was not even like I was able to be in like my sitting area and like all prepped in my office mode. It was like literally on the fly, because that's when we have also the round Robin phones at times.

Speaker 2: 6:17

So you didn't know who was calling when or what. But yeah, I remember that it was very interesting it was. It showed me how the industry is to be, to say just like on, how everything's on the fly, like I even remember at domain name sales when that was going up and we had the app going and like Vern called and I was in San Francisco and I was supposed to test it and it was just like I got a deal about how 5k deals sitting at a San Francisco baseball game. So they complained about that.

Speaker 1: 6:56

But to give people some of a bit of a background. So we had domain advisors which we ended up renaming to igloocom. When Brooke was working there, one of our customers was Frank Schilling and Frank put our main brokerage's phone number on all of the domain names that he had all 360,000 of those domains and so when people wanted a price or if they were looking for a refund on their t-shirt, they bought because they were confused or don't really need a call, calling or anything else under the sun.

Speaker 1: 7:31

They would call our company and they would get somebody like Brooke, and what had also was an app that we would communicate with Vern, who was Frank's right hand man, or directly with Frank, where we could either look up quick pricing so you could get an inbound lead, you pick up the phone and we got the price and we could give it to the buyer, and then you would negotiate with them right then and there, because we knew that would be okay if we could discount like 20 or 30% at our own discretion and sell the name.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Or you were dealing with someone calling back and saying, alright, I thought about it, here's my offer, right as well, plus all the other names that we had to sell. So, and mixed into that, I would call and then Brooke would answer and then I would pretend to be a buyer and then have her explain to me different processes and things like that, which her and the other colleagues of hers got really tired of really fast and the objections you would call in and you would ask, like we'd say, oh well, this is the price.

Speaker 2: 8:34

And then you'd be like oh well, I don't know if I even want it why. And then you would make all these it was like a 10 or something.

Speaker 1: 8:43

You guys didn't even know it was me, with my voice.

Speaker 2: 8:46

No, no, I had no idea it was you, because I didn't. I never, I mean I really from working with you. I think it was the first time I went to one of the conferences, which was in California. It was in California.

Speaker 1: 9:03

The Fremont Hotel. I remember yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:05

That was the first time, yeah, yeah, so you could have completely continued that and I would have never have known.

Speaker 1: 9:13

But I would have to try it again.

Speaker 2: 9:16

It's dead.

Speaker 1: 9:19

So from there we worked together at Domain Advisors for a couple of years and then the opportunity because we were working on so to give you a little bit more of a background was we launched Domain Advisors. Frank was using our brokerage to sell his names. We were obviously attracting other customers, helping to do acquisitions or doing outbound sales on some real premium names Reverse mortgages, when we mentioned before was an outbound sale that you did yourself when we were together at Domain Advisors. It was Frank's. And then during that time, parking was going down.

Speaker 1: 9:55

Frank was realizing that in order to maintain his revenue, he needed to start selling a lot more names and so he started to build. Actually, I know for a fact they tried to do a deal with Salesforce to use them to build a CRM, but the amount of money they would have charged to customize it, he said I could just build my own. So him myself, vern and a guy named Roy we worked together to start and Dan Adamson I was just starting to work there. We're talking about the perfect kind of CRM that we could build for his personal situation and potentially for others. And then I remember he launched Internet traffic, which was just parking. So everyone started parking their names with him.

Speaker 1: 10:41

And then, uh, he added on domain name sales, which we worked on building a CRM. That was really just design selling domain names, right and based on inbound, inbound leads. And so then what ended up happening is we got to use the CRM as a sales team, right, and then we started working with some of the parking clients that Frank had using that CRM. Then, uh, frank was like hey, you know, you've done really good for me over at without brook, knowing you've done really good for me over at domain names sales, like why don't you leave there and come in and join me and start really getting this brokerage going and really turning up the volume on my sales? So then we made an agreement. I left state at domain advisors for a while, like well, like probably like six or eight months or a year, I don't know. Later, I can't remember.

Speaker 2: 11:39

No five.

Speaker 1: 11:43

So, so a couple of months, and then, um, and then you called me and you're like hey, you know, can I come and work for you at uniregistry? Or wasn't even, you know, registered, even exist, yet it was domain name sales at the time.

Speaker 2: 11:55

No, it's domain name sales is cause. You saw the writing on the wall that, even though Frank had his domains at domain advisors, if you're seeing someone create a whole platform for exactly what you're doing and kind of all of a sudden building it up in the building it up on a different level, you kind of were like, well, writing seems to be on the wall of what's going to happen with a client that I mean he was one of, I mean he was probably one of my I mean my main clients at domain advisors. I mean you know I would do outbound on a lot of his domains and inbound and you know, work on it. We did portfolio sales at domain advisors, but he was like he was my bread and butter, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 12:43

Well, I think the thing is is that when you look, when you look at someone as a or any domain brokerage, is that it's great to make the big sales, and but someone with a larger portfolio and does consistent sales is what really like pays your salary and then the bigger sales is kind of like the bonuses, you know, and if you can make a couple of big sales over the course of a year, that can really change the outcome of your year. And then the smaller sales of the 3000, the 5000, 10, $20,000 deals, which Frank did a lot of makes, you know, makes it so the math works when you kind of go through those slower times or when you're trying to work on the bigger names.

