Grit Brokerage Discusses the sale of Maddox.com - with Mac Spiller

In this episode of the Grit.org podcast, Michael and Brian speak with Mac Spiller on the why and how of helping Mac acquire the domain Maddox.com. Learn how Mac's team was able to offset their youth by using the name Maddox, the decision behind why it was important to shorten their domain, and the price they paid for it. Enjoy!

Brian Harbin: Well, hello everybody! Welcome to today's episode of the Grit.org podcast!

Today we're talking about Grit brokerage and domains. Super excited about our guest today and before we get kicked off here, wanted to recognize our sponsor, escrow.com, the number one company in safe and secure online domain name transactions. Just from the transactions we've done recently through escrow.com include the two letter.com, uc.com, troop.com, jesser.com, glug.com and then the one we're talking about today, maddox.com and alongside me we've got Michael Law with Grit Brokerage. Mike, want to give a shout out.

Michael: How you doing guys? Great to be here. Great to be here with you, Mac and look forward to talking about Maddox.com and what you guys are doing there.

Mac Spiller: Likewise. Thank you! Good to be with you, Brian!

Brian Harbin: Yeah, for sure. So Mac, a little bit about Max Beller calling in today from Battleground Washington. So a little bit of background on, on him. So he started off three years with Sunbelt and then about 10 years ago started Maddox.com with his brother. And they've been in business now for over 10 years and you know, worked his way through all the different inside sales rep and sales manager, district sales manager.

Now he's been the VP of sales and marketing for the last two and a half years. And so a little bit about Maddox Industrial Transformer. They were recently recognized on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list, coming in at number 556 among the fastest growing private companies in the United States.

So excited to talk to them about today with their company and their decision to work with us on acquiring Maddox.com so first of all, tell us, you know, Mac, our listeners, about Maddox and what you guys do there.

Mac Spiller: Yeah, great, thank you! Thank you, Brian!

So Maddox is a transformer company. So we provide distribution and power transformers to commercial and industrial end users here in the US and we do some exporting as well. But it's mostly, mostly North American based. So to start with, I guess let me answer that. You know, the question that I usually get, which is what is a transformer? Because most people, you know, they'll associate it with, you know, a car that turns into a robot. And you know, usually there's a joke in there, you know, but a transformer is, is actually an electrical device that regulates voltage. It steps voltage up or down.

So the utility provides electricity at a very, very high voltage. And if you think of power like water going through a pipe, if you want to get it out, you know, you know, hundreds or thousands of miles, you've got to have a lot of water but also a lot of pressure. And voltage. Is that electrical pressure? So transformers act as a sort of pressure regulator for the electrical grid. So it connects the end user with the utility and steps that voltage down to a safe and usable voltage.

So that's what a transformer is. And we focus on the larger distribution transformers. So anything from the size of a small car to the size of a small house. And we sell to basically anybody who uses a lot of electricity. So solar fields, data centers, manufacturing facilities, you know, commercial complexes. Basically anybody that uses a lot of power, we sell to. So we work with a lot of, a lot of really fun companies. You know, name, name a big company, we probably have sold them transformers in the past. And that's, that's basically what we do. And our main value proposition to the customer is that we have really short lead times. So we keep a lot of this stuff in stock.

Believe it or not, lead times for transformers are between a year to three years out right now. And it's really? Actually a big kind of national security threat. So you've got guys like JD Vance and Elon Musk talking about the transformer shortage in the US and how critical it is that we have a healthy supply of transformers. So, you know, it's a good time to be in the business. And that's…. Yeah, that's kind of what we do.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, that's amazing! I love hearing about niche businesses. I mean we're definitely in a niche business with domain names. And so with you and your brother, I mean, how did you find a need and then how, how did you guys come on the name Maddox?

Mac Spiller: Yeah, great question! So we came up with the name Maddox. We named it after Randall Maddox, who was a business mentor to my brother for several decades and me as well for the last five, six, seven years. I got to work underneath him and learn a lot from him. He had started a successful transformer company back in the 80s.

So again, like you said, yeah, super niche. It's one of those things we couldn't live without but you never really think about on a day to day basis. We were really brought into the business by Randall and we named the company after him to honor him. And also it's just a really cool name. You know, it's kind of balanced, you know, visually it has the word mad in it, so it's aggressive. It has an X in it, which, you know, marketers really like an X or a K in a name.

So yeah, I mean, I joke that, you know, we wanted to name it Spiller Transformer, but you know, Transformers are full of, you know, a hydrocarbon based oil. So you don't want it, you know, spilling all over the place. So Randall had the better name.

Brian Harbin: That's amazing!

Michael: That's really cool! That's really cool to learn the history behind the name. I hadn't known that before, so thanks for sharing.

Mac Spiller: Of course.

