Screw The Economy And Go For It!
As with most people right now I have many friends out of work, some have been looking for something solid for over a year. Many of them are top end, quality sales people who know how to close a deal, get stuff done, and in normal times are sought after daily by leading tech companies. Obvioulsy things are different these days....
We all know people that were previously well thought of employees of companies that have had a hard time finding the employment they want and rightly deserve. Many have depleted their savings, lost their homes, went bankrupt, etc. Its tough and I hate to see good people go through this. I do not have this sympathy for everyone since I think at times certrain people will always find an excuse not to be successful, for them I have no compassion, sorry just don't. They seem to find away to have an excuse even during boom times.
But recently I was having a conversation with a friend of mine I have known for sometime, have worked with him at a few different companies, and know the quality of his work and his ability to succeed. But he has been trying to find full time employment since May of last year, his savings are close to being depleted and he is on edge to say the least. This person is a hard worker, one of those that you get emails from at 2 AM and then check again and have more at 7 AM.
We are pretty close friends so I felt comfortable asking him how much he had depleted his savings, how much time and effort he had spent in looking for a job. I then laid out something for him. In the time he had been looking for a job, and with the amount of money he had depleted from his savings he could of started a company and created some income for himself. Maybe not the amount he had before his lay off but something near it. Overtime he could of exceeded it. I had these thoughts in the past but after sitting with someone and then seeing the numbers and time that had been wasted (and I do mean wasted) by my close friend it was a bit sad to see what he could of done rather than allowing the drive to help someone else (i.e. looking for that 40/60 hr a week job) consume him. My concern now is that its too late for him.
We talked a bit after the conversation about ideas he would of liked to of acted on and what he thought he could of created. He is both frustrated and excited now that he thinks about it this way. The way he sees it and wishes he would of seen it earlier is that the economy sucks, lets face it, and if pretty much everyone you know has spent an extended amount of time searching and not finding a job, and if they do find one its much less pay than before which means they end up depleting savings they may have, then why not start from the beginning and create something for yourself. The biggest hurdle that lay before most would be business owners is getting away from their day job, trust me I know.
Anyway, just wanted to relate that story, there really is no end to it, he is at a point now that he does not have the resources left to invest in himself like he could of several months back, but now has a different focus on the job hunt. If theres nothing there MAKE SOMETHING!
Sorry for the lack of domaining talk in this one.....
Random Domaining Notes
This is not the post I planned on doing today but due to a technical difficulty I don't have the bandwidth to fix right now I thought I would post a few domaining notes that were not quite large enough to justify their own post. Here goes...
What may of been one of the coolest things in my keyword research happened today, while researching various keywords coming to my blog I noticed that I had a couple searches for "St. Louis Domainers" show up minutes before in my Statpress results. Thought that was interesting since I am in the St. Louis area. Well, literally minutes later I had a call on my cellphone from a domainer in the St. Louis area interested in meeting and discussing domains sometimes, he was the one searching. Just a cool, fun experience to see the search result in a phone call. Starting to think its a Missouri Domainer Mafia, the person today, Patrick Carleton (Associated Cities), Aron Meystedt, Tia Wood, and me. I know theres more of you out there!!!
Next note, if you are not twittering get to it. Although I have a hard time sometimes fitting what I want to say into 140 characters I find myself getting more from my Twitter communications and social network than I do from most other online networks at this point but I will admit to neglecting my Facebook account due to Twitter. I have been able to acquire domains I would not of found otherwise, create domaining relationships that would not of occurred otherwise.
I want to give a shoutout to Esa and Sri at Estibot.com. After my minisites compared post a few weeks back they have contacted me and found that when the files were transferred there was some corruption that caused some content to be truncated, etc. Great follow up by them. Esa was top notch in communications concerning this and had the team on it right away. Thanks!!!
Was just reading a post on Techcrunch concerning the changes that are coming in Digg Search. For anyone that has used Digg for link building and search traffic this could cause some changes in the traffic flow. Keep an eye on it.
I want to also thank all of you for reading, the blog has been up for a few weeks now and the results have been better than I could of expected from a networking and acceptance standpoint. Good people in this domainer group. I plan to be back to the minisite and how-tos posts in the next day or so and continue to give ideas on how to either choose names for outsource development or develop on your own rapidly.
OK, now for the biggest thing in this post, I PROMISED my daugther that I would mention that tomorrow is her 8th Birthday!!! She is standing over my shoulder right now and making sure this sentence is typed exactly to her liking. Happy Birthday Little Diva!!!!!
New Logo for BruceMarler.com And Thanks to Others
I have been connectivity challenged the past day or so and have not got to post a few things I really wanted to so am saving them for later this week, but wanted to send a few shout outs to people that have thrown out some good info this past week.
Wanted to give a quick thanks to Theo at Acroplex for the new blog logo. He is also working on a twitter background and favicon for me.