Speaker 2: 13:19

Right, and it's also I like to, just because I got to when working, I got to going to domain name sales. What was great is I got to actually get to know more of the people in the industry. Like I knew some of the people, like a handful, which were you know some of our repeats for portfolios, or you know Gary turn off and you know Scott Day and those guys that you always had someone who's like I want to buy this domain, can you get it for me? And so you knew those guys. But it was really also great to see all of these other people that are out there that have great portfolios but you just they're not. You know, you don't know of them because they're not in the limelight. They're kind of just doing their own thing and want to kind of keep going that way.

Speaker 1: 14:06

So Absolutely so. From there, you worked at domain name sales, which then morphed into uniregistry, for what I'd probably say six years would be my guess. I was there seven, so I was there a little longer than you, right? Yeah, so between, or maybe seven, because you lasted, so I resigned, I left uniregistry and then you stayed on for how long? Like I left in August and then Until December, december came because I think it was you know I was like I'm not sure.

Speaker 2: 14:43

It was, yeah, it was after we found out that go daddy was going to purchase uniregistry and I think that was when I was like okay, am I going to go, what's the next step?

Speaker 2: 14:56

If I'm going to go work with go daddy, you know, cause I've been doing this, what's, what am I going to do? And I think I took like December, if I recall, to just be like okay, just let me have December and I'll figure out. And I even told Wade at that time. I was like, let me have December, I got to just kind of figure things out. And he was like okay. So I think Wade had a feeling.

Speaker 1: 15:22

I think Wade had a feeling what was probably happening, because I remember the day that I told the company that I had given my notice and that I was, that I was leaving. I think right after the meeting, my my phone was ringing and it was you saying wherever you go, I'm coming with you.

Speaker 2: 15:37

I'm like I don't even know where I'm going.

Speaker 1: 15:40

I don't even know if I'm even going to be in the business after this. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. But yeah, it was, that was an interesting decision and he joined us, the new company, right. And we go from this robust built up, you know, six years into a CRM system and hundreds of sellers and a registrar and domain extensions and all these plans of like going public and Christmas parties at the Ritz and Boat Rise and and drinks and lightning in a bottle and lots of fun to us with a very basic CRM, not a whole ton of clients, like really trying to get a business started. So why don't you tell us what that was kind of like for you? You know getting wanting this.

Speaker 2: 16:36

Well, my personality is I've always thought that if you want something to be successful, you have to put the work into it. So the one thing is, when I joined, I knew that we had two great people that were at the helm you and then also Amanda Walts and I knew that at that time we've got two people who came from you know, two in a sense different worlds within the industry but had the same vision, which was, you know, you kind of went the unregistry way and Amanda always had like her book of clients, of repeat clients and you know her big sales that would take place. And so I always looked forward and being like, all right, I'm going to put in the work, I'm going to understand where this is going and help get that trajectory. I really, after being at domain name sales, I really wanted to kind of change, because everyone in their industry, you know you work so many years and you kind of get into understanding how it goes. I also wanted to kind of expand and do more outbound and more acquisition for clients, because that was also something that you know we got to do at unregistry, but not on the level that really peaked, you know I peaked my interest on it.

Speaker 2: 17:55

So then coming, it was like all right, here we go and jumped both feet in and had you know, normal home office. I was like, okay, let's get these let's, you know, start digging into who we're talking to, what we're selling, and you know, inbound leads were here and there. And then it was more like all right, let's get you know understanding what our you know exact mission statement is going to be for when we're talking to these companies and how we're going to actually what you know again, what's the brand of our company, what's our portrayal, what are we? And that was fun. That was a really weird time. It was a very fun time and then it was a very short high. That was lived because then I think that's what it was. I think that's when, like six months later, covid hit and that was like three months yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:50

Three, and that was one of those, you know, oh crap moments. I, what did, what did I do? And then, but it kept going and that was the good thing, is it just? I think we had a good group of people on a good group of clients where it actually just kept rolling, and I think everyone was scared for a little bit because we were just like, you know, not knowing what any of it meant. But then who knew, in a weird way, that it would actually be more beneficial, because people started realizing, you know, they needed that online presence for their companies.

Speaker 2: 19:31

So it was a very weird time to go from a sure thing and then have this pandemic happen and then be like, okay, what is what's going on?

Speaker 1: 19:43

So but yeah, I think, yeah, and I think for me in this business and then like leaving, you're right and when we're both at uniregistry, especially towards the end, the goal was, you know, keeping all of the clients, and especially Frank, happy with really focusing on the inbound increase generated by the sales landers and there were certain numbers and expectations that we're supposed to meet from Heller High Water and we still have clients that are sending us their inbound leads daily basis and we want to expand that with our new product we're coming out with, with our new sales place and our new sales Very excited about that If you do their own self brokerage very soon, I'm really excited about it too.

Speaker 1: 20:29

At the same time, be a lot more strategic and full with buyers right or pitching names than we could before. I mean, I think one of the things with Uniregistry slash domain name sales was you couldn't do outbound in that CRM. It wasn't possible, because if you try to do an email campaign, it's going to email the guy like he inquired, so it makes no sense.

