In this episode, the Grit Brokerage team discusses stories and strategies for closing deals, how to plan for a great 2024, and dive into the current state of the domain industry. Grit will be a requirement for success in 2024, therefore we hope you will continue to listen to our show and best prepare yourself for any adversity in the way.
Here are some highlights from the episode:
Minute 1:36 - Maureen talks about how a Kevin O'Leary quote helped her get a reply on Theoria.com
11:06 - Maureen advises a client on buying CannabisTravelAgency.com
17:13 - Brian shares 3 goal planning mentalities to have in 2024
19:02 - Brian breaks down the acronym "Integrity" in regards to your goals
28:38 - Michael shares his domain investing journey
40:57 - Michael discusses his advice on domain investing
Be sure to visit GritBrokerage.com for all your domain needs and put any questions or feedback into the comments. Enjoy!
Intro: Welcome to the Grit-org Podcast with Colby Harris and Brian Harbin!
In these episodes, they speak to top achievers in athletics and business to understand the habits and mindset they apply in order to build more grit.
Colby Harris: Welcome back to the Grit-org Podcast!
My name is Colby Harris. Alongside me is Brian Harbin, and we are here today with our guests Michael Law and Maureen Sullivan, two members of the Grit brokerage team. So, as all of you know, Brian is the founder of Grit Brokerage, a domain brokerage company. He's been working with Michael and Maureen for a couple of years now. And today we're going to fill you guys in on all things domains again. We love bringing you these episodes to just share more about what Brian does, what the company at grit brokerage does.
So we're going to start off with Maureen, a domain acquisition specialist at Grit brokerage with decades of experience. Maureen, I'm going to kick it over to you to open up the episode today.
Maureen: Thanks very much, Colby! Hi, everyone! And so I am the person that does domain acquisitions for grit. I love what I do. And I wanted to share today two stories, one about a domain that ended up being acquired, one that did not. They're two different stories. But I figured I'd just enlighten everybody with a little bit of what my day is like every day and different scenarios that I have, and hopefully you'll learn something from it.
So the first that I want to talk about is a one worder. It's a very unique domain. Tough to spell. It has meaning in Greek. It was theoria.com. And I had a client come in and request the domain. And when we first started, I think just to mention a big part of my job is talking to people about budget and pricing and pricing expectation and values.
So originally they thought because it was so unique, they were going to put in a 5k offer. And I said, no, that's not going to work. We should start at 10k and go up from there. Got them to agree, and I went over to the owner, sent a simple, straightforward email to them with the offer of 10k. And honestly, I think within 20 minutes I got one liner right back. Thanks, but no thanks, no interest. Goodbye. So this happens. And I did go back to the client pretty quickly and said to him, doesn't look like this domain is for sale. The owner got back to me right away, does not want to sell this domain. I'm happy to look into another extension, another domain. Let's brainstorm.
And they came back immediately and said, no, we want this domain. So I said to them, okay, then you're going to have to come up in an offer. And so talked to them a lot about that, about where to be, how to go about it. So we doubled the price. We doubled the offer, went back again, and the owner responded within a day and said I would need a multitude of that offer number.
So again, the owner clearly has no intention of selling this domain. Went back to the buyers, told them this and figured we were at the end of the conversation Andora was going to help them find something else. Came back and said, get us a price. We're not walking away. We want a price. Get it? We'll go from there. So I go back to the buyer, the owner, and I said to them, look, could you please, I understand where you're coming from. You don't want to sell it, but I do a job here to help other people. Please come back to me with a price and we'll go from there.
So this started in August and this was probably mid-August when I was at this point. And he went totally silent, didn't come back at all for a good month. Now I wanted to just pause here and talk a little about what do you do when you are trying to get an answer from an owner who's very resistant, very like don't bother me type situation. It's a very delicate dance, like how do I keep him on the line? How do I keep him engaged without him writing me? Don't write to me again, I'm blocking your email or something to that effect.
