Outbound (2.Viewing)

So I'm thinking of ditching my usual summer jobs this year in favour of doing some outbound for my portfolio (and a bunch of other projects I'm working on). I'm thinking of doing cold-calling and (far less likely) putting on my best suit and walking into different businesses around Toronto... Anyway, any advice on doing outbound?

Well I hate to crap on your idea, and trust me, I wish I could say go for it, it'll work... But I can't.

Outbound is brutal which is why almost no one does it.

And I hope you're a good great fantastic salesman and have a good great fantastic pitch. You're walking into (or emailing or calling) a business trying to convince them to buy a high priced domain name when they already have a different one they paid $15 for (or none at all). In either situation, even if you convince them and they like the domain, then they start thinking about how much time and money its going to take. Issues such as rebranding, building/rebuilding a website, setting up new email, changing every piece of printed material such as signage, business cards, advertising, menus, etc... Then by the time all that clicks in their brain, its probably a big fat "ah forget it, the domain I have isn't that bad after all".

By waiting for serious inbound inquiries, they are already past those hurdles and they're mostly ready to buy. The only thing preventing you from a sale at that point is agreeing on a valuation/price (which is still a big hurdle).

If you don't need money (i.e. living home with the parents for the summer), then sure, you can probably go without the usual summer jobs.

But if you need money and really want to try outbound, I'd suggest doing 90% at a day job, 10% domaining. If your domaining efforts are making more than 10% of your income, then start working less at the day job and more of the domaining. That is ONE nice thing about domaining, you can do as little or as much of it as you want, so if you're methods are working, then you can slowly ramp up.

I started in 2002 and gave up for a couple of years after the first few years and then got back into it, It took me about 10 years to start earning money (any serious money that is) and I relied on my other business to feed my familyin that time.

You just have to look at the market pages to see who has given up, they come in and expect big things in year one and two but unless you are extremely talented or clairvoyant you are in for a dry spell at the onset.

Do your summer job, build and cull your catalog carefully and things will payout once you have a decent catalog.

Well that was to be expected... and I appreciate the stark warnings as always. But see, I'm young and headstrong and I like learning the hard way. No one ever became a fantastic salesman by not not trying (against sage advice). I may gripe about being a broke college student, but I have enough saved up to spend these next 6 months experimenting. Plus I live with my parents. And, of course, domaining isn't only the business project I'm working on these days. I don't expect anything big from any of them (especially not in the next 5 years) and I have a decent 9-5 job all lined up. I know I'm being impatient, but say I were to go business to business. Any tips on how to write a fantastic pitch?

Did you build the websites for your domain names? There are a lot of small businesses that rely on Google Sites which is scheduled to shut down June 10th. If you're dead set on outbound, I'd scrape a list of these businesses and offer to build/maintain a website for them. If you're able to upsell a domain in the process, good.

You'll be solving an issue, which (imo) is necessary for success with outbound.

mcm said:

You'll be solving an issue, which (imo) is necessary for success with outbound.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I built the websites.... using Google sites. Whoops, lol. But I'm not a website builder by trade, I am not qualified. Hence the dn.ca market page (not that I'm complaining, thanks Mapledots!). I'm better at sales than tech (which honestly isn't saying much).