Speaker 2: 20:54

So there is that.

Speaker 1: 20:56

You know, the other thing is is putting in a buyer and a seller into a CRM. You know a company comes to you and says I want to buy this domain name, and then you're you have to follow up with the buyer and let them know what's happening with the auction and is the seller is responded and what has he responded with, or what was the price, or if he's responded at all or what you've done to try to contact the seller. And how do you put both a buyer and a seller into the Uniregistry or domain name sales platform? You couldn't. You know, it's just two different things, right? So we had the able to start again with kind of a clean slate. Our CRM can do that and we can do the outbound and we can do the inbound stuff. So you like a lot more more nimble, and I think you said is that you know you're using kind of different parts of your brain Rather than Well, that's exactly I was.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Yeah, I was just going to say that is, you know, when you're only doing inbound, your brain is just you know, you start conditioning it to whenever someone comes in, of what what's going to happen. You know, because it's more of a warm lead, right, you have someone who's someone, someone interested in it. They're going to be a little easier in that sense, but it's fun to be able to have a client that wants to acquire a domain and you're having to kind of do a little more digging on who the owner is and kind of work it that way. So I like, I like having that balance, because it's not, you're not getting bored, you know, it's not just a repetitive day, it's getting to have both and make it where I think it makes your mind a little sharper. For when you do have that strong inbound need, you're like all right, like you kind of perk up.

Speaker 1: 22:40

So instead of just click, yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, you have all the templates saved and you're just choosing one through five on every inbound lead in some cases when, when you just have so many and you don't know what to do, or the repeat conversation on the phone, that's.

Speaker 2: 22:56

That's the other thing. So you would have the repeat of someone who didn't know domains and then you're just repeating. And but what's funny is I do a lot of the domain acquisitions and sometimes even with these, you know startups and these companies that we're acquiring domains for. You kind of almost have that same conversation with them because they're still not as well versus in the industry as well. So I very much look forward to our new platform to be able to have that more fitting and bringing on more people and then also being able to still do that positions and then also, you know, be able to pitch some of our clients domains if that one domain isn't going to work for that particular buyer. Being able to know what we have as resource and say, well, what about these? Would these be adventurous, because a lot of the acquisition ones you know they'll come in and they want a hundred thousand dollar domain. They don't have a hundred thousand dollar budget, sometimes as a startup, so always good to have alternatives.

Speaker 1: 24:00

And I think one of the more you know. It's becoming more and more challenging with the who is being blocked and we were talking about that yesterday or the lights being shut on the who is and having to go back and and try to find a bread crumb right. And we've had situations where we've called ex secretaries of an owners or family members, finding them on Facebook and piecing it together. We've had a situation where we'd be sending letters to family members.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Sort of five letters.

Speaker 1: 24:31

One of my faves I found a guy in the, in the, in the boonies of Alabama. We found his house and we were looking at it on, you know, google Maps. We found you, you know, and they're like how the hell is going to go where the hell did that come from?

Speaker 1: 24:48

like where the hell you know whatever trying to hide, but we find them. So, yeah, I mean there's a certain a level of fun and internet sleuthing and things like that that you can, you know, get yourself into. I'm going to hit you with the most common objections and let's see how you do Right. We're going to do it like old school where I used to call you for the escrow dot com process. I'm going to try a new one. I'm going to hit you with some I'm I'm not as versed as you because I don't take as many inbound leads as you do these days, so some of my objections might not be as exciting anymore. Maybe you can add a few, but I don't need it, it's only a nice to have. What do you? What would you say if called into somebody who said it, or someone inquired directly to you and then say I don't need it, it's just a nice to have? What would be your answer back?

Speaker 2: 25:43

Well, ok, so one is my sales style, as I know people will go about in different way, but my sales styles also kind of getting more information from them. So one I'd be like well, what makes this a nice to have? What? What is it that they're looking for? Because some will say, oh, it's, you know, personal product, a brand or company, and that kind of takes you on a whole different path. But for me, I'm emphasizing with them that it's it's really establishing your strong brand for your company.

Speaker 2: 26:18

So what, what is it that you're trying to get out of this? You know, are you looking to make a blog or is this something where, if it's your company, you're going to be established as a competitor in the market? Your credibility is there, you know. And even something like your SEO, where it makes a difference in having that kind of domain for what your company is. You know, if the I think we talked about, where you know you have links that are going to be in your, your website, it's still going to come back. Seo uses, age on a domain and things of that nature. So I mean, I think you just go through and you kind of discuss what, what they're looking for, but also, you know, inform them of the brand part, but also even marketing, like if you go to trying to figure out, what kind of marketing campaign are you going to do? If you're going to be using this like, what is it going to be for? Because the marketing campaign with not that great of a domain and it's a nice to have to make a so.

Speaker 2: 27:25

I need to figure out which way they're going in order to really kind of pivot, because you know, if it's someone that just it's a nice to have them and do a blog, I'll throw them out some of the alternative extensions. If it's on a $50,000 domain, you know there's other extensions that might work better for that person. But if it's a large company that has the funds, it's going to be, let's talk about your brand, let's talk about your competitors that might come up. Let's go that route. So it's an open ended question, I guess I would say.