So I started writing him just short emails, but I made them a little edgy, a little humorous. I would say things like, look, it's me again. I know you don't want to hear from me, but I need to get a price. And guess what? If you get me the price, I'm probably going to go away for good or we're going to keep negotiating. But I would make it professional but kind of humorous and hoping. He was reading the emails and I didn't hear back.
So I think I went back to the buyer. We went back one more time with a 5K increase and the owner came back finally with a one liner that said, let me think about it. Two weeks later, we never heard anything back. So now it's about the beginning of October. I went back to the buyers and I said, look, this just isn't happening. I'm really sorry. Not the answer I want to give you, but it is the answer. They don't want to sell the domain. So they thanked us for all the hard work I did over two months’ time. They said, we want to pay you. Send us an invoice, paid it, et cetera, moved on.
So now let's just jump forward to the beginning of November. End of October, Brian gets this strange email from their finance team saying, hey, we paid you. I don't know what we paid you for. We're going to retract the payment. And so Brian's like, what's going on with this? And so we wrote to the buyer, and the buyer was really embarrassed that I don't know what my finance team did, but absolutely, we're paying you. I apologize for that.
But for me, it brought up, why not try one more time with this owner? So I gave it some thought and I said, I've got to come up with something very creative for this guy to respond. So jump back. Sidebar. About a month before, I was on LinkedIn researching something else, and I came across a Kevin O'Leary quote. Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank. It's also from Boston. And I saw this quote and I liked it. I mean, the guy's a very smart, brilliant businessman. And so there was a link click to get more Kevin O'Leary quotes.
So I went there and I was reading some and I came across one that I said, it was a perfect sales quote. I said, someday I'm going to use this quote. It's awesome. So now jump back to November. And I said, this is how I'm going to get this guy. So I wrote him an email and I said, see below, quote, that's all I'm looking for is a price. And the quote was, everyone folds for the right price. And I hit send and I held my breath. He got right back to me. He said, ha, good one. He said, I'll get back to you by Monday with an answer. And this was Friday. That's the first time he came back and said he was going to let me know a price.
So I got him to the table, I got him to respond. And honestly, all along I felt he was reading my emails. But it was a game. He wasn't going to give in. So I went and called the buyer and I said, I know you weren't expecting this, but I heard back from the owner. I said, let's just regroup here. Are you still interested in the domain? We still at the same price point? Do I have any more negotiation? And so I turned around and he said, yeah, go get me an answer and maybe 5K more in price, but try not nothing more than that.
So I got the green light, waited. Monday comes, he gives me a price. The price is way above what the buyers wanted to pay. But I had a price. I had an answer. And then I wrote back and said, thanks very much. Tell me the lowest, absolute lowest you'd take so that I can go back and try to get this done. He dropped it by 30K. That put me between a 15,000 differential between what the buyer wanted, what the owner wanted. I knew I could make that work.
And so I went to the buyer. I wrote to them, gave them the update and said, give me a call. Let's talk about this now. The buyer had always been enormously responsive, always picked up the phone, always answered. He went silent on me, which I wasn't expecting. And then I said to myself, okay, he's got the info. He's going off and talking to his partners about it. Next day came silence.
So finally I wrote him at the end of the day and said, hey, do you have time for a quick call? And I got a one liner back. We're no longer interested in this domain name. That was the last response I expected to hear. So I picked up the phone and I called him. I said, what's going on here? What just happened? And he said, I wasn't expecting this either, but I went back internally. The budget is completely gone. Even if we went and started back at 10 to 20k, it's gone. It's been reallocated. And when you think about it, I mean, this is the part of the story I didn't think I'd be telling you this ending. I thought I'd tell you I negotiated and got it done. But it's another part of the story, which is this was a four month time frame that a buyer wanted a domain and an owner didn't respond. And so you've got to keep that in the back of your mind sometimes with the denegotiations, because people just move on and take the budget and go in another direction.
