Before You Tire of the Rhetoric, Don't Quit Your Day Job

Like smoking tobacco, domaining can be a highly addictable habit that unchecked leaves one no better off than the Alcoholic. Family problems, money problems. Like Vegas, the house usually wins.

That's why I am disturbed by two posts today on blogs that I really have enjoyed for the most part, both by admittedly part time domainers who in my view haven't passed the threshold of success required to be blogging advice to others.

And it's therefore unacceptable to be critical of others who not only have a track record of proven success, but for mentoring hundreds of people and facilitating introductions that led to financing, sales, mergers and acquisitions, and whose efforts were the catalyst for the opportunities and the resources those complaining enjoy today.

Respected by all blogger and investor Elliot Silver, who is young, defies the idea that "old-timers" had it on a silver platter, because he started late, and under the tutelage of these old timers and the connections they opened for him, has proven success had little to do with timing, but more to do with education and strategy.

Elliot Silver isn't buying .me and dot elsewhere because dotCOM is out of reach. He worked his way up the chain of flipping until he could follow Rick's advice, come to know how to distinguish a good name from a bad name, and buy the $50,000 domains like Burbank.com and Torah.com, also knowing which to keep for the long term and which to flip. I watched Elliot Silver soak up every ounce of information from the old timers and work Rick's forum to make the contacts and sales that paved the path to the fruit it still bares today. And he's not alone.

Elliot Silver today and Rick Schwartz before him, succeed not by time and circumstance but because they ARE Elliot Silver and Rick Schwartz and have the business acumen, negotiation and sales skills that only 1% of the population posses. It's said that 80% of the sales are made by 20% of all the sales people. The rest are dead weight and as a former sales executive, I can confirm this. This is what is meant by Pigeon Shit and if you pay attention maybe you can save thousands of dollars chasing good money after bad and invest in something else that WILL provide the future you seek.

As for Morgan Linton's high growth, keep your day job until you make $10,000 a month on hundreds of sites that are dependent on Google and third parties for their incomes strategy, I asked in a comment to his post:

"Can anyone confirm ever making $40 a click or even $7 a click on a MFA site?"

Those figures are based on what someone PAYS adwords to be atop of the Google page with those search terms not on a website with the same ad. Correct me if I am wrong but having been in the buyer's shoes buying Adwords campaigns for large corporations, working directly with rep at Google, I believe this to be true and the metrics most domainers live or die by like...

Exact-Match Global Monthly Searches: 9,900
Exact-Match Local Monthly Searches: 6,600
CPC: $7.81

are seriously flawed. But they keep the dream alive and the whole industry surrounding it thriving selling lottery tickets that will never be cashed.

I don't want to rain on your parade but expecting a steady stream of passive income for future years, based on behavior patterns and technology of 2010 (not to mention future registration fees and Internet taxation, UDRP and licensing fees and laws that don't exist today which could enter the picture), has no basis in fact. Especially if you are relying on third parties to serve your ads and pay you. That's why the Venture people have fled in droves. That's why Marchex's stock and business plan is in the tank. That's why Frank Schilling, Ron Josephs and others who have held domains for years are making aggressive moves to dispose of them.

By contrast Bruce Markler, Colin Pape, George Pickering and The Castello Brothers, among others, are building a better future with direct advertiser relationships, sales forces, seminars and in Colin's case a hub and spoke strategy that enables thousands of sites to be powered by a single, scalable platform.

Why am I ranting on this? Because when a young person with ambition and a few dollars in savings reads these blogs and gets excited about becoming rich and famous with domains, and starts pulling out the credit cards — it's important to have some perspective. Otherwise you stand to lose a lot of money, the best years of your life and if you get as deep into the mobi-loss shit that I've commented on before, you may lose your mental health. No one wanted to heed my advice then, but after losing thousands and dropping their dream domains because they couldn't afford their rent, let alone renewals, they sure understand what I am talking about now.

Before You Tire of the Rhetoric, Don't Quit Your Day Job