Everyone wants to be a seller

[WSYSBroker]

Hello Everyone,

As a website broker myself, I get a ton of people approaching me wanting to sell their websites. A lot of them talk about "potential" and how much money and traffic they have brought in since they started their site 3-4 months prior. They are basically looking to make a quick buck before the site goes sour. These sites are like penny stocks with lots of risk associated to investing any money in them.

Basically, I have been having the issue of too many crappy sites coming to me wanting to sell. I have a TON of interested investors looking for great websites, and I do get some great ones, but just not enough to satisfy our demand. When I say "great websites", I really mean sites that have been turning a profit for at least 2 years and has a net monthly income of at least $5K.

Any suggestions on how to attract more legitimate sellers besides messaging sellers on flippa, websitebroker.com and other listing sites?

[Clinton]

Crappy sites. Too much time filtering. Join the club, WSYSBroker!

You have one advantage over those just browsing Flippa, eBay etc. i.e. the sellers are coming to you.

I'd reinforce the confidence they have in you and then advise them that the best way they could submit their site is via your form. If you had a system designed where you asked the seller a series of questions you could eliminate all of the flotsam and jetsam and greatly reduce the ones you are assessing manually.

I'd design the submission process to I could eliminate sites earlier on.

First Field: Provide Domain Name
You test the name against WHOIS and if it's less then x years old you return a message saying thanks and you'll keep the details on record and get back if there is any interest. If the site is more than x months old you go to

Second Field: Provide net monthly income
If < $x, send previous message about keeping details on record and send user to thank you page. If >$x send user to Third Field.

... you get the picture.

It would take a couple of hundred dollars and a rent-a-coder but it should save you a lot more in time.

Now I'll let someone else take a shot on how you can attract the better quality of seller in the first place (rather than just filtering your existing submission base).

[WSYSBroker]

Thanks Clinton.

We actually tried that in the past, but people get smart and simply put a higher net monthly income to make the form go through.

I am sure you have heard of Website Properties before. They seem to be WAY over priced, but I give them credit for the type of listings they have. Any idea on their process?

[Clinton]

I know David Fairley and Jeff Baird at websiteproperties.com - and they have a less sophisticated system than the one suggested above. Their form is a all-in-one i.e. all data collected in one form without filtering. They put considerable effort into advising prospective sellers, talking to them and weeding out the less interesting ones.

I've dealt with them and also know how they handle the other end of the business. They are very proactive in communicating with prospective buyers, chasing buyers, chasing sellers to deliver on buyers' requests for data etc.

Have you tried re-designing your form to put the non-fake-able info at the front? That's the reason I started with domain name - sellers can't fake WHOIS returns.

Another trick to use is to not ask them for net profit but take the gross profit and then take costs and time requirements separately and decide for yourself whether it's making a profit or not. That catches some of the fake profit sellers out.

[midascode]

So we all have the same problems ;-)

I have to say, I am fairly impressed with websiteproperties.com -- but as Clinton points out, they are putting in a serious amount of effort to make it 'work" -- so credit to them for that

Barry

[WSYSBroker]

I will certainly speak with my programmer to see what we can do about weeding out sellers on the front end. Are David and Jeff getting most of their listings by simply form entries or is there another avenue that is providing them with better results?

[Clinton]

Oh, lots of avenues

I can't reveal confidential information I know but browse their site and you'll see an affiliate program. Do a bit of digging and you may be able to find how many affiliates they've got. They also spends on PPC and other promotion according to PPC Web Spy etc.

[WSYSBroker]

Completely understandable Clinton....

Barry, I too am impressed with website properties....they are what I am hoping to be very soon...

I am lucky to have some great organic rankings for certain search terms so I have been avoiding doing any ppc for the time being. Perhaps that will change soon!

[Clinton]

Oh, yes, I do also see them a lot in SERPS. I'm sure that doesn't hurt.

[3Six]

Here's one suggestion - create a few articles in linkedin. If you develop a reputation as someone who knows the subject you'll get people coming to you. These are people you wouldn't normally find in webmaster forums.