But for me, the story was about how to engage and keep the owner engaged when they've just gone silent and tell you they don't want to sell the domain. And then I finally found a way to get an answer. And I just say to people, dig in. Find creative ways to engage with either party that you're trying to keep at the table. Research maybe where they're from, places they worked, where they went to school, anything you can find about them that makes you come to the table and talk to them more. And in this case it was just a long shot, but the quote worked. And I'll put the quote up on my LinkedIn page later. But that's the first story I have for you.
And the second, if we have time here, is it's a different story. It's about a company that was a small startup that came to me. They owned a four word, it was a geotarget at the beginning and then a travel regulated domain at the end. So it's four words, they wanted a two word. And what I wanted to bring up in this story was to talk about that we hear about how important and of course they are, but how these amazing companies go off and buy the perfect super premium ultra-one word domain, and it is the perfect match for what they do. And the same could be true of a two word. But sometimes people I find get really tunneled about, I have to have this one word domain. That's it. Everyone's told me I need the one worder. Well in actuality you don't. It's not necessarily the right fit, and the same can be true even with a two order.
So in the case of this, they came to me for this two word, very generic but very brandable domain. And when I started talking to them, I never looked at their site because I remember that day, I was just jumping from one call to the next. I looked at the domain they wanted, didn't looked at their site, but assumed it's travel, et cetera. The first part of the conversation was they absolutely didn't have the budget needed. Their max budget was 5K.
So a lot of the conversation was educating them on the value of a two word domain and they didn't have the budget. But instead of walking away and saying okay, I'll find you another domain or we're done here, I said, let me go to the owners, let me just get the price for you so you'll understand even more why it's so valuable. I went to the owners, they said it wasn't for sale. I went back and said well, can you give me a price range because I am doing this for a client, please let me know a range. And they came back, they were kind enough to come back, they didn't have to. They said we need at least six figures.
So in that moment I knew this deal was not going to happen at all. Went back to the buyer and the buyer was representing his CEO, and I said to him, you cannot have this domain. And he said, but this is the only domain my CEO wants, how am I going to go tell him I can't have this domain. And you could just see how panicked he was and how fearing he was that he's like, what else can I do? And I said, hang on, let me look into this.
Now, as I said previously, I had not looked at their site. It was just an oversight on my part. But I went and looked at the site and everything stopped. For me, this company had nothing to do with the two word domain. Nothing. It didn't even make sense to me. I'm like, why would they want this two word travel domain? So I'm on the phone, meanwhile, I'm over here digging and searching around for various keywords that would match. I knew the industry they were in. I knew the last two words were important. I went and found this three word domain. Three word domain. Not a one, not a two, three word domain. That was the perfect match for what they are. And this was the amazing part.
I said to him, well, what about this domain? And he said, really, you can get me that domain? And what it made me realize and what I bring up, what's so important with what I do and what grit does every day, is we help people find the right domain for their company, not the one they think they need. So I went off and I said to him, the good news here, it's not for sale, but I think I can get it for sale. Think I can buy it for you. The owner, I think would be open to selling it. Give me some time. And the best part, I said, I'll get it for you for under 5K.
So go off, found the owner, negotiated, got it for under 5 thousand, went back, ended up selling the domain. The CEO was ecstatic. Couldn't believe we found this domain. Now, sadly, the domain is not live as a site yet, but I can't wait till it is. And I don't think you can wait either. It's called cannabistravelagency.com. And the tagline is, it's all about the journey. So those are my two stories. I hope that they've been insightful and thanks for letting me share.
Colby Harris: Yeah, we love that. Maureen, I always love your stories. I feel like you always come in with the gritty stories that took a lot of persistence and time. And that's one thing I've always respected about what you do. And I'm just wondering, is Mr. Wonderful a longtime favorite entrepreneur, Kevin O'Leary?
Maureen: Yeah, no, I really admired him over the years. And the man is just such an entrepreneur and such a man of wisdom and all of his quotes, I mean, he's a sales guy, and so I admire that. But whenever I found this quote, everybody folds for a price and it's a picture with him. You can just hear his voice saying that. And I don't know if you guys watch shark tank. I do, and I love the show, but I always love his wisdom and his guidance, and he's pretty straightforward kind of guy.