Michael: As the VP of marketing and sales at your company, can you talk us through your decision on how you knew it was time to upgrade to maddox.com and were you looking at other names or was there a tipping point in the process when you're like, okay, we gotta go and get this now.

Mac Spiller: Yeah. So I've actually had my eye on this domain for years. So shortly after we started, our previous domain was maddoxtransformer.com which is, you know, it's a decent name. It's just super long, so it's prone to typing errors so people will get our email addresses wrong. It's also really easy for scammers to spoof. You know, any long domain you can drop in one letter or take one letter out. So we were trying to buy up all the domains that were similar to ours to avoid that. But yeah, just all around that long domain is not ideal.

So like I said, I've been kind of had my eye on Maddox.com for several years and I just did a simple who is in my terminal on my computer and figured out who owned was an older gentleman named Bob Maddox. I contacted him probably five or six years ago. And yeah, I was trying to get in touch with him and stay in touch with him. I did get in touch with him and talk with him for a little while. It's embarrassed to admit, you know, as a professional salesperson, that I wasn't able to close the deal. He just was never interested, you know, and he was like, no, I'm really, you know, we're going to keep it in the family.

And he told me one time, you know, I let my daughter know that, you know, if I die unexpectedly, the domain goes to her. I was like, I guess maybe he thought I was threatening to kill him. I don't really know what he meant by that, but he was very, very prone. So after that conversation, I was like, okay, well, you know, you know, we'll put it down. And I was just thinking one morning I should just get a broker to do this. There's brokers in every industry. Clearly I'm not able to make ground.

So, yeah, I just googled it. You guys have done a great job at your SEO. So you're like, top three. That's what I always do. I just go to the top three. Organic results. And I reached out and you guys were able to close the deal for me.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, it's interesting. And you know, and I think I appreciate too, when people have tried on their own to be able to get a domain and haven't been successful because, you know, it's not as simple as just a transaction. It gets. It could be emotional in terms of this is the guy's last name. He's got clearly an emotional attachment to it. You want it for your business, you kind of have an emotional. And so automatically there's an energy that comes to the deal that's like one thing can be misconstrued. And so bringing in a broker kind of eliminates all of that confusion.

And so, yeah, no, appreciate you sharing. And I guess we're…. And then, yeah, tell us about kind of how you brought Us into the deal and I know, yeah, we started the process from there. So I guess what were some of the challenges you started to face when you knew it was time to change the domain? I mean, what were some of the things, I know you mentioned the email, the spamming, was there anything else that kind of led you to that particular decision to go ahead and let's, you know. Yeah, let's get a broker and do it?

Mac Spiller: Yeah, yeah. I think really simply about brand. You know, we're, we believe we're the best in the business, so we should look like the best. You know, we should look as legit online as we are in person. You know, kind of big branding. Things like this, they're not things that you can track. Like, you can track like a paper click, you know, we spend, you know, a buck on an ad and we get a buck 50 in revenue.

You know, so investing in your brand, you know, this is pre funnel. You're not going to track exactly, you know, how much money you make from this transaction. But it's really kind of priceless. I mean, it's your name, it's your reputation, you know, it's legitimacy. It's like, you know, a sales guy, you know, buying a suit or a nice shirt, you know, it's like, well, how much is that going to make me back? It's like there's really not a price you can put on really is priceless.

In terms of challenges, the main challenge that I was concerned with after getting the domain, obviously you guys made it super simple, super easy on me too. You handled all that. But after the domain, I was concerned about switching domains because we spent nearly a decade here growing our organic search traffic articles and pillar pages and all this stuff. And we didn't want to see a drop in traffic after we switched domains. And that can be a challenge.

Technically, you know, we weren't sure, you know, how quick is Google going to crawl our new web pages. But we've got a great marketing guy, you know, shout out to miles, great technology guy, shout out to Joe. They made that pretty easy. I think we might have even engaged with a consultant on that because that was really important to us and we didn't see nearly any dip in traffic.

So I wish I could tell you exactly what we did to mitigate that. But that was the only challenge, that was the only concern really was switching a domain. It's all positive other than that and just about.

Michael: It can definitely be a little bit…. I know it can definitely be a little bit cumbersome. Changing a domain as far as SEO and things like that. But yeah, we were just super glad that you reached out to us and having a broker, as Brian mentioned, kind of be the cushion between you and the seller.

You know, I remember I was looking back at my notes and we had started this about September 2023, I believe. And I remember it took at least a month to get a hold of the seller. I know you said you had gotten through to him, but first he wasn't responding to our messages. And I know you were kind of getting a little, you know, kind of a little frustrated and you said that we did it in a timely manner.

So, you know, we did get the deal done like in three months, but it was a little bit stressful. I remember first we couldn't get through to him and then, you know, he finally got, you know, gave us a response and he said, yeah, we're basically, it's not for sale. You know, I've been offered to sell the domain many times. You know, at that point, you know, I was trying to keep positive and you know, just keep the conversation going with him because since we had establish contact, I figured, you know, there's something here, you know, he's willing to talk to us.

