Step 4: Making the Offer(s)

Once you have your list of favorite sites, the contact information, etc. you begin reaching out to each seller.  It’s okay to be fishing multiple offers for the same niche simultaneously.  You obviously are not contractually obligated to purchase if two sellers come back at the same time.

Here’s where you can use your negotiation prowess.

A few quick tips re: negotiation:

• If possible, get the person to name a price first.  Since you’re likely soliciting the purchase, the odds of that happening are slim (unless you’re dealing with a complete nitwit).  I love when people contact us to purchase one of our sites:  “How much would it take for you to part with yourdomain.com?”  Yeah…right.  BUT, if you can get them to show you a card, go for it.
• In relation to point one, use anchoring.  Retails shops do this all the time when they post the retail price and the sale price. Ever heard of the MSRP? Yeah, car dealers do it too all the time.  Anchoring doesn’t need to make logical sense.  In the book Winning Decisions by Russo and Shoemaker, they prove statistically that the anchor still works even when completely baseless.  How could you anchor your prospect?  Giving them your “budget” is one way.  Even letting them know you’ve bought sites for as much as $### works.  Again, it doesn’t need to make logical sense, but it still works.
• When you’ve been given a good deal, take it.  Don’t be greedy and don’t burn bridges.

To make our job easier, we actually have templates that we’ve perfected (you should especially perfect your subject line — a lame subject line means your email is ignored.  “LOVE YOUR SITE!” is not effective) when pitching to potential sellers.

This isn’t rocket science, simply let the seller know you’re interested in purchasing their site and were hoping to open a dialog between them.  Some emails will bounce, some will be ignored, etc.  This is all just part of the game.

When you have a seller that bites, you’ll need to do a bit more due diligence about that site.  The best thing you can do is have the seller give you read-only access to their website stats.  If they’re using Google Analytics (you can tell this by looking at their site’s source and checking for the GA code) then simply have them add your gmail.com email address as a user.  You’ll then be able to dig to your heart’s content.

If the seller is not willing to give you as much traffic data as you’d like, walk away.

We’ve found 95% of sellers are more than willing to give you any information you need to help the deal go through.

So, once you’ve done your due diligence, seeing that what you had originally surmised is true, or close enough, you can make your first offer.  Give the seller your lowest fair offer.  Adam and I have lost opportunities to buy a website because we low-balled the potential seller so badly they simply ignored us.  If you’re trying to purchase a site and would reasonably pay $12,000, do not offer $750.  It’s counterproductive.

If the seller accepts, get a contract to them so everything is legal and straight-laced.  We have a standard contract we use.  You’re welcome to use it as well if you’re part of the Prosperly Beginners.  We’ve lost out on some great deals in the past because we didn’t have the buyer (in this instance) legally bound to purchase and they walked without giving any reason whatsoever.

In the next step, we’re going to talk about the mechanics of the purchase and the importance of taking control as quickly as possible.