The next step brokering in Japan

[Olney]

I just had a very positive meeting the otherday with a friend of mine. He owns a small company providing web services to his clients in Tokyo.

I've asked him to partner to broker my list.

As seen with the concept of this site it only takes a few to actively increase the value of a market.

It was good meeting with someone who "got it". He's Japanese but was a longtime resident in London in the early days of daytrading.

Hopefully next month I can have my Japanese site up.

Personally I was confident with him because in my circle I do know a lot of people in Media, but many only know me as a TV talent here. With him I know he has connections with the right people.

Anyway going forward I may broker some for others but not initially. When I do there are a few things that I will certainly state now.
1. It will be 30% broker fee. Most will not like this amount. That's fine.
2. I will not take "Every Japanese Domain". OVT will not be basis if an end user "Company" needs to own a term. A lot of the terms he saw with the ability to pitch didn't even have high OVT they were terms I know companies are paying through the roof for. I also do not want anyone sending me their entire portfolio. I don't want to sift through what's good for you.
3. I will only be pitching coms & jps for others (Initially).

He informed me he would be interested in creating a domaining solution for Japanese. So within the month you might see one more sacrifice sale for development funding...

This would be a site for any type of sale to go on.

Anyway just wanted to let you guys know...

I was going to go forward with a portfolio site in English but I think it's better if I comncentrate on the Japan side for a while & build it it. Imagine being credited with the expansion of the IDN market in English & Japanese... Anyway we'll see how it goes...

PS DO NOT PM ME YOUR DOMAINS... & don't hold out on everything waiting. It will take at least a few months for us to have a site up & prepare all necessary documentation for just my domains. I'm just letting you guys in on what I'm doing.

[markits]

Olney,
I suggest you create a sedo alike site/business specially targeting the Japanese domains and market with multi-language interface.

[Rubber Duck]

It shouldn't be too difficult for the more aggressive marketeers to find out who is bidding terms on Overture and then from Whois of the domain in the URL, emailing them to offer dot coms and dot jp.

[blastfromthepast]

If anyone it thinking of selling their domains to Japanese companies at this stage of the game, they are crazy.

[Olney]

Preparing a Japanese site for end of the year & next year sales seems to be quite logical to me.
The site will pass through at least 2 Google updates & major search engine reindexing.

Going to a Japanese corporation "Directly" that you already know their budgets can be quite different in terms of revenue.

I own about 500 IDNs. I think about 300 are solid commercial terms. If I sell 5 direct I'll be ahead of the game. I never said I'd go through my portfolio in a short time span.

But again my focus is to develop high traffic Japanese sites... That's were my profits will go...

[Lmg67]

For those of us who might need some cash now, it would make sense to sell some of our names at this time to Japanese companies if they wanted them, even while knowing that they would go for a much higher price in the future. Or, if we want to focus on a certain language instead of Japanese, it would also make sense to sell some in order to finance buying other names. (I'm one of those people, for both reasons!)

I think I have a couple of good names, not a lot but a few, and I'd sell them now if someone wanted them.
Laurie

[Giant]

The value of a domain name is not always obvious, and it's very subjective. You are willing to pay a premium price for a domain only when you really need it.

The art of selling domains is not to find the buyer but let the buyer find you.

Doing something to expose your domains to the potential buyers is a good strategy and very helpful, if you know where they are.

[Edwin]

30% sounds entirely reasonable if the broker is taking care of handholding the clients through the buying process in their own language, on top of finding those clients in the first place! From the seller's point of view, they're getting 70% of (I take it) end-user-level sales for doing "nothing much" except for agreeing to be represented.

[Olney]

Edwin I think you understand the situation.
I'm going to start with mine first & then be selective with others afterwards.

[IDNCowboy]

The price is very reasonable ;)

I must have made 20-30% on two $100,000 website network sales last year. At the end everyone is happy and has a share of the money.

[thegenius1]

Yes i agree as well 30% is worth the connections the meeting and basically the headache of not being in Japan , So i wouldnt see a problem with it

[Drewbert]

30% is especially worth it if the broker has the connections and ability to turn a $nnnnn sale into a $nnnnnn one.

[touchring]

Olney, have you sold any name to a japanese end user to date?

[Olney]

Haven't tried to yet. I'm in no rush. At first I'm going to prepare a portflio site & documentations. Then my partner for this will present to his personal affiliations which include connections to many large media companies.
This is a long term commitment & I don't mean to sell a lot each year. He's looking at only targeting companies he has a direct connection with the higher ups at first. Then afterwards to go straight to the 2 top Japanese Ad agencies.

Being in Tokyo really gives a big advantage on who you can get meeting with...

[touchring]

My opinion is that it's too early to sell to end users - a lot of marketing and persuasion work must be put in.

It will be more time efficient to focus on registration until the end user market takes off.

And in the meantime, find or create a parking service that supports Japanese and with a "buy this domain" message in Japanese and a Tokyo contact us address. Like what Giant says, it's always better for the buyer to find you than the other way round.

[Olney]

It's a bit different for my situation, than domaining in the States.
I own a lot of the alcohol types, whisky, gin, brandy, tequila.
My roommate's company does club & magazine campaigns for some of them. Then most of my surrounding have personal friend who work in the industries for domains I targeted. These are the people who control the budgets for Japan. It's not like the States where there may be many offices spread out.
All the people of power are usually floating around Tokyo.
I own 500 & only looking to land a few personal direct sales for the next 2 years.

I also got some extremely high competitive keywords. Buy it before your competitor does. Makes sense.... Especially in the Career market.

[burnsinternet]

Please keep us posted. It sounds like you'll get plenty of requests for services. Maybe someday you'll have an RFP forum.