Interview with Marc Gawith of Godaddy.com Executive Accounts

Godaddy.com is without a doubt the gorilla of domain name registrations. They hold more registrations than any other company and are the company most general consumers think of when they go to register a domain name. What some domainers do not know is they also have an executive accounts program for domainers and individuals with high value domains.  Today I am interviewing one of the members of their Executive Accounts team, Marc Gawith.  I think you will find some interesting insight into Godaddy.com's thoughts and plans for the domaining community.

Marc, tell us a bit about yourself, how did you end up at Godaddy.com and get into domaining yourself?

I grew up in Kansas on a pretty large farm and never had much experience with the web or technology as a whole.  I moved to Arizona several years ago and got a job at GoDaddy where I have learned and taught myself everything that I currently know about domains and the web industry as a whole.  I invest in domain names myself and try to keep up with the current trends and use my names for testing purposes to see what does and doesn't work for my clients.  I love my job and I love helping my clients and the sense of accomplishment I feel when they sell a domain name or start making money with a concept that I introduced them to.

How goes a standard day for a Godaddy Exec Account manager?

A standard day for me starts at 6:00am when I get in the office.  I begin my day by processing any outstanding emails from the day prior.  Once that is done I load up my portfolio of clients and begin calling customers for the next 8 hours.  The calls range anywhere from follow ups from previous days dealings or related to new products, services, or information revolving around domaining.  This could be products that GoDaddy offers or products that I have come across by reading industry forums or blogs from other companies.  The day really doesn't end except for getting some sleep.  I have my email coming to my cell phone that I am constantly checking to make sure there is nothing that is pressing that needs to be taken care of immediately.

What types of services do you help with that a domainer would be interested in?

We offer a lot of standard services that most other registrars offer but there are a couple that specifically are created with our Exec Accounts in mind, specifically domainers.  We have a program that is called Domain Transfer Validation.  This allows an extra level of security for domainers portfolios.  It protects against domain names being transferred out of or moved out of the current GoDaddy account.  After all domain names are the biggest and most important asset for domainers.

Godaddy and its site are really focused on a the "general consumer", do you think the exec account manager service is Godaddys way of saying that they understand the domainer and our needs?

Absolutely!  I think that initially the executive accounts department was just created for a go between for our larger customers and GoDaddy's development.  However recently our focus and mantra was changed to be directed towards domainers specifically and their needs to be sure that those needs are met.  We as account managers do our best to stay abreast of the most recent happenings and current events in the domaining community.

What are the requirements to be assigned an account manager?

Currently as a rough requirement it is at least 500 domain names.  However that is up for interpretation based upon the domain names and the quality of those names.  For example if someone owns 100 domain names but they are all high value premium domain names that is someone that is going to be a good fit for our department as we can help them fulfill their goals with their domain portfolio.  In the same breath if someone is registering  hundreds of domain names that don't have any value and is trying to sell them for outrageous amounts and using up our time and resources that person is probably going to be  a better fit just calling in to our general support department.

One of the major complaints from Domainers with Godaddy is the amount of steps it takes before a name can be purchased, in many cases seconds matter, any tips for getting from search to buy faster?

I would recommend creating a buyer profile which saves all of the criteria for your domain names when registering.  You set this up one time and it allows you to choose the profile you are wanting to purchase the domain under.  Also once you have selected the domain name and your buyer profile you can click quick checkout which takes you straight to the shopping cart without having to go through the upsells and offers.

One of my complaints has been that I have to email my list of names in to receive my discount, is Godaddy working on a way to bypass this step?

GoDaddy is currently working on a way to bypass this.  It is something that we as account reps have been trying to get completed for quite some time.  We know that it can be a pain to have to put the domain in an email and then send it over and wait for us to register it.  We have a plan in place for discount purchasing plans for our executive accounts customers we are just waiting for it to be put into place by our developers.

What extensions after .COM, .NET, and .ORG are doing well from your daily experience?

This is a very good question and one that everyone would like to know.  Honestly it changes daily given the current trends in the market.  If I had to pick a domain name that wasn't a com, net or org that would be next in line based upon my daily experience it would be .me.  I know it is a cctld  and it is relatively new but I see a lot of people investing time and money and actually building out .me sites and driving up the value.  I believe you just did an interview with Steve Sikes who has been very successful with .me domain names not only developing but buying and selling.

How has the recession impacted the registrations you are dealing with, are you seeing more drops from your customers?

The recession has definitely affected customers.  We are seeing a lot of people selling domain names for very cheap to try to recoup some of the cost associated with renewing names.  Others don't have the ability to sell the names before they expire and end up letting them go and other domainers that aren't in the same boat are able to pick them up through our auction site at a very good price.

Why should I use Godaddy over moniker or another register?

The answer to this question used to be price.  However after the changes that were made to our executive accounts department to cater towards domainers the answer would be service.  Our job here is to work for our clients without being paid by our clients.  What I mean by that is I am basically your employee but GoDaddy is providing my paycheck.  That is our mentality here in our department.  When a customer asks me to do something I get it done to the best of my ability as quickly as possible.  If there are requests that aren't requests that we get on daily basis it may take a little longer but it gets done.  We as executive account managers go out of our way to make sure things get done for our customers.

Thanks to Marc for taking the time out of his busy day to do this interview.