Still reading my saga?  Thank you!

I left off yesterday with describing the crisis of our (Terri’s and my) existing businesses, WebGrow and Write for Business.  I said, “Then came the dotcom bust, the commoditization of web design and development, and then the Great Recession.  Web design tanked.”

So, what did we do then?  We turned our attention to ‘domaining’ (domain name investing) — purchasing domain names, then reaching out to companies that could benefit from owning them.  We first got involved with domains for our own ventures and those of our clients.  Then, out of the blue, we were approached by someone wanting to buy a domain we owned but weren’t using.

He offered $2,000 for it.  Not bad, considering we’d paid about $10.00 for it.  But I talked him up to $10,000, and was hooked.  There’s gold in them thar hills!

Um, yes.  We soon learned (Surprise!) that domaining, like everything else, has its pros and cons.

Yes, it can be a viable and profitable business.  But it’s time-and-labor intensive — and can also be time extensive, meaning you may have to wait years for results.

First, there are very few gold nuggets lying around for $10, and when one appears, it’s snapped up in a jiffy.  So to get domains to sell, you usually have to pay a good deal more than that.  That only works well if you think you can sell them quickly enough, for a high enough price, to on average make a decent profit per hour and per month.  But the higher the price, the more time and effort it takes to sell them — or the longer you’ll have to wait for a buyer to come to you — and the greater the risk of not selling them at all.

As you can see, there’s time, money, effort, risk and careful calculation involved at both ends, buying and also selling.

And once you do sell a domain, it’s gone and you start all over, to keep your pipeline full.  And the fuller your pipeline, the more you’re paying for annual renewal fees on your inventory, unless you turnover is under a year.  And selling your domains that quickly takes — well, you get the picture?

The picture is of a solid enough business model if you’re a sophisticated enough domainer and work at it, but it’s not a cakewalk.

Actually, I wrote an article series on LinkedIn to educate businesses on what they needed to understand about domaining:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/table-contents-series-what-businesses-need-know-domaining-borden/

Even so, for the reasons I’ve mentioned, I found myself looking for a way to generate revenue that, in the long run, could give a higher monetary return on time.

But why did I settle specifically, on affiliate marketing?  The answer may prove to be as relevant to you as to me.

Tune in tomorrow to find out what it is.