Speaker 1: 28:01

Yeah. So there's really no silver bullet to the answer and I think the reality is is right you're uncovering. Why is it a nice to have for them? What are the pain points they could be suffering through right now? What would this domain do to help alleviate problems and finding? Trying to get them to say those on the phone and then agreeing right with them so they can see that it's not necessarily just a nice to have, it's a have to have right.

Speaker 2: 28:29

Well, and one of the things that I was yeah, and one of the things like when I first started out my sales career, craig's, my husband's stepfather, was oh, it told me, he goes. You always want to try and see if you can get him to say yes and you want to agree with them, and I've always thought that was the weirdest advice I've ever gotten, because I've always been like no, you want to. My personality is like I want to agree with you. This is why I don't agree with you.

Speaker 1: 28:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:58

But then really selling and seeing. What he was meaning was that you're listening to their reasons and you're saying, okay, I get that and that makes sense for your company. But have you thought of it this way, so it's, you know, kind of moving it to I get it, it's not a must because it's going to be a new product that's coming out, but have you thought that maybe a competitor's going to know that product's going to come out and because of that, you're going to want to make sure that you secure this domain, or your competitor might grab it for their benefit instead? So you know a lot of different ones.

Speaker 1: 29:38

Absolutely. I also think and I've talked to you about this before is is the business a B2B, right? If it's a B2B product, that you're expecting to do TV ads and really pump the general public who aren't as well-versed in domains? Having a confusing domain is going to hurt you a lot of ways, right? And you're relying on repeat customers, repeat traffic, like if a company you mean B2C, you said B2B, b2c not B2B, I'm sorry. B2c, b2c.

Speaker 2: 30:08

Right.

Speaker 1: 30:08

Like, like, for example, I don't know if you know the story of Amazon, but Amazon was initially called Avocadabra or Cadabra and the lawyer kept calling it Cadabra. And so if you go to Cadabracom or Cadabracom, and I think even Cadabracom, it goes to Amazon, they forward to Amazon. But that was the original name of Amazon was Cadabra. And so they realized right then from the beginning that that wasn't a good name for repeat business in a B2C style of name. So they switched to Amazon, right, and obviously how they did with that. But, like, there's other situations where you do talk to a B2B business, right, and it could be like you know, we were saying A giant company across the world that only deals with specific containers, for, I mean, you know, a niche.

Speaker 2: 31:02

B2b is, you know, hard to say. You've got to have this. I think I talked to one business and they literally are a company that only works with the US government.

Speaker 1: 31:17

That was it yeah, oh, there you go, one of my things to do with that.

Speaker 1: 31:20

I mean I also think there's a vanity play for it, right, because there's certain VCs that we've worked with that we've acquired their brand match domain and they've paid a lot of money for it. But I think it helps them with their confidence that, even though, like, they're probably not going to get companies coming to them asking for investment from Google search them, walking into a meeting and maybe a lot of people are trying to invest in this company will help the perception they're offering that they are a leader, they are the best VC, and that if other VCs are paying trying to pay money, you know, maybe having the better domain will make you look better as well, right, well?

Speaker 2: 31:59

we've had some of the domains where we've had inbound needs, where people are like I want to purchase you know green dot com, but I want, you know, I'm not, I don't want to pay anything, I just want to make it so when I present it to the VCs, that they see that I own the dot com or I want to pitch it to get more funding and then then I can do it. And that's also. It kind of just shows like when these companies are going to get funding as much as we want to say, it doesn't seem to matter having your brand match domain. When you're getting to that level it does make a difference in the view.

Speaker 1: 32:44

Yeah, All right. You said all right, so let's think of another one. Okay, sorry, I'm gonna hand register a domain. Or I'm gonna go spend a couple hundred dollars on a domain and I'm just gonna SEO the shit out of it. What would be your response? Or someone who says I could just buy that keyword in another extension and I'll just do a bunch of SEO and I'll own that keyword in like six months. We don't need to buy this name.

Speaker 2: 33:13

Well, I always go like my brain always goes back to the algorithm of Google, because I remember when Penguin came out and I don't know why. That has always stuck in my head, but it was this huge deal for a lot of people that you couldn't see it when it was on. It had the mobile app. If you weren't mobile, your SEO just dropped. So I really bring that into people like saying, hey look, algorithms do change and you're gonna have to constantly maintain that SEO, seo is definitely needed. I am not saying by any means you don't need SEO, but it's like when you have a company that's a brick or mortar, you have a good location, which is what your domain name is. You have what people remember, where they remember to go to, and then SEO is kind of, in that sense, that advertising, where someone's searching or someone's walking down the street. They see it and they're like, oh, I really wanna go to that, and then they remember where they need to go back to.

Speaker 2: 34:12

So one is I always talk about the SEO, the Google algorithm, always changing. The other is with the SEO, age does make a difference and if you hand register a domain, google is not trusting of it. They think that they could be spammy and so after a certain amount of age they realize that one that it's not. But it also helps the SEO to have that kind of age behind the domain. And then also people they really don't.

