Non-profit buyer (2.Viewing)

So I recently had the all-too common inquiry, "we're non-profit", "we can only afford $1000 as a non-profit", yada yada. We've all heard it before.

Its a 1-word .ca, with a suffix, so not the #1 version, but none-the-less already used in business by other canadian and international businesses.

Knowing they're a non-profit, I asked $10K CAD + taxes, which I thought was pretty darn reasonable to be honest. In any case, they offer $1500 citing the non-profit stuff.

[RANT MODE ON] My take on that non-profit b.s. is always, if you, the CEO and the other employees are all working for no compensation, then I can be pretty darn reasonable. But if you're all making full time salaries from your non-profit, then please explain to me why you get paid, but you don't think I should???
[RANT MODE OFF]

In any case, so a little while later I get a $5K USD offer through a broker, saying this is our maximum/final offer. Of course they don't say who the buyer is, but I'm know it is because my emails were read at the exact same time as the offer comes through from the broker (webbugs in my emails that notified me when read).

I counter on the platform with a $9500 USD price (more than enough to cover my original $10K CAD + HST price quote to the client). And of course they'll be paying another 10% plus escrow fees on top of that, so I know this will cost them considerably more than my original price.

So I go back to the original offer email directly from the client and say, "hey, I know you're price sensitive, so why go through a broker who will add commissions and fees, just making it worse for you??"

I tell them that I'm happy to work directly with them to eliminate commissions/fees, or we can even work directly with Escrow.com to at least avoid the commissions.

A day later, I get acceptance of my full offer _through_the_broker_ at the higher price + commissions + escrow fees.

So much for the "we're a poor penny-pinching non-profit" eh??

Take out the non-profit part and I have had similar where I offered to deal direct yet the company still used the more expensive broker.

I remember when I ran a Mercedes-Benz franchise I had 3 personal secretaries and I used a service for everything. I would probably have done the same and let the broker deal with all the loose ends. For me all that would have counted was the domain, everything else would have been a tax write off.

I had a similar situation with the “non profit” part just last week. I did my typical polite response and haven’t heard back. Mine is a 4 letter not so common 1 word .ca.

Anytime someone threatens to choose a different domain, I always encourage them to go with their perfect domain, whether it be mine or not. And if it means spending a few extra bucks to get it, they won't regret it.

can you reveal which domain it was after sale goes through?

Sure, I should be able to, I'll have to review the broker agreement just to make sure there was nothing about non disclosure. Just waiting on buyer's payment to clear.