So, you know, at that point, I remember, I don't know, I think, you know, by November, you know, we had established contact and started talking about a price. And then he said he was going to talk to his family at Thanksgiving. And that was a big kind of, you know, deal for him to kind of get approval. You know, we kept chipping away and we had finally got the deal into escrow. And I remember we had another kind of setback. He said he had to get it done before the end of the year. We were already deep into December at this time.

So, you know, we had a lot of speed bumps, but we kind of worked through them. Were there any. Was there any point during that time where, you know, you were like stressed about not getting it or it wasn't going to go through, or you were just, you know, kind of letting us take the helm and you know, had trust. We were going to get it figured out for you.

Mac Spiller: I pretty much left it all in you guys hands. I trusted that, you know, you guys were, you're going to understand that negotiation process better than I was. You know, you're already making more progress. Like you said, you know, he kind of, he was a good guy and, but, you know, a little eclectic. And you know, he told us, you know, well, you know, Angelina Jolie's son's name is Maddox, and she's offered me millions of dollars for the domain.

And, you know, so there was kind of all this, you know, kind of all this background to. And like you said, it was his last name. So there was, you know, a lot of pride of ownership. But no, I don't even remember that. It took three months. It didn't feel like that. And, yeah, I think you kind of. Yeah, you handled it and, you know, managed through all the different speed bumps. So, yeah, you guys did a great job. No complaints.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, there's an element of being pleasantly persistent. Right? If somebody doesn't want to sell the conversation going, it's like, I know it's not for sale, but if it were for sale, what do you think you're going for? Right? Trying to get that starting point of get them talking about it and loosen them up a little bit.

And I'm always curious too, as well. Had you had any experience before with premium domains or…. I'm always curious how people get to that tipping point of understanding and realizing the value of a premium domain. Was there another company that, you know, or product or service that you use that, like, hey, you know, it lended a lot of credibility having a short one word .com. Anything else that kind of helped you point to that direction of like, hey, we got to cut this name in half.

Mac Spiller: Yeah, yeah, no, great point. No, totally, totally new experience. Never bought a domain for this much money before, and we could just say, I'm totally fine. We spent 100 grand on it. Which as far as I'm concerned, is, you know, the best hundred grand I ever spent. No, I mean, it's just a great, you know, we've got a great brand. We've invested a lot in marketing and branding. You know, we've got a cool logo. So, yeah, it was a great domain. We have a cool name. We're the best in the industry. We should look that way.

And we're kind of still the new kids to the block. We've been in the industry for 20 years, I guess, if you count my brother's time. But we've had a new domain, or, excuse me, a new name for the last decade, which is really young in the transformer space. This is an older, more established industrial type of market.

So you've got really established guys like Eaton Abb, you know, Wag, Howard. They all have kind of one name, you know, colloquial terms. And everybody refers to Maddox as Maddox, not Maddox. Industrial Transformer. You know, they don't call out our entire LLC name. So, yeah, I mean, we're, you know, we're competing with these guys in a major way. And we wanted the domain to reflect that.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And definitely some. And you've experienced some cloud and credibility that kind of come along with that. That, like you said, you can't necessarily put an ROI or measure that, but you can feel it. You know, you explain it to people and are at these conferences and just, oh, I think I've heard of you guys. And, you know, that's cool.

Mac Spiller: Yep, exactly. You got it.

Michael: So, Mac, it's been, what, two months since you actually went live on the new domain? I think I saw a post from me a couple months ago saying that, okay, we're live on Maddox.com and you're excited about it. So have you seen any, you know, any tangible differences or, you know, anything jumping out right away that makes it much better?

Mac Spiller: Well, I think, you know, a lot of it is just kind of the intangible of having a name that you can be proud of. You know, we've already got. But it gives us more pride in our name, kind of legitimacy in the market. It feels right for our company. One thing that will be tangible, like I mentioned before, it's easy for scammers to spoof. Kind of a long domain with a lot of letters in it. We actually had a customer that received an invoice for several tens of thousands of dollars and actually got scammed. They sent their money to this other company. We were like, listen, this wasn't us. We have no order from you guys right now. This is not an invoice from us. It was just a clever spoofer that took our domain and made up a backstory and actually got them to pay up.

So this customer, this client, wasn't necessarily great at computers. Like I said, it's an older industry. A lot of legacy companies that work with us. But yeah, they got scammed. They did. And thankfully they're, you know, they're baked. You know, they got them out of that jam. But having a short, you know, easier to read domain is definitely going to prevent that kind of thing in the future.

Michael: Yeah, you can always just go back and say it's only ever coming from Maddox.com if you know, anything else is, you know, it's a scam or it's not us. So that's it.