Speaker 2: 34:46

I don't think they think about, like the costs of what constant SEO is compared to also owning your brand. So you're gonna be paying, I don't know thousands, at least if you're gonna be SEOing the hell out of something. It just haven't be the ranking compared to where, if you actually have your brand and that's what people are remembering you can do it a little more, not as much and not as constant. The other thing is if you're a competitor and SEO I mean they even have more funds to be able to SEO, to pay for all of the ads and be able to beat you on those key words where what good does it do? You're now just in a competitive nature with your another competitor and they might have more rev and more backing to be able to do that and you're just gonna boom, boom, boom and not be nice.

Speaker 1: 35:49

So I agree. I think you need to have a balance attack, and I would probably agree with the buyer, and that is saying that SEO is an integral part of any online business these days. I would also say, though, that people are becoming a lot more savvy and that I think people will judge a business based on certain criteria. I think the domain name itself is one of the things that someone glances at in the search results, and Google brought it back. It was gone for a little while, but now they show the link again. Number one, yes. The other thing is obviously reviews, and then obviously how your site works right. So if someone visits your website and it's a crappy domain, and it's a crappy website or it loads to go or other criteria, you're gonna have a problem and the other thing I can.

Speaker 2: 36:37

I know it's a brand, brand. Sorry, I know I'm interrupting you, but brand is still. I mean, it just sounds ridiculous, but I mean all I keep saying and I think it's now. I've noticed brand because back when we started, everyone would need a keyword specific domains. That was what it was all about. So if you were a shoe company, you wanted shoescom. That was what it was, because people were just typing in I want shoes, so I'm gonna go to shoescom. Now it is completely different and everything's a brand. They're like what is the brand, what is the company's brand? And that's how people are remembering. So if you don't have your brand, how memorable are you to these people? Then?

Speaker 1: 37:24

Or your brand is just bad in general, then you've got a problem.

Speaker 2: 37:28

Which can happen.

Speaker 1: 37:30

Oh yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1: 37:33

I mean, I think it's just it's all a mixture, and I think another thing that certain people who've said these things don't understand they don't understand two other things right Is that when you do SEO, or SEO the shit out of something, which we've heard many times SEOing the shit out of something involves writing.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Building a website that meets the criteria of Google has to do with speed and the way you've linked your site to itself and then submitted it to Google Postmaster Tools and making everything perfect in that way. You have to write content that people actually link to yourself, right? So it has to be something that looks good, is about subjects that people wanna read about and that third parties, like other businesses, wanna link to your articles, or you gotta pay for them. So how much is your time worth, business owner, to pay someone to write articles that are good, people wanna read and others wanna link to and make sure your website is balanced in that way and you're gonna pay somebody to manage that as an SEO person. And then the flip side of it all really is you're probably not gonna get a lot of links, because it takes a really long time to get people to notice your articles, to read them and then to link to them. You're gonna have to pay for links. Get people to do that, which gets extremely expensive.

Speaker 2: 38:57

And then there's even more, so there's even a more out of pocket. I mean it's just Even more.

Speaker 1: 39:02

So, yeah, and if you have a bad domain that just got registered, that has a bad rating as well. I mean it's gonna be a very hard thing to do. I mean there's a lot of companies and people that have done it. They've climbed the mountain, but I think it's a tough. It's a tough go and I know it for myself trying to compete with different keywords in the domain business that we think are the most important ones that we need to rank for. All right, here's another one. This is one of my favorites, especially on the lower value domains that are a couple of thousand bucks and sometimes it could be the multi-million dollar one. But I always chuckle at this one my board. It's either my board did not approve or will not approve a price over a certain amount, or they won't approve a higher offer or the offer I made. We have to go in another direction. What is your answer when someone tells you that?

Speaker 2: 39:59

I always think of. So one is you always like, no matter what you'll always be like. Well, let me you know when is the next board meeting. Let me get on the call with your board and you'll discuss. But it's almost a joking manner because we all know that no way in hell are they ever gonna let us go in a board decision.

Speaker 2: 40:18

So what I also, you know what I do try and do when they say the board isn't approved, is ask and try and understand okay, understandable one, what was the funding that you had allocated to this domain name? Because, again, it's just trying to understand what level there at. And then once they're kind of talking about it and saying, okay, well, when is the next Kind of period that your board's going to be meeting to have a discussion on needing to possibly raise the budget or if there's interest in possibly trying to do payments over time? You know we, you know, does some sellers are willing to take equity into a company, just kind of give alternatives. But the board, whenever I hear this, I'm always like, oh, you mean your wife, you know there's always or their partner.

Speaker 2: 41:13

When they have to go talk to their partner, it's like okay let's get everyone on a call that because let's make it where everyone's on the same page and I've actually had that be successful. When it's a board, it's much more along the lines of okay, what is what? Is this domain worth really to your company? What is kind of the funding that your company is going to have? Even though we can have an idea because we look on crunch base and we kind of see when the company got funding. So it's also kind of entertaining when you get that response and you see that a Company just received a hundred million dollars funding and they're giving and hiring over a thirty thousand dollar domain or something.

Speaker 2: 41:56

So again, just asking I know it sounds weird, I don't do more objections but asking questions to really open more and engage and understand what it is. That's the hiccup, because sometimes it's okay, I just don't have it. Great, let's do a payment over time. What can you do? But if it's again a large organization that has a board, it's where is your company seeing the value? Then? What is it that your company Is needing to have it be at a higher level? What are you guys needing?

