I often find that a tech support person or CTO is the registrant contact for domain names owned by mid to large-sized companies. This is done most likely for convenience, as the registrant contact person should have knowledge about domain names, and many companies leave that duty to the “tech guy.”
For the sake of this article, I won’t discuss the potential security issue associated with this, but I will give you a tip about how to get in touch with the decision maker when you want to buy or sell a domain name.
Based on my experience, the “tech guy” who manages the domain name and website doesn’t have all that much say when it comes to buying or selling domain names. He might have some input, but ultimately, the dealmaking is made by the CEO, President, CMO, COO, or someone else that is senior and is responsible for the P&L. For that reason, I try to direct my inquiries to buy or sell domain names to the right party so I don’t have to hope the tech person forwards my email on to the right person.
So here’s the tip using some fictitious information to illustrate it.
Let’s say you want to buy CollegeApartments.com, and you see that the Whois registrant is elliot@silverapartmentholdings.com. That registrant contact email gives you several important things to note:
- The domain name is owned by a company called “Silver Apartment Holdings.”
- The company also owns SilverApartmentHoldings.com and probably has a corporate site there.
- Elliot is the person responsible for the management of the domain name.
- The company uses first name @ website for their emails
Knowing this information that was gleaned from the Whois look up, I would then visit the SAH website to see who “Elliot” is. If Elliot is the tech guy, I would try to find either the marketing guy or company President, depending on the size. Remember, I want to communicate with a decision maker, and I’d prefer not to have to go through someone with no vested interest in a deal.
Knowing how the company’s email structure is set up, I would try to contact someone who I think is the decision maker using that structure. This isn’t failproof obviously, since there could be multiple people with the same name. If that’s the case, I might search Google to find the contact’s email address.
Hopefully, this helps you find the right person to speak with regarding an acquisition or sale. Keep in mind, getting to the right person is only the first step. If you are buying a domain name, the offer is the most critical aspect, and if you are selling a name, the quality is the most important aspect. Please don’t spam senior management at companies with garbage domain names. It will probably annoy them and may even get you in trouble.
Wouldn’t it be easier to email the contact and ask him/her to point you in the right direction. It seems like an awful amount of work with no guarantee that you will find the right person.
Many times, that person won’t pass it along. They quite possibly have no vested interest in helping, and they don’t want to get involved.
I’ve worked with IT people who had little interest in helping resolve corporate computer issues in their job description, let alone going above and beyond to help someone they don’t know.
It’s also not an awful amount of work… it’s like 5 minutes tops. I’d rather spend 5 minutes on this than hope a tech guy passes my email along to the right person.
Rapportive works wonders for locating e-mail addresses for the right people.
Good article.
Figuring out the email naming protocol is a good way to get an email in front of the right people in a bigger company.
And… tech guys ALWAYS ALWAYS say no and are ALWAYS deal killers when buying or selling.
So NEVER let someone say “Let me talk to my tech guy”.
Gud article !!