Colby Harris: I agree.
Maureen: And this particular owner of the domain was out of New York, and I just knew he'd be able to relate.
Colby Harris: So finding that intimate details with the connections you can.
Maureen: Yes. Yep.
Colby Harris: Well, thanks for sharing that, Maureen. I know, Brian, you have a couple things up your sleeve today that you want to jump into, so I'm going to go ahead and send things over to you and looking forward to see what you have to share.
Brian Harbin: Sounds great! Yeah. Maureen, your creativity and persistence, I know in an earlier episode, you talked about having to track down a domain owner through his VRBO listing, and so just love how you get creative in finding people and getting through to them. So today I'm going to talk a little bit about domains, but this episode is going to drop January 1, 2024. And so really just wanted to kind of talk about planning and goal setting and really not specifics, but more about just mentalities when it comes to goal setting for the year. I mean, obviously you want to do kind of a year in review. What were some things that you did well? What are some things to improve on?
Obviously, you want to think about kind of specific things you want to see happen in 2024. But the first mentality, there's three mentalities. The first mentality is, I think so many people, when they think about goals and planning, they think about what. Right? They think about what they want to do one thing, and that's definitely important. But one of the things I want to challenge you to do is really look at who right? Because I'm looking at the three of you guys right now, and all three of you were such a huge backbone and piece of everything that we did in 2023.
And especially as the world is going crazy about AI and all the things that are being happening and how everything is going to be automated and everything else. But I think the companies that can really stay focused on who are going to be the people that are going to help get you there and that personal connection is just always going to be instrumental. It's always people that can help get you there, that drive through that emotion, that empathy, and that can really be the game changer.
So really just want to challenge you as you're thinking about your goals for the year, just really think about who's going to be the people there, who are going to be the clients that you want to go after, who's the avatar of the type of client you want to do, who are the new people that you're going to work with and be a part of your team. So that's really the first thing is really just be thinking about who the second part is. What I call having integrity with your goals. I even wrote it down here on this little whiteboard.
So obviously we all know that integrity is about doing the right thing even when nobody is looking. But integrity with your goals, to me, is about doing the right thing related to your goals when nobody's looking. Right? I always feel like the most important part of your day is the first hour when you get up and the hour before you go to bed and really sets the tone and really even just the first ten minutes. And for me, I know one of the things I want to get back to that really sets the tone for me is getting up and taking a cold shower. Right?
It's the one thing that I don't want to do. But once you do it, once you take a cold shower, you pretty much have taken care of the first 30 minutes of your day. You've officially woken up, and it really just kind of sets the tone for the day. But there's going to be certain things over the course of the year that kind of wear you down away from your goals, that kind of wear down that integrity. So I've got this here in the first part. So I, one of the things that can really wear down and prevent you from hitting your goals is becoming too focused on I. You, me, yourself. We get too caught up in our own emotions. Right? Emotions are great to recognize, but a lot of times we let our emotions dictate what we do.
So we become egocentric, we become too focused on what we want. So a lot of times we become too focused on I. It starts to wear down the integrity of your goals and what you're trying to accomplish. The n represents making it too easy to say no. Right? I think sometimes we give up too easily on what we want to do. We say no to things that we know we should do. Maybe we say no to opportunities. I think really trying to form the habit of saying yes opens a lot of doors, but I think too easily we let ourself say no. And again, that just kind of wears down on the integrity of our goals for the t.
Sometimes we don't put in the work that we have to do to develop talent. So t is for talent and really just doing all the little things to get better at your craft, whether it's having a good book, listening to good podcasts, going to conferences, reading up on your industry, staying ahead of trends, reading all the publications related to what you do, and really continuing to be an expert because really in any field that you're in, it's always evolving. And so I think really being ahead of the trend and remaining an expert in what you do.