Mac Spiller: That's exactly. And it probably saves us, you know, across the organization, several hours a month and explaining that there's no s at the end of transformer, yeah.

Brian Harbin: That's a good point. And one of the things I wanted to ask you about, I know it's you and your brother and that, that that run the company, but I know a lot of times when it comes to acquisition, and you mentioned the purchase amount is. I remember specifically talking to a CEO of a large company. We were working with them on an acquisition. This was right when the bank said there was a few banks that failed in the span of like two weeks.

And, and I get him on the phone, he said, Brian, I can't look like an idiot in front of my board spending, you know, $150-$200,000 on a domain name. Right? So was there that element of anybody else? It was like, man, are you sure you want to spend this kind of capital? We could do all these other things with it. Any conversations like that that you had to overcome or any naysayers when it came to investing that amount in your exact match.com?

Mac Spiller: You know, there might have been years ago, we've gotten to a point that it's not a massive amount of money for us. You know, it's, you know, I know in the tech industry, you know, they'll spend, you know, several hundreds of thousands of dollars. You know, I've even heard of millions of dollars spent on the domain.

Now we're not in the tech industry, you know, it's not important that we have a one letter domain or anything like that, you know, so we're not quite, you know, to that level. But no, I mean, I've, you know, I've successfully brainwashed our leadership team into, you know, the cult of marketing. And you know, they understand how, how important it is that we, we look and sound good. No, it was there. I was, I was given a budget by our CEO, about $100,000. And you guys got it done for us.

Mac Spiller: You made me look good.

Brian Harbin: Sweet!

Michael: Well, we were just so excited to get that done for you. I know it's a big deal and your site looks great. Looks like a great brand. Strong, clear, authoritative. Yeah, congrats on that.

Mac Spiller: Thank you! Thank you, Michael!

Brian Harbin: Yeah. And I wanted to ask too. I know we want to be respectful of your time here as well. Again, really appreciate you hopping on and so anything else about Maddox that you guys have coming out, anything that you want to mention or what to look for with you guys moving forward, any, I guess, promotion of Maddox that you wanted to talk about, what you guys are looking forward to moving forward?

Mac Spiller: If any of your clients ever need an Electrical transformer, let them know we keep them in stock. We've got really short lead times, great customer service. You know, this is not a heavy innovation industry. You know, it's not rocket surgery. We give great customer service, reasonable, fair pricing and awesome lead times. So that's my pitch.

If anybody's listening that needs a transformer from a little one to power a welding machine all the way up to a big one to power, you know, a manufacturing facility, let us know.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, it's interesting. We just got some outdoor lights put on our house and then we had the transformer that's put in that we had to, you know, connect all the wires to and everything. So I know you, the ones you guys are working with are typically, you know, much larger. And it's super fascinating to hear that it is such a high demand, you know, shortage type issue and you guys are able to, to fulfill that need.

And kind of in closing, I was going to say too, any advice you have for somebody that's kind of at that, you know, tipping point of like, you know, should I invest, should I not? I mean, I guess looking back, obviously you, you know, are confident in your decision, but anybody else is kind of on the bubble. Anything that you think would be helpful for them to hear if they're in a similar situation that you were in before?

Mac Spiller: Yeah. In terms of a domain. Yeah. I just kind of what we've been talking about this whole time, you know, it's, it's your name, it's your presentation, it's, you know, how you present yourself to the world and how people perceive you. I think it's, I think it's really important, especially in, you know, maybe, you know, older industries like ours.

You know, it's one of those things that you can't, you know, you really can't put a price on. It's your name. I definitely recommend working with a broker, like Grit Brokerage. You know, like you said, that kind of pleasant consistency. You know, I've got a full time job. I'm not going to have time to track, you know, this guy down. I might not really know the process in terms of working with the title company to, or you know, the escrow company to get ahold of it. So yeah, definitely employees grit brokerage and go for it, go for it. It's worth it.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, I mean, professionals hire professionals, right? I mean like you said, you do what you do all day and we do what we do all day. And I think what the way that you guys were so smart about it with the name Maddox paying, you know, homage to a guy that was your mentor. But obviously someone already had a name in the industry that people recognize and you guys were, you know, younger guys coming in and he was your mentor. And so such a smart selection of the name too.

And so really great job and appreciate you taking the time to hop on today. We just love to be able to talk to our customers and kind of talk to the experience. So we appreciate you taking the time to be here today. And thanks again and we're excited to see you guys just continue to propel forward and move up that Inc. 5000 list.

Mac Spiller: Thank you, Brian! Thank you, Michael! Appreciate it!

Michael: Thanks, Mac! Congrats again! Have a good one!

Mac Spiller: You too!

Brian Harbin: Well, thanks for tuning in today's episode of the Grit.org podcast and we'll see you guys next time! Take care!