|pros • per • ly|

I couple of weeks ago I wote a post about how you should be ready to take advantage of the great deals on websites for sale that would surely come because of the downturn in the market. Even though we have been “in a recession” for a year now, people seem to be feeling the effects of it more now that ever.

Personally, I think this recession is media made and although certain industries may be in a recession I don’t think everyone is. But I digress.

So back to the good stuff. I made a goal to acquire or build at least 16 websites by the end of 2009 that all make at least $100 a day. Naturally with this goal in mind I have been looking at websites to purchase much more aggressively.

I spend a lot of time on Sitepoint.com’s marketplace looking at the current listings. In fact I have made 3 acquisitions since that last post. The common thing on all three websites is that we were able to negotiate a purchase price that was far below what the person was asking. Was it our superior negotiating skills or just desperate website owners in a bad economy? Probably a combination of the two. But here is how I did it.

I would see a website up for sale and after doing background research on the industry and deciding that I was interested I would contact the seller. Keep in mind that I usually will only pursue websites where there is not a lot of bid activity which makes the seller more motivated. I ask him what it would take to part with the site.

They all came back with a figure to which I replied to the email and said I need to discuss it with my business partner. Then I wait a few days and come back with an offer that is way below what their price was. All three website owners agreed to my price without any further negotiation. This technique seems to work well.

For example, we recently purchased the website OrlandoTravel.org. I did the preliminary research and recognized that the term “orlando travel” gets high search traffic and based on the fact that Google gives domain name an unfair amount of weight in rankings we decided to make an offer. I noticed on Sitepoint that his opening bid price was $500 and his buy it now price was much higher.

No one had placed a bid so I went through that process with him that I described above. He told me that he wanted a quick sale and would let the site go for $650. I replied that I needed to talk to my business partner. I came back and said I would give him $500 for the site. He replied sounding a little upset because he purchased the domain alone for $550 but he still took the deal for $500. To quote a line from the movie “You’ve Got Mail”, it’s not personal, it’s business.

Anyway, if you are making any website acquisitions, try this tactic out, it has worked for me.

Stephen R. Covey’s wildly successful The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People touts one of the seven habits as follows:

Begin with the End In Mind. This chapter is about setting long-term goals based on “true north” principles. Covey recommends formulating a “personal vision statement” to document one’s perception of one’s own vision in life. He sees visualization as an important tool to develop this. He also deals with organizational vision statements, which he claims to be more effective if developed and supported by all members of an organization rather than prescribed. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People

This is obviously effective, setting long-term goals based on true principles.  Where I see a breakdown happen all the time is in just starting.  I suppose Covey might say be proactive (it’s numero uno).

Many times when people first begin building their internet business, they’re wanting to have an outlined, detailed business plan of exactly what they’re going to do to reach success (however defined) with their business.  You’ll see a person think through things to such an extent that they never actually start doing anything.

In this internet age, it’s even worse.  Why?  Because there is so much information available, you easily fall prety to paralysis by analysis.  For instanace let’s say you just want to get started with a little affiliate website where you try and get traffic through AdWords.  You could spend days — weeks — reading all about AdWords, optimizing, peeling and sticking, testing, evaluating, scrutinizing…

And never actually start.

Learning By Doing works.  Quite well.

Part of the reason we want to be outfitted with all the information possible (which right there disqualifies us, because that’s impossible) is because we’re afraid to make mistakes.  Learning from mistakes is a very quick way to learn, and it’s honestly not that expensive when you’re just starting.

Pick some key metrics that you want to track with your site: Visitors? Sales? Pageviews? Clickthroughs? Pick whatever’s important for your business goal and then write down three things that you need to DO (not learn about) to improve those metrics.  Do you need to reach out to other bloggers?  Write more? Find more keyword niches where you could profitably advertise?

Don’t worry about the Grand Scheme of Things when it comes to your business.  Don’t worry about every single logistic.  For heaven’s sake don’t waste a week on a logo, business card design, letterhead, legal formation, or accounting software.  That’s what I call circling the bush.  You only have success when you start beating the bush — circling it doesn’t do anything except give you a few warm fuzzies so you can go home at night feeling like you accomplished something.

Start DOING and things will fall into place–don’t worry so much about the big picture.  Suddenly, when you’re making money, you’ll need to do some accounting, and you’ll need to form a legal entity, and you’ll want to maybe have a professional-looking logo.  In the meantime, it’s better to just start (do the logo yourself) and not sweat the details.

I am a big believer in goal setting. If you don’t set goals you will never accomplish them. :-) Goals give me direction. They help me map out what I need to be doing daily, weekly, monthly to achieve the goal I set for myself.

Well I have given myself a new goal. I am going to make $100,000 in one month. I am only counting income from the websites that I run. If I happen to sell one of them and that helps me reach the goal that doesn’t count. The goal is that I am going generate $100,000 from the income of the websites that I own.

I have mapped out what needs to be done on each specific site and I am on my way. I bought a king-sized 100 grand bar to remind me of the goal every day. When I hit the goal I will eat the candybar as my reward.

OK, OK I know your saying that a candy bar is about the lamest reward you can give yourself for making $100k in one month. So let me show you the real reward I am going to give myself. My wife already knows about it and she said OK.

I have been averaging about one fourth of that every month recently but have some big things on the horizon. I will keep you informed of the progress of this goal as I am confident I will achieve it within the next 6 months.