So really, if we're not developing the talent, then again, that can kind of start to wear down from the integrity of our goals. The other part is we lose our why. Right? So the why represents why we do what we do. Right? So when you come up with goal setting, it's important to have to know what you want to do, who's going to help you get there, but also why is that important to you? And I think a lot of times over the course of the year, our why gets worn down. Right? We get pulled away from why we are actually doing what we're doing. Why is it important to you to hit that goal? Why is it important to you to make that amount of money? Why is it important for you to get in shape?
And it's almost always going to be something emotional and connected to people and the people that we love. So you really have to be dogmatic in protecting the integrity of your why. And the e represents effort, right? And I think we can all say that there's definitely times over the course of year where we can put in more effort than we currently are.
And so it's important to have those checkpoints along the way. I think accountability is really good for that in terms of having people around you that are help pushing you again, continually reviewing your goals and knowing why doing this specific activity is going to lead to something greater. I think a lot of times we get lazy with our goals because a year end goal is a big deal and it seems like a long way away, but it's all those little things and the little habits that sometimes that lack of effort can wear away at the integrity of our goals. And then really what keeps it all together is the word that remains. Right?
So this is why we're called grit, right. Is because it's really about how are you going to respond when nobody's looking? When it comes to your goals, why is it important to you to keep going? There's definitely a lot of times over the course of year you're going to get kicked down. But it's really going to be this word that helps you get there and really grip brokerage. And that's our focus. Like Maureen shared, we're dogmatic in terms of going and helping our clients and helping them get what they need. So again, I just really encourage you as we get into this new year, really focus on keeping the integrity of your goals and knowing at the core of it all is grit. So that's point number two.
And then the last point is related to domains, is just planning ahead when it comes to your domain acquisition strategy. Because I think we had a client recently that they called us up and they said, hey, we need this domain, but we're doing an announcement. Everything's going live in a week. We've got to get this domain. And so they really put us under a lot of pressure to try and get it done because even if you get it at a price, you got to get it funded and domain transferred over and everything else.
And obviously you don't want the press release to go out before you actually have the domain. And we see that a lot in our industry where people kind of wait till the last minute their domain strategy is, hey, let's do everything else first and then go get the domain where it's actually kind of backwards, right? A lot of times whether you can get the domain or not should affect even the name of your company, right? And the branding and everything else.
So I think just having a domain strategy, and I think that's where we have a lot of clients, that the first thing they do when they have an idea is they say, hey, this is a domain I want to look at what are my options? And so I think it's always great to have a domain broker in your back pocket that's going to be proactively looking for things, giving you advice on what's good, what's overpriced, what's available, what's not available. So I think that's very important. That's it for me.
One thing I did want to mention, too, to kind of button up. I think last episode we talked about having Silva.com and we actually did sell that domain a few weeks back. So that was a good sale. And even there's one, I don't know if Michael talked about it, but I know this was one that was probably four or five months in the making and actually just closed today. But it was one of those where it was Baldwin.com and the seller had agreed to a price and then a few months ago backed out on I'll never forget, probably Michael.
One of the toughest conversations I had of the year was we had to get on a Zoom call with these buyers and tell them, hey, look, the sellers backed out, it's not going to happen. And this is like 05:00 on a Friday afternoon and just to see the blood drain out of their face and just having to go back and figure out it wasn't going to happen. But again, just with patience and persistence and we're able to get that over the finish line and get that done. So that's it for me.
Colby Harris: Yeah, I think I love the integrity example today too, because what you all do in the domain industry requires a lot of it, right? There's a lot of conversations behind closed doors and from different places in the world across the ocean. It's something that, it's not like everyone's watching you all the time and especially within the team. And then not only that, but working with all the clients, working with buyers and sellers all the time.
So Brian, appreciate that for kicking off the New Year. It's something I'll definitely take with me from today's conversation. Michael, it's good to see you again. We haven't talked in a while since last episode. So Michael, thank you for being here today. I'm going to go ahead and kick it over to you. I know you have some exciting things to share, some stories to potentially dive into, so go ahead and kick it off. I'll send over you.
