Chapter 4

Making Contact

To sell your site you need a buyer. Whoa, what a concept!

In my case, I listed my web site for sale online and waited for someone to contact me and make an offer.

That is certainly a good way to do it, but only if you've got lots of time to wait for someone to contact you.

As I said earlier, it was many months before anyone contacted me about buying the site, and even longer before I got a valid and legitimate offer. It was so long that I had forgotten how much money I listed the site for!

At the time I didn't know any other way to do it.

I certainly couldn't have contacted any big companies myself and pitched them the site. I was (and still am for some part) a nervous and intimidated kid!

Let's face it though, the big companies are the only ones with the big money to buy things like web sites.

At the time that I sold my first site, I thought of corporate presidents and CEO's much the same way I thought about movie stars.

They were these huge insanely wealthy unapproachable individuals.

I wouldn't have known who these people were, let alone how to contact them!

Let me just say before I continue. Listing your site for sale and then sitting back and waiting for something to happen is perfectly fine.

Like I've said, that's how I sold my first site. But if you have more urgent needs you're going to have to take matters into your own hands.

You'll be amazed to know that these huge wealthy unapproachable company presidents, vice-presidents, and CEO's are really (for the most part) just regular people like you and me.

What's more, they have a bottom line. If buying your site can help them reach their bottom line, then they don't care who you are, or what kind of business experience you have.

And you'd be surprised how easy it usually is to reach these people. You can usually find their office phone numbers in their company's annual stockholder report, or online at any financial web site.

Give it a call! You'll get their secretary. Ask to speak to Mr. or Mrs. So and So. Say "This is YOUR NAME calling from YOURSITE.com" or if you are a corporation give your company name and your title.

Now one of two things will probably happen.

One, (and you'll be surprised how often this will happen) the secretary will buzz you right through. Sometimes the secretary will say that the person is busy and you'll be asked if you would like to hold. Say sure. In this case after a little waiting you'll still usually get through.

Two, the secretary will be instructed to only let certain people through. Or they'll just say that So and So is busy period. (they won't ask you to hold because they want you to prove to them that you're someone who should be speaking to this person).

In this case I state who I am again (as if they should know who I am) and ask if I might have 5 minutes of So and So's time at his earliest convenience.

Sometimes this works and they'll schedule you in and you call back later then. Sometimes it doesn't work.

You can be more persistent and there are other tricks to getting through, but for our purposes here I would suggest you just bail out and look for another company.

There's a third way to get some ear time but I've never tried it myself. I suppose it might work, technically it might work (I've never had to go this far, it's so easy to get through you don't really need to use tricks like this usually).

Like I said, I've never tried it but I can see how it might work. Go out and buy a share of the companies stock, then call up as a shareholder.

Shareholders have certain rights, and while they aren't always observed, you may be able to get some attention just by stating the fact that you are a shareholder and would like 2 minutes of So and So's time.

This would work better in a smaller corporation where shareholders have a closer interaction with the company.

I guess you could also lie and tell the secretary that you're calling from the Wall Street Journal.

The point is, you can get through to SOMEONE with a little authority in the company. It doesn't really even need to be the head guy.

Do some research on the company, read their annual report. Find out who's who. Sometimes a Vice President will do just as well as a President or CEO and is a little easier to get a hold of.

When you get through, be brief.

Introduce yourself and thank the person for their time, tell them you'll be brief. Tell them that you have a web site that does this this and this.

Cut straight to the chase. Tell them it's for sale and exactly why it would benefit them to own the site.

Don't bother with price unless they ask it.

Right now you just want to plant your idea and get them interested enough not to hang up on you.

In the next chapter we'll discuss what happens next, if they are interest that is!


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