Speaker 1: 42:31

I also think at the end of the conversation, if they say the board want to prove the price of you know the counteroffer, this domain, the reality was is there's still a need? Yes, they still need it and they're still going to show interest or maybe it's not that one.

Speaker 1: 42:47

Maybe the seller that you're working with or working for has something similar. Maybe they have the plural, they have the E D one as well, or the dot net. That'd be more in their budget, right? I find it. I find it a lot of times laughable when people say my board in the domain is a two thousand or three thousand dollar domain, because in order to have it and get that board to have a meeting Really would cost the company a couple thousand dollars in their time. Or if you actually do it in person, to fly everybody out somewhere, put them in a hotel. Having and hiring about a two or three thousand dollar domain is is is comical as well, you know, and I think when you really do have it, where it's an actual board, so real board, yeah, fake boards that's what I'm trying to point out Very a lot of fake boards.

Speaker 2: 43:41

But you know and but those are always the delicate ones, because I feel like that's when you start throwing out a payment plan or you. You show that, ok, maybe it's out of line with their budget or where their ideal price would be, but you kind of get them to have knowledge within the industry, show them some sales that have taken place, you know. Again, I can't stress the amount of times where I'm like well, what if we do payments over time for a few years and they're like you can do that and it's like yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:15

So how can we make that work for you? When it's one of the lower tier boards, the big boards, it's just like all right, when's your next funding? And when can I talk to someone? You know, I I have to laugh because I had. When I did the sale for Ollie, when I did the acquisition of Ollie dot com, I had reached out to the owners of Ollie dot com. I reached out to the CEO. I had had the gatekeeper tell me there's no way we're going to sell this domain, not in a million years. There is a whole reason and it was actually me getting in touch with a board member that I somehow was able to get a hold of and have a conversation and he was like oh no, we'll sell the domain for that. But it's just kind of funny, on the switch of where you know you can some, it seems that the boards are willing to speak to you when you're trying to purchase their domain, but they magically don't when you're trying to purchase a domain for them. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 1: 45:23

Yeah, I sometimes think also at the same time by the time somebody comes back with you know, the board said no.

Speaker 1: 45:29

Hard to recover from that, because usually if it's no, it's it's like kind of already in the books. You know, and it also kind of applies when you approach a company, a large company, and you say, and you make a bad offer to start, and they just come back and say nope, we're not going to sell it, it's not for sale. Well, it isn't. You probably made a bad offer, you made a really bad offer to start, and then they bring it up to the group once. They're not going to keep bringing it up like you can't. You can only try so many times, especially with a hierarchical business that is more than the traditional business when getting a true board together, especially if they're publicly traded, is a challenge.

Speaker 1: 46:16

And they only do that a certain number of times a year to get it on the docket, to be worth being talked about, to be discussed a lot, oh yeah, and then for them to say no and then somehow resurrecting that from the ashes is a lot, it's a hard, it's a hard one to come by right and so kind of feel sometimes when you find that out and then if you say to him you know we could do a payment plan, it's kind of like fuck, I should have told him that before you know the meeting and kind of gone over these options so hopefully they knew that they could have done that and not have to wait like three more months for the next board meeting for them to ask you know, and at that point, like I, sometimes the To buy might be gone for the buyer. You know are the excitement of the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 47:02

Well, and that's that's why I'm always about finding information, like I think the biggest thing in the domain industry is trying to get as much information from the buyer or seller, but mainly the buyer as possible Understand them, know what they're coming from, know what, why. This is of interest, whether you're representing the seller or whether you're representing the buyer. Knowing that information can give you a game plan on how we're going to handle the next steps, because that's what makes a difference in being able to get a deal done. I mean, it doesn't, you know, behoove you to talk to a buyer that has an off, that has a budget of 5000, again for a hundred thousand dollar domain and will never be able to get there and try and really get that there and try and reach out to a seller. But if you're able to kind of understand where they are from the get go, you can kind of control again the narrative of where they're going to go and make it where you actually can get a deal done, even if it didn't align on that one particular domain.

Speaker 1: 48:10

Yeah, I hear you All right. Here comes one out of left field. What was the first? Look on your face. What was the first, what was the first time they were ever sold?

Speaker 2: 48:23

Grant pass Oregon five thousand dollars Grant. I think it's all up Grant g r a n t pass, p a s s, orgen or e g O N com. That's a long one. I think that was the first one. I mean, I know it's the first one, I think it's still.

Speaker 1: 48:48

That was 15 letters. That's a long one for five grand. That's pretty good. Is it off? Are you looking? No, you're not looking at it. All right, here's a. The first domain.

Speaker 2: 48:58

I ever sold was.

Speaker 1: 49:00

Oh, let me look. The first domain I ever sold was workzillacom and it I'd say Oregon and pass.

Speaker 2: 49:11

Was it? It's either grant or grant.

Speaker 1: 49:13

Grissale. Someone must let it expire, do the plural.

Speaker 2: 49:17

Do the plural and see. Let's see if it's the plural. No, she let it expire. Oh yeah, it's up there.

Speaker 1: 49:24

No, no, no no, there's a plural for not found For grant grants. Plural pass Oregon.

Speaker 2: 49:31

Oh yeah no she let it expire. It's a, it's a go daddy.

