Whether you are selling domains or selling any other product or service, “how much” is the most common response you get whenever a buyer sees any interest in buying your service or a product.

I think in sales, this question “how much” is a mother of all objection. If someone says “not interested,” you can either ask why they are not interested, or you ignore them and move on to someone else, but “how much” is so tempting you have no option but to give a response.

In my opinion, it’s not easy to reply to how much because in the back of your mind, you have all sort of thoughts going on such as: “what if I ask too much,” what if they say no,” what if I ask less,” “should I give my offer first? Confusion… Confusion… and most of the time, we end up messing it up.

When you are doing outbound to sell your domains, you get all kind of different replies like:

• How much
• Not interested
• What are you asking?
• I don’t see any value. I’m happy with what I have.
• How does it work, blah, blah

But, if you have a domain that can add value to your prospects and your email list super-targeted, the tone and responses you get from your prospects get change. You must always add value to your prospects, which is the only way to bring down adverse reactions.

So, returning to “how much,” everyone has a different strategy to make this work. When I was new, most of the time, my response to how much was giving away my asking price, and I still do that, depending on what kind of domain I’m selling.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it didn’t; before I do outreach, I go through all these checks to make sure I can bring down negative responses:

Value: I only approach those buyers who use an inferior extension such as .net .co, .online, or they are using a 3-4 word domain name.

Laser target prospect list: My email list is always super-targeted. I would never reach out to those prospects who won’t benefit from a domain which I’m selling.

Don’t do this: reaching out to .com owner, and you have a hyphen, .org name. They already have the best extension; they don’t need it. In my opinion, it’s a complete waste of time.

Personalized: I always make sure my message is catered to the recipient – whether their name, location, or occupation. It helps build rapport and increases your email’s likelihood, not landing up in the spam folder.

Personalization doesn’t mean that you need their date of birth or the dog’s name. You need a couple of information which you can access easily:

• Name
• Company name
• Role or a position in the company

When you give importance to these factors, your negative response rate will go down. and that’s where your prospects reply and ask, “how much.”

Depending on domain value, I use these two strategies on how to respond to how much

• Give your price
• Set expectation

Give your price

As I mentioned, I have successfully sold many domains by giving my asking price in response to how much, but I think this strategy only works well with low-quality domains.

Let’s say you have a domain name, and you already have a set price range in your mind, like $300-$1000, now what I have seen potential buyers for such low priced domains are not big corporate clients; they are small-mid businesses.

These small-medium businesses don’t have a big budget to spend on advertising, and asking them high 4-5 figure price is a complete waste of time, in my opinion.

Most domainers fail to sell a domain name by being unreasonable; they see a reply “how much” and throw some unreal numbers, which doesn’t make sense.

If you don’t do a proper pricing valuation and don’t know who are your potential buyers and how much they can afford to spend, I’m afraid most of the time, you’ll end up screwing the deal.

Suppose you are doing outbound on 3-4 words GEO domains, and you get a reply, “how much.”

First, do some research on your buyer, find out how big they are, go through their social media handles, and see how many followers they have and how active they are.

Check on Linkedin to get an idea of how many employees they have; all these checks help you know your buyer and set up your price range.

Use semrush to verify if they are spending any money on paid ads. If I see they are spending my money on advertising, I will raise my asking price.

I would break down my email, and first of all, I’ll start by thanking them.

Thanks for your reply and interest in buying this name.

Here I’ll use some comparable sales data:

The retail value for this domain is over ($$$$), and recently these (comparable sales data) domains were sold for $XXXX.

I’m not looking for much. The asking price for this domain is only($) (make sure you always use “only”); it also includes a one-year renewal.

How it works: here, explain the whole process of how and where the buyer can buy this domain. You can find out the sample email template on this post.

And end your email by asking, Would you like to proceed further or have any questions? Always end your email by asking a question.

So if you are looking for a quick flip on low-quality domains, I think it is better to give your price in response to how much and get that deal closed as soon as possible and always ask for more to make sure you have some room for negotiations.

 Avoid giving your price in your first email.

Set Expectation

This is a totally different strategy, and if you are new to domaining, avoid using this. This only works best if you have a domain name with a value of a high 4 figure. 

The first rule your domains has to be of good quality and don’t make up your asking price without proper due diligence; instead, let the market decide the price.

Once you have a high-quality domain, your pool of potential buyers will go down because, as I said earlier, small businesses won’t be able to afford domains with a high price. So your potential prospects for the high 4 figure price range will be limited.

For more details, you can read this blog post on how to find different types of buyers.

If I get a response, “How much,” I will break down my emails into different parts.

First, I would introduce myself. “Allow me to introduce myself first. 

Hi, I’m a domain consultant. This is my website (domain) and Linkedin profile.

Introducing yourself is essential, especially in high price sales; that way, they know who they are dealing with, and it looks more professional.

In the second part of my email, I would give them a quick view of why this domain is valuable that can be:

• Search Volume
• CPC
• Benefits of owning an exact match domain-like:

1k searches a month x $5 CPC x 12 months is a lot of advertising cost, and owning an exact match domain name could potentially save millions in advertising costs.

But most importantly, I’ll still don’t give them my asking price; here’s how I’ll end my email.

I’m sure you will do your own research, so I’ll leave this to you to come up with an offer ($); sounds good?

Don’t overload your email with too much information; save some of your weapons for later use. Now, if they come up with a BS low ball offer, I’ll show them comparable sales data to let them know it’s not cheap and set up the expectations.

I won’t give them the exact price; instead, I’ll set up my expectations by asking my price in mid-high four figures. “Our expectation is mid-high 4 figure,” 

Never give your price without the support of some valuable information; don’t just throw out some arbitrary, potentially unreasonable figure. 

If the buyer says that’s too much or domains only cost $10-$12, take a screenshot of a top recent domain sales and don’t attach instead, upload it to your email and send it over. Always ask more and work your way down from there.

If you are getting quick responses from your buyers, it means they are interested and have more money to spend.

Never accept the first offer ever, regardless of how good it is; if it’s exactly what you wanted and you are the seller, you should always expand the sale because that’s your starting point.

If you accept the first offer, they will automatically feel they could have done better or something is wrong, or they gave up some money, so the goal here is to strive for that win win where they get something, you get something, and you both leave the bargaining table feeling good about the outcome of that deal.

That’s it for now, there are never-ending strategies, and I always keep on doing a/b testing to see what works and what doesn’t. I’ll keep on posting more tactics in my future posts.

Outbound Joke of the day – That feeling when a old lead come back🤣

Namaste 🙏

If you want to post hate and derogatory comments, please go somewhere else. I reserve the right to delete snarky comments, offensive or off-topic.