Michael: Yeah. Hey, grit, good to see all you guys. And yeah, I really enjoyed your discussions already about just the intricacies about brokering and the need for integrity. And I know it's been a fantastic year for our brokerage as well as for our clients who we've been selling domains for or helping to acquire domains, you know, it's always great to hear and share some of our best success stories. And I thought, you know, having a different spin on the podcast that Brian did today with the integrity piece was awesome. And I'm kind of going to turn the tables around a little bit today too. And I wanted to just chat about my domain investing journey and how it relates to brokering domains now.
So hopefully I don't bore you guys. So I've been investing in domains for a lot longer than I've been brokering and I was doing okay purely as an investor, making a few nice flips here and there. But really it wasn't until I started brokering domain names that I kind of really began to understand what kind of domains actually sell. Understanding the hold time and especially how to price them. So there's really a lot of aspects to domain investing. And from outside looking in it seems easy. You buy a domain and sell it for profit, but there's just a lot more to it and it's kind of a science to figure out the best strategy that works for you. And everybody has a different strategy. There's no domain investor that does things exactly the same.
And so early on in my domain investing career I was buying a lot of domains with no real plan for each one. I wasn't focused on a single niche. I didn't know which names I was going to try and flip or which ones to hold for the long term. And even way back then there were a lot of great resources out there to help educate domain investors. But I think I kind of thought that I knew it all already. I wasn't really looking at that stuff and it was because I had gotten lucky on a few early investments and so I was kind of naive.
So I floated along for a few years and I even ended up taking a couple of years break from domains. I was frustrated with my progress and I kind of got into other things. And it wasn't until I started selling cars and doing auto sales and finance that I really learned some business skills that helped me in my domain business. I realized that I lacked discipline. I finally started figuring out how to manage a portfolio and make smart acquisitions and ultimately had a game plan for each domain or each type of domain that I was investing in.
So when I finally came back to domain names, something kind of sparked in me. I quit binging Netflix and watching TV in my free time and I really started to dive into all of the educational material that was out there at that time for domain investors. And a lot of these are still current shows and podcasts that are on things like domain Sherpa. Domain name Wire has a great podcast with hundreds of episodes. I started to religiously read domain blogs on domaining.com and consume sales data from Namebio and looking at DN Journal for high value domain sales and stories.
I remember I would read like Elliot's blog, which is now domaininvesting.com and dsad. There's just a great wealth of knowledge in the domain industry. Awesome people and a lot of people that really, you know, things started to click for me. I was buying better domains, I was making better sales, and I was even starting to host some meetups and started a domain block. But there were still kind of pieces of the puzzle missing that I wasn't selling my domains consistently enough and I didn't have the capital to put together a portfolio that I could really make a living from. But it was after my first really substantial domain sale that I felt confident that I was ready to take the leap and I wanted to make domain names my career path.
So I started looking for broker opportunities. So fast forward to today. I've been brokering domains here with grip for it's been almost five years. It's crazy how time flies. It seems like just yesterday Brian, you and I were working on some of our first deals together and increasing the wheels. I think things are really going well here and I'm blessed to be able to make a living doing something that I have a deep passion for.
So right now I'm mainly focused on the brokerage side and I do invest in domains and passively sell my own domains. And my personal sales have continued to improve year over year. I've been upgrading my portfolio but getting my hands dirty and working on outbound and proactively selling our clients domains has given me tons of insight into the domain market and experience in marketing and negotiating these higher value deals makes a world of difference from my own personal portfolio and just moving forward as a broker.
So with that as kind of a backdrop I thought it would be a good idea to talk about how we evaluate, curate and price some of our domain inventory. We work with all kinds of different domain owners that hire us to sell their assets. Some of them are domain investors, some are companies that want to raise capital and some of them are people or families who inherited the domain portfolio that had no idea about domains. Pretty much everything in between. So every week we get submitted dozens of domain name portfolios or names people want to have.
And thankfully here at Griffith brokerage we're capable with a research team, team, brokers, other sales assistants to take on a large variety of domain names in all kinds of price ranges. Where there are other brokerages. Most of them they're only going to be wanting to deal with super high value domains. So we've got a wealth of experience from working on everything from one word .com, two words , .ai, .io, .org, even blockchain domains and working on all these different types of domains and closing literally hundreds of deals a year for the last few years has given us loads of experience and competence in appraising domains appropriately.