Speaker 1: 49:38

Orcazilla performers for any task. Look at this, find an artist. I'd have to do an interview with a guy. I'm going to send him a message and have him on the podcast. To go over my first domain sale. It wasn't to them, it was to the main event. All right.

Speaker 2: 49:54

And then she was such a nice little. I mean she was an older woman, but it was an information, because I've actually checked on it a few different times, so this is new that it's down, but it was an information portal for all the businesses in Grand Pass Oregon. That's literally what it was.

Speaker 1: 50:12

There you go. What is the weirdest domain name or the strangest domain name you've ever sold? I remember two specifically that are actually kind of interesting.

Speaker 2: 50:25

I know one for sure.

Speaker 1: 50:28

Which one? What's the one for sure that you're thinking of?

Speaker 2: 50:32

Ponyplaycom.

Speaker 1: 50:34

Ponyplay. You loved that one.

Speaker 2: 50:36

That was a good one, we learned a lot. That one cracks me up.

Speaker 1: 50:39

Doing research with Ponyplay, didn't know what it was, and when I looked it up, that was.

Speaker 2: 50:45

I'll look it up.

Speaker 1: 50:47

Yeah, don't look it up. I remember you sold HHHHH. Yes, you sold A and A with less H's to Coca-Cola. Those are two. Yes, and you sold them for a lot of money.

Speaker 2: 51:02

They were like $30K each or $20K each, it was a lot and I think the one actually, so I think it was A with 16 H's after it.

Speaker 1: 51:18

No, it was a lot.

Speaker 2: 51:19

It went for Eddler.

Speaker 1: 51:22

That one doesn't resolve.

Speaker 2: 51:23

It was his name 12, 14.

Speaker 1: 51:26

It was crazy 11, 12. Yeah, I remember it ran in a Coca-Cola ad campaign for a while.

Speaker 2: 51:34

I saw it on CD. It was on an ad it was. They had. I think it was Domino's. It was Domino's and Coca-Cola that had this ad for it together. That was a really cool one. There you go, tony Play just sticks with me, because that one was just the most obscure. If you were thinking of the domain, industry.

Speaker 1: 51:59

Yeah, I remember when you sold it, though, and then, like I'd say, a month or so later, I saw it on a TV ad and I was like whoa, look at that. That was pretty cool.

Speaker 2: 52:07

But it's really weird because you wouldn't think that they would choose that to be on the ad. I mean just because it was so long. It was just such a long domain name. That was a weird one. That was weird. I'm trying to think what else?

Speaker 1: 52:23

I've seen two of your names on ads on TV. I've seen that, well, three, the two various spellings of I don't know which ones they use, but I saw that, so to count that as one. And then the other. I saw Olliecom being advertised on TV quite a bit, and then one domain that I one of the domains that I've sold, that I've seen ads on TV for quite a bit is Mlife, which is the MGM grand, their awards program. I got them that domain.

Speaker 1: 52:57

Oh no kidding Many moons ago. Yeah, I don't know if they've changed the name of it since, but I helped them get that and I helped them get sanscom, like the sans casino. Yeah, so if you, go to. Mlifecom it goes. Mgm resorts, mgm rewards. I was going to get that and I acquired sanscom for them.

Speaker 2: 53:17

So then I have a question for you rather than like you know what was, rather than sexcom, what was the one domain when you sold it you're like yeah, or acquired it was the one that you're just like that you can talk about, cause I know, half the time we can't even talk about the domains we sell, but what's one that you're like hell yeah, doesn't have to be about cost either. Um, oh, they stump you.

Speaker 1: 53:55

You know, I think one of my more fun ones that I was ever part of that I really liked and it happened was that I did a deal for Yahoo. Um, we had two deals for Yahoo, but the one that I was most proud of at the time and this goes back to like my Cito days is that they wanted me to acquire M E M Ecom. So, mimi, right, me, me, me, me, me, me, so whatever you call them. So at the time, if you go back onto the archiveorg and you look, there was a website that looked like it was abandoned, called Mimi factory on it and I emailed this guy. I called this guy. We offered to this guy like lots of money, lots of money, lots of money. And the guys like I don't want to sell it, I don't want to sell it, I don't want to sell it, I don't want to sell it.

Speaker 1: 54:38

I get on the phone with Yahoo. There's like a few uh, there's their lawyer and there's someone who's ahead of that project that they're coming out with. And then at the time they were also um, I just outbound, sold omgcom to them because they just launched a competitor to TMZ. I sold them omgcom. So after I sold them omgcom which they were using. They asked me to get them Mimicom. So I'm trying to get Mimi. This guy is being a real prick about it, like he's not being nice. Like I talked to him on the phone, he's just rude about it. I'm selling like is there offer? Can you give us an idea? Make them an offer? He's just kind of like about it and he's not getting back to me.

Speaker 1: 55:15

And then on the call, uh, the dot me domain extension was just coming out. It was already out, but it was like kind of getting some popularity. So I said, instead of using um, mimicom, why don't you use meme? And you hear the people on the in the call. There was a group of people on the call from Yahoo going like what a job, a job. And then they're like we'll call you back. So then they call back and they said why don't you try to get it? And I said, well, there's a problem with that.

