Legitimate sales strategy?

[Ben Thomas]

I think there's a danger in registering a load of old tat if you're hand regging. Then again, some people do seem to be rather good at it and/or approaching potential end users. I've barely ever got a reply from anyone I approach though. Best to wait and see who is interested enough to reach out. Horses for courses and all that though!

I've been hand registering some stuff from RoR, even now. And it's earning good money. So I think there's a lot to be said for speculative registrations by hand, but the problem as you mention, is approaching end users. I find the best way to tackle this is with cold calling using a team of trained salespeople, or at very least - yourself.

 

[newguy]

I've been hand registering some stuff from RoR, even now. And it's earning good money. So I think there's a lot to be said for speculative registrations by hand, but the problem as you mention, is approaching end users. I find the best way to tackle this is with cold calling using a team of trained salespeople, or at very least - yourself.

Oh yes, I mean there was a thread of old on here where someone seemed to have tremendously success in hand regging names and approaching business. So I'm not saying it's some kind of madcap thing to do, just that depending on the approach and named regged it can be a good or very bad idea!

I did pick up 10 or 20 hand reg .uk domains, that I'm sure must be worth more than I paid. I'm not sure that I have the get up and go to do the hard sell on them though. I just wait

 

[Ben Thomas]

I think a lot of the people who do handreg stuff tend to spend a lot of money on things to play the long game. Registering all sorts of names that sound brandable, or have certain words in them or start with the letter X or something. It's all well and good, as they know they only need one big sale to cover all the money they will lose on the reg fees for the names that don't sell. Problem when doing that though is the massive renewal fees.

Nothing wrong with waiting sales out, if it works it works! Find what suits you I guess.

 

[stitchbob]

Getting into domains can really be as much luck as art. I got into it in part because of the ROR release, but a big deciding factor was the first co.uk I hand regged while looking into the industry. That domain sold immediately for £300. If that one hadn't sold so easily or for so much, I'd probably never have bothered getting a TAG.

 

[Siusaidh]

One of my biggest frustrations is that when I discovered computers (I was a late starter) in about 1997 there were still quite a lot of pretty decent .com's you could hand reg. I picked up a few, because they interested me and I thought I could use them myself, but at that point I had no idea there was money to be made from domains.

If I could time travel back to the mid 1990s...

I think the recent .uk ROR was a specific case where it was possible to hand reg some reasonable names. Yes, most of the ones I really wanted I got through a selection of drop catching routes. But there was especially a few days' window when Crazy would let you pick out domains that people were waiting for general release to the public the next Monday, and I got a few nice ones through them.

The other thing I love, from a hand-regging point of view is the unscheduled 'drops' when people decide to delete their registrations through Nominet. These don't get flagged up long in advance like most 92-day drops, and they suddenly appear. Those can be such a delight.

There are also sometimes names that have been suspended for over a year and three times I have phoned up Nominet and said 'Why aren't they released?' and they've said they'll check it out and get back to me, and then I've been told 'If you remain alert, these will probably drop sometime in the next 24-48 hours' and they did.

I have my eyes on a few like that this month - really nice ones, abandoned in suspension land.

I agree that scripts is the best approach, obviously, but there are opportunities for hand reggers if they stay alert and do their homework. I financed my way through my nurse training through the sale of hand-regged domain names, quite a few sold to people here.

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Hand registrations died about 8 years ago.

You can still make money from drop catching, however you can end up in the "hand registration" area of the drops and make nothing. Really depends on how much you want to make, I use it to supplement a full time salary, takes up about an hour of my time a week and gives me an extra bit of bunce every week.

 

[WalkinDude]

Hand registrations died about 8 years ago.

You can still make money from drop catching, however you can end up in the "hand registration" area of the drops and make nothing. Really depends on how much you want to make, I use it to supplement a full time salary, takes up about an hour of my time a week and gives me an extra bit of bunce every week.

Hand reg can never die. There will always be new business ideas, concepts, models evolving year on year. I'd agree it's not a method to pin ones hat on though and I understand what you mean.

Bottom line is full time domain entrepreneurs are in a different realm, daresay a higher dimension, to part timers. I've taken some weeks off over the summer and been at it everyday and the difference has been eye opening.

 

[JMI]

Handreg is still possible but often I find you may only get 1 or a few offers in the domains lifetime, you need to sell quickly or I've found you end up renewing a dud for years.

 

[geniejjc]

Thanks for all your insights and tips.

 

[WalkinDude]

....

 

[gdomains]

I have actually got my biggest sales by hand reg like you, with a few domain purchases along the way.

I work for a design agency so if you need any help with website design / Seo just drop me a pm

 

[3gmedia]

Yes, sold a ror hand reg .uk for low £,£££