And it's not to say that we're correct 100% of the time and it's always in our best interest to get our clients the best sale prices for their domains but that said, we work on commission only as brokers, so we need to have a decent chance to sell the domains that we choose to work on. Tying this kind of back to my personal domain investing journey, before I really educated myself and looked at all the data available, I would just go off my gut feeling on how to price a domain.
And the funny thing is that when you buy a domain or when someone buys a domain, you kind of fall in love with it. It's your baby. So unless you're really looking at the data, you zoom out, give feedback. You may have unrealistic price expectations as to what it could sell for, obviously, or how quickly it could sell, or even if it has a chance to sell.
So I thought it would be helpful to share this with our audience because we do actually turn down a lot of domain names and portfolios and we may even not see eye to eye on some of the domains we're willing to broker with the owners on how to price those domains. So a lot of domainers expectations are just simply too high. And as much as we want to help all of these people understand why we're either not taking other domains or the price is too high, we just don't have the time to educate everybody every day about this kind of stuff and then actually do our job of selling.
So my hopes with this are that this can help some folks understand where we're coming from. And I'd be happy if it just empowers one person that's listening or watching to take a leap and get into all the educational tools that are available to domain owners. I think it's still super early in the grand scheme of things. In the domain business domains have only been around for 30 or 35 years. There's a ton of opportunity in the business for those that are motivated, and we're here to help whoever we can sell or acquire premium domains. It's what we love to do. And I didn't mention every single resource out there, but I'm going to send Obi a list of my favorite ones and I'll ask him to drop that in the notes under video here. Yeah, that's all I had for today.
Brian Harbin: Yeah, and all great insight Michael. That's one of the things that is such a great perspective that you bring to what we do is kind of as a domain investor, I know that's not, I buy domains kind of more for business versus investing and so I love just how you bring that perspective into the business. And yeah, it's been fun to watch. I know you just got back from the beach with your family and it's crazy how I know you were at the beach for a week but it's know just when you're trying to take some time off that's when the deals want to come in. Right?
And I know Maureen you do a great job too of like, you know, sometimes you get stuck on stuff like hey, I'm going to the cape for a few days and then when you come back boom, things go. So Michael, one of the things I wanted to ask you about as a domain mean is there a certain allocation that you put towards domains like per month or per quarter on a quarterly basis? Are you scrubbing lists daily or weekly or how do you kind of set parameters around what you're investing in?
Michael: Yeah, good question. And I know a lot of domain investors that make a living only from selling their own domains. Most of them are continually growing and I'm also doing that, but I'm doing it at a slower pace than most investors because I have the brokerage to work on it and making a living from selling domains for a client. But yeah, I do daily look at lists of domains for sale. I like to go through the expired auctions and I like to go through some private forums where domains are traded.
And as far as how I allocate capital, if I make a good domain sale I want to at least put 25% to maybe 50% of that back into acquiring better domains. I think it's important to always get feedback on your portfolio, trim your portfolio, let go of names that have never had offers or interest for maybe two or three years and figure out sometimes you just got to cut them loose. And like I said, it's hard because at the time you bought it, it was your idea, it was your baby, it was something you had confidence in doing. That is actually difficult too. But yes, I'm always looking at good investments.
Colby Harris: One thing I want to ask to follow that up, Michael, is it's not something you would see in a Kevin O'Leary video or a Dave Ramsey video of hey, what are you doing this month to buy domains? Or what percentage are you putting towards domain investing? So what I wanted to ask you is for someone who's listening to this that's never thought about buying a domain, you mentioned some other platforms, but is there any way that someone can deep dive in without the 10,000 hours of understanding the domain industry and actually make a reasonable decision in trying to get into domain investing?