Speaker 1: 55:45

The name is registry reserved and it's owned by the Montenegro government. And so I happened to know the representative there. Um, her name is escaping me, but she still worked. She still worked there. And um, she's really nice woman. Oh God, I can't remember her name. But I called her up and I told her I was like, look, I'm like Yahoo wants this domain. I pitched it to them, so she's.

Speaker 1: 56:08

She got back to me and she said we have to go in front of the Montenegro government with a proposal at Mimi, you know, made up me, dot me was going to be used by Yahoo, and what the purpose was and what they were trying to do. I said, look, I know governments move slow, like we can't wait five years for you guys to get back to us. Like we need to know soon. And she got it approved within like like two or three weeks and they had the name and it was ready to go. And then, and then Yahoo used it for a period of time. But when you visit the name, I think it's, I think it's gone. That's gone. Now I don't know if the name went back to the dot me registry, what the contract was. I think if Yahoo wasn't using it, they had to give the name back, use it for a few years and then they sunsetted that project.

Speaker 1: 56:51

But that was I think that was probably one of my more exciting ones and I really like when it was done, it's like the government gave it to Yahoo. And then the conversation with them was like so what are we supposed to do here? Like I'm thinking to myself, like I'd like to get paid. So then I just I just said, you know, but there wasn't a sale. Like it was like here, here's a free name. So it's like you know, I don't want to coke and a smile.

Speaker 1: 57:15

I wanted, you know, I named the product, I found them, the domain, I helped make it happen, and so what we did was is we made an agreement and Yahoo was really generous about it. We did an appraisal of the domain and whatever number we came up with, and they paid us a commission on that amount of money that we came up with. And we agreed, everyone was fine with it and then paid as well. So that was. I think that was one of the better ones. I'm sure after this show ends and I go and think about it, there'll be some stories interesting, but that's the one that kind of came to pass All right. So how can people reach you, brooke or Brooke in the industry, if they want to talk to you or ask for your help in acquiring or selling any of their names or for you to help them with their portfolios?

Speaker 2: 58:06

My email is the best brookatsawcom, but I'm also on other social medias LinkedIn, you know. I gotta say I love the LinkedIn. Please, if you reach out on LinkedIn, that's way better than Twitter, which is the broker Brooke on my Twitter, but I just really prefer LinkedIn. It's just able to keep it all there.

Speaker 1: 58:33

And is there anything else that you would like to share with everybody before we wrap this baby up?

Speaker 2: 58:41

There's nothing that's coming to mind, but yeah, just you know. No, I can't think of things. It's why in podcasts, women just like belong on and sign off.

Speaker 1: 58:56

I'm always like I don't think we're ever gonna have a lot for words in the 13 years that I've known you. So this is actually a declining moment. I love it.

Speaker 2: 59:04

I know I would say, the domain industry after all these years of being in it. The one thing that I think has kept me in the domain industry is that it is ever changing and always evolving into something. You know, we've gone through the years where it was exact match domains, where then we were at Uniregistry and alternative extensions. We have, you know, web 3 and NFTs and all different kinds of things. So I just look forward to kind of seeing what's coming ahead, because it always seems to be something new, and also to also, you know, I am very excited about our, you know, seller platform. I got to say like I'm excited to also have that come out and work with some people. I have some great clients that they're excited because they are kind of biting at the bit to change things up on their side and wanting to kind of go in a different direction for themselves. So I just think it's an I think it's an interesting period together in the domain industry.

Speaker 2: 1:00:15

I agree.

Speaker 1: 1:00:17

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I also have to say that some of the you know being in the domain industry, I mean terribly. It's been good to both of us. Obviously I also think that, as for in general, I've made some of the best friends I have in my life in the industry as well, right, and I think that that has definitely kept it that way.

Speaker 2: 1:00:40

That is, I mean, I don't know how many who knew that. I mean, if you would have asked me I don't know however many years ago now, because we'll just you know say 10 plus years, I'm really I'm kind of curious now on the exact figure. But by meeting you would never have assumed that I would have stayed, become friends with you and your family and our sons actually liking to out and I know right, I'm thinking about it Each surfing lessons together, Disney World together, you know fun stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 1:01:10

Exactly so. I think that's also one of the big things about the domain. Industry is as much and as far apart or different as anyone can be. You know, there's a lot of good people in the industry and a lot of good friends have been made, so yeah, and I think and I think people outside the industry don't realize how close a lot of us are.

Speaker 1: 1:01:27

Like I'm friends with a lot of our competitors. Yeah, I talk to different brokerages and brokers on a regular basis, joke with them. Sometimes we co broker deals some brokers send us business when they're on vacation, you know, and it's just that's the way it's been, and I think I really like that, and you know, that's what I love about the business too, and I think everyone, you know, in essence wants everyone to be successful.

Speaker 2: 1:01:50

That's not a common, you know that's not common in industries is where everyone's like hey, I want you to be successful, I want you know. That's something in the domain industry Everyone's like if everyone's successful, we're all successful in this industry, where you know that's the thing.

Speaker 1: 1:02:09

I hear you All right, well, hey, yeah. Come by, yeah Right. So thank you very much for coming on the show and, obviously, your loyal service to us and for Broker. Nanda, as everybody Adios yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:02:27

Bye, okay, yeah.