No thanks, I’ll register another domain name.

Today I received a $50 domain inquiry for a top 3 word .com.

I’ll take a few moments to share a few thoughts for domain buyers and sellers.

I’ve received a few offers on this same domain over the last year, so I knew that I was not going to rollover and blindly accept this offer without doing a little research.

Just based on the previous domain inquiries and offers, the lowest price I was willing to accept was $25K.

As I do with every domain and right from the start, I also checked to see if the other domain extensions where registered, available, or developed.

And to my surprise and advantage as a seller, all other domain extensions were registered and a few had fully developed websites belonging to thriving businesses.

So I did what anyone should do, which is performing a few business searches to be sure that those businesses were legit.

In addition, I typed in the 3 keywords into Google and found an assortment of pay-per-click ads.

This fact alone increases the domain name value because a number of companies are finding customers paying for their ads to be shown next to organic search results.

I also researched Ron Jackson’s DNJournal for some old domain sales for synonymous keywords and found a few $40-$50K sales over the last few years.

So based on these research points alone, I was feeling quite confident about contacting the buyer.

As I would with a normal domain inquiry, I researched the buyer’s name, IP address, email address, and any social media profiles I could find that were a match.

I found 4 LinkedIn profiles and only 2 of those profiles were a possible match based on the IP Address and telephone number giving the approximate location to be in New Jersey.

The first of the two profiles was a long-standing Accountant for Bloomberg LP, the leader in global business and financial information, enabling customers to make smarter, faster, more informed business decisions. The other profile was an intern for a small business. Out of either profile, the Bloomberg LP profile was the best fit for the domain.

Armed with a trove of research, I gave the buyer a call because of their email address used on the inquiry being a gmail address.

Typically, users of big companies, even domain brokers, sometimes use a gmail, yahoo or hotmail address in the attempt to keep the price low or to remain anonymous.

On my initial call to the buyer, the buyer and I exchanged pleasantries and got to know one another as briefly as one could within the first 20 seconds.

I informed the buyer that I was returning his call in regards to his recent domain inquiry.

Just based on our conversation and the buyer’s initial offer of $50, I could tell the buyer was somewhat uneducated about the value of .com domains, especially the domain they were after.

To get down to business, I asked the buyer what they were going to use the domain for.

The buyer informed me they were wanting to purchase the domain to grow their business, which only push the value further North because I now know they are the perfect domain buyer.

When I informed the buyer of my asking price of a high 5-figure number, the buyer’s attitude changed quite a bit to one that was very irritated.

The buyer was so perturbed by the asking price that they never considered making me their most reasonable and best offer.

Again, I only stated an asking price, not a final price. So in reality, the buyer folded too soon on the domain.

In short, the buyer let me know that they would go and hand register alternative domains by ending our call with, “No thanks, I’ll register another domain name.”

Most of my calls end this way with uneducated domain buyers, so it rarely, if ever, gets under my skin.

But where this call ended, this is where things got kinda weird. Not only did the buyer let me know they would not buy my domain, but they blindly stated which domains they were going to go and purchase.

I’m not certain if this was a revenge or reverse psychology tactic, but spouting out which generic keyword domains you’ll hand register to a domain investor is definitely not a good idea if you’re the buyer, seeing that I now own those domains too.

I’m not sure if I will ever hear back from the buyer, but I’m willing to bet that I will once they figure out that I now own the domains they had set their sights on owning and developing to grow their business.

Fortunately, for the buyer’s sake, I would be willing to sale all 5 domains for a packaged deal with no price increase for that buyer only, if they were interested.

Yes, as a buyer, it is your right to go and hand register other domains in a variety of domain extensions when the .com is not available.

But the reality is that developing websites on non-premium domain names can only increase the value of .com domain name you and your business so covet.

If you’re truly serious about growing your business, it’s always in your best interest to pony up the cash to own prime real estate.

Owning prime real estate, both physical and virtual, will cost you more than a pretty penny, but the ROI will greatly overshadow your investment.

After all, if you don’t pony up the cash, then your competition will pony up the cash to purchase the domains you didn’t and put the nail in the coffin on your business.