Michael: Yeah, it's tough to do it right and to really have a full understanding. You kind of got to put in a lot of time into learning. I think it's important for people to, and most people don't do it. You do it the opposite way. Even the most successful investors today, they'll tell you they did this same thing. You buy a bunch of domains, you don't know what you're doing and then you look at your portfolio, it's not selling and then you're like, oh, I need help. I need to educate myself. Then you go and look and you look into all the different educational resources.
So my thoughts would be research and teach yourself before you start buying. And I know that doesn't hardly ever happen, but if you're brand new and you haven't certified domains but you're interested in it, I think that's a big thing. And probably the fastest and best way to get up to speed would be domain academy. Michael Sager put this course together several years ago. It's now managed by GoDaddy. But that is a course that is just packed and it's packed with knowledge and it's laid out in courses. You can quiz yourself on each different section and if you pass that you're going to have a really good understanding of the debate business investing and it may only take you a week or two to get through it if you're really motivated, spending a lot of time.
Brian Harbin: Yeah, one thing I wanted to add to that too, Michael. I think a lot of people come into the domain industry and they almost treat it like the lottery, right? So we get, like Michael mentioned, we get hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of domains a week that people want us to review and look at. And sometimes even just a quick who is search. I see. Okay, you bought this yesterday and you want $10,000 for it, right? They're kind of seeing it as like a lottery ticket. Hey, this is, and I'm like, hey, I don't have time to go through all the logistics of it, but in 40 years nobody in the entire world even wanted to pay $10 for it. Why do you think they'd all of a sudden want to pay 100X that number? Right?
So I think a lot of people think of it as like a lottery ticket. However, if you approach this business the right way, this is the closest thing we have in existence right now in my opinion, to a gold rush. Right? Where these domains are incredibly valuable. Right? But at the same time you have to have the right tools to do that. And I feel like as brokers we help people bring people to the right spot of the river. Hey, this is where you're going to find some and provide the right tools of those sifters that you got to put the sand and everything through and figuring out all the nuances and figuring out, okay, once you have that piece of gold, who's going to then turn around and buy it?
And so I think if you approach the business the right way, of course, it's not something that comes overnight. Nothing easy ever does. But there's so many tools out there now where you can get up to speed and become an expert very quickly with domains.
And especially if you own a company and you understand the value of domain names, you really have a huge advantage. I mean, we talk about this all the time where these guys have a big exit from a company and the first thing they do is they go out and buy a premium domain name because they know how much of a leg up that's going to give them with their new business and how much easier everything gets with a premium domain. You okay, Maureen? I know you've been feeling under the weather, but, yeah. So all great insights on domain investing, Michael!
Colby Harris: Yes, thank you, Michael. Michael, anything else you guys would like to close out with today? Brian?
Michael: Yeah, like I said, it's been a great year. Just thankful for our team.
Colby Harris: Closing out here today. Maureen, anything else you would like to say or add? I know you're a little bit caught up right now, bud.
Maureen: Yeah, no, just happy new year! Merry Christmas! All that.
Colby Harris: Back to you as well. Well, it's been a pleasure to see you both again. It's always fun to do these episodes. I love them because as someone that, even though all the time I spend with Brian, having three of you in front of me to talk about the domain, it's, it's always insightful and something that I'm still shocked as someone who's so interconnected with the rest of the world and social media and all this stuff, it's shockingly quiet in the marketplace, to say the least. Like when I mentioned Dave Ramsay and these other guys that want to give all this advice and tell people where to go, there's just not a lot of people talking about going to this market. So I always love these conversations. I'm super excited to see what continues to happen in a big 2024.
So, Michael, Maureen, happy New Year! Merry Christmas! Great to see you, as always. If anyone watching or listening wants to get in touch with grip brokerage for any of your domain needs, you can visit gritbrokerage.com to get in touch with the team and they'll fulfill all your needs you have.
There it that's a wrap for us here today at the grit.org podcast. Be sure to share this episode with someone you think it would resonate with or impact. Spread the words about the opportunities of domains. We appreciate you tuning in. We'll see you next time. That's a wrap for the Grit-org Podcast.