Not that anyone probably wants to see me staring at them when opening up the site:) But since this site is my thoughts and rants I thought it made sense to use my likeness.
Also, Bill E. from Nameclerk.com and AvailableDomainNames.com gets a thank you for confirming that monetization options I had been contemplating for a few sites actually should work as planned and pointed out a good tool to implement them. Once tested I will be posting the details on addtional ways to monetize product related domain names.
Chef Patrick has also been helpful during the launch and as such deserves thanks as well!
I have a great interview you will not want to miss that will be out tomorrow AM. Look forward to sharing, the domainer interviewed is someone that has been pretty quiet in the domaining world but has started to make a bit of a splash with the launch of a recent site. More to come tomorrow.
A Few Random Domaining Thoughts
A few random domaining thoughts and some insight into what will be coming next on BruceMarler.com:
- I have someone looking for a domain with the word "media" in it, not a bunch of random letters with media, but something that can be used for a company presence online. If you have something please use the contact me form at the top of this page to submit. It must be a .COM. Please send price in the message.
UPDATE: The buyer has selected the name from the dozen or so we received last night.
- Expect some video blog posts in the upcoming weeks.....
- I have had a few takers on the video domain sales concept but no one has sent their video, this is a chance to get your domain in front of viewers and giving it the pitch you want. No commission, should be fun.
- Expect some interviews with interesting domainers in the upcoming week as well. The first one was alot of fun to put together and provides some really good information on how this domainer became successful. I should be posting this on Monday.
- Really trying to talk myself into moving a few of my higher dollar per day parked domains to a developed model but having a hard time pulling the trigger, have a really good classifieds site that does well parked but I am thinking of using oodle.com's API to build a full fledged classifieds site since the traffic already exists. If anyone has had experience with building a free classifieds site feel free to contact me using the contact me link above.
- Thinking I may attend the GeoDomain conference at the end of this month, will depend on some schedule stuff, but think that it would be valuable to attend.
Books For Domainers Not About Domaining
I spend alot of time focused on reading books about marketing, online marketing, and other areas that at the end of the day will make me a better domainer and business owner, because if you are running your domaining business properly it is a business. If you are focused on developing your domains into real online destinations this is even more important as you want repeat customers and provide a product and experience that they find better than your competitors.
Here are 5 books that I have found valuable, if you have more feel free to comment or suggest more:
Click: What Millions of People are Buying Online and Why it Matters
Author: Bill Tancer
This book was absolutely fascinating in its analysis of online user behavior and how search matters. As domainers we focus on keywords and search to understand what names are valuable. This book will take you to a new level of understanding and appreciation for search and the importance.
Outliers: The Story of Success
Author: Malcom Gladwell
I was a big fan of both The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcom Gladwell and this book did not disappoint. The book will show you how seizing upon an opportunity at the time it is presented is the most valuable thing a business will ever do. It shows how being at the right place at the right time may be the most important thing to being successful though. Interesting read.
Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
Author(s): Chip and Dan Heath
If you want to know how to communicate effectively and make people remember you, your idea, or your product you will find this book useful. Personally think this book should be handed to every salesperson or marketing employee I will ever work with or hire.
The 4 Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
Author: Timothy Ferriss
If you have ever dreamt about being able to work anywhere, travel constantly, and enjoy every minute this book is for you. This book really could be the the holy grail and inspiration for many domainers trying to escape their daily grind sitting in their cube at work dreaming about running their own business. With tips on outsourcing tasks effectively and delegating responsibility to allow yourself time to LIVE it was a great and useful read.
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
Author: Chris Anderson
A recently revised version adds even more detail to the book that made the term "The Long Tail" a common term. I can remember reading the original Long Tail article in Wired magazine. Once again, as domainers we understand the value of search terms and niche markets. This book was the first to really show how and why that model works. If you want to understand niche marketing read it.
I purposely did not put any affiliate links to Amazon.com for these books, I have found them valuable in their own right and think that shows even more by not using them as a sales tool. Enjoy and let me know what you thought of them.
One rule I live by is if I enjoy or find a book useful I pass it on to someone else who I think will find it useful, a good rule to live by.
In a buying mood on the domain…
In a buying mood on the domain front. Looking for a quality product related .net
BruceMarler.com Official First Post
After many years of saying I was going to start my blog up I am finally doing it. I have been so focused on starting my other sites up and doing my day job I never got around to focusing on my personal site.
You can expect to see posts about Domain Names, Site Development, Travel Stories from my day job travel and Comments and Rants on tech news.
So, a little bit about me:
I have worked in the telecommunications and next generation communications space for over 13 years in both the professional services and sales side.
I have owned or actively developed my domain name and web properties for over 10 years now but only became truly active and focused on this area in the past 4 years or so.
The site will be in a state of change the next few days as I make some tweaks.