My competition owns the domains of EVERY potential client of mine. Help!?

by misc92
8 replies
Quick information on my business and business model:
- I rent websites to certain offline niche/industry. Monthly rent. (professional service firms)
- I essentially just install a wordpress theme in their specific domain, rebrand it to fit their corporate image and then my clients update their own content.

Easy, fast, profitable and scalable model.


I was doing research recently and found my only competitor in my country.
- He follows my same business model, in the same niche, but my websites provide much more value to clients.
- His websites are outdated for 2013 (his websites are not seo-friendly, crowded-design, use flash in certain sections and are not responsive)
-
My websites are more clean, responsive, dont use flash and are seo-friendly

I offer a much better product and i have no doubts i can take over this market.

Through google, backlink research and a look at his corporate site I found a huge number of his clients (he listed most of them in there in his portfolio). He pretty much handed me his complete client list, between 300 and 600.

I plan to take over this clients since they already know of the value of this certain type of website and are already paying for a similar solution.

The issue here is that my niche is not tech-savy... I did whoIs searches of my potential client domains and 95% of them "dont own" their domain, my competitor is the legal owner of their corporate/branded domains.

Example: "competitor marketing" services "Martin's Law Firm" and legally owns "Martinslaw.com"

His client list represents $60,000 USD per month, just on website rents (imagine how much you can upsell to this offline firms). Since ill be trying to take over his clients, I believe that my competition is not going to be taking this well and they will probably try to retain the clients by retaining their domains. After all, they legally own them.

So how can i proceed to attack this group of clients and manage to keep their corporate domains? Is there any legal resource I can use with ICAAN in order to transfer the ownership to my clients??
#client #competition #domains #mine #owns #potential
  • Profile picture of the author RimaNaj2011
    The domain name is not that important. Why not just buy martinslawfirm.com ?
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    • Profile picture of the author Colm Whelan
      Originally Posted by RimaNaj2011 View Post

      The domain name is not that important. Why not just buy martinslawfirm.com ?
      I hear a lot of people here say that - but what about email? Email is THE primary method of business communication for many businesses and is extremely important for many more. If your clients are in professional services you can bet that email is a VERY close second to phone with them.

      Does your country have its own TLD? Can you use that? I'm in Ireland so .ie holds as much or sometimes more value to a potential client than .com does. Could that work for you?
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      • Profile picture of the author RimaNaj2011
        Originally Posted by Colm Whelan View Post

        I hear a lot of people here say that - but what about email? Email is THE primary method of business communication for many businesses and is extremely important for many more. If your clients are in professional services you can bet that email is a VERY close second to phone with them.

        Does your country have its own TLD? Can you use that? I'm in Ireland so .ie holds as much or sometimes more value to a potential client than .com does. Could that work for you?
        Well I would get the business to ask the OP's competitor to forward that e-mail address to the new one. Or ask them to just transfer the domain. The other company might give OP a hard time but I don't think they'll do that to the client.
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        • Profile picture of the author Colm Whelan
          Originally Posted by RimaNaj2011 View Post

          Well I would get the business to ask the OP's competitor to forward that e-mail address to the new one. Or ask them to just transfer the domain. The other company might give OP a hard time but I don't think they'll do that to the client.
          This probably WILL work, when you think about it. The domain ownership issue is not going to arise until you've already sold them on moving to you. At that point you go "Oh, did you know that competitor actually owns your domain name?" then sit back and enjoy the fireworks!
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  • Profile picture of the author PowerWealth247
    I get my foot in the door by telling the potential client that they ought to own their domain themselves (if only so that if I'm hit by a bus next month, the renewal emails go to them never to someone else they may no longer have a relationship with). This is good info and they appreciate that Im offering good business advice. I've gotten referrals from business owners who did not hire me but mentioned to another owner the advice I'd given them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brian Alaway
    Why pick a fight when you could dominate your competitor without ever touching his domains? If your keyword domains outrank your competitors domains for all the best keywords, his domains become way less relevant. But if you go this route then you may want to retain ownership of your domains, another reason to not attack your competitor for doing the same.
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    • Profile picture of the author misc92
      Thanks for your replies guys. I was thinking I could write a pre-law suit template citing ICAAN's notes, claiming trademark infrigement and malicious hi-jacking, and send it to him if he tries to kidnap the domains.

      Originally Posted by Brian Alaway View Post

      Why pick a fight when you could dominate your competitor without ever touching his domains? If your keyword domains outrank your competitors domains for all the best keywords, his domains become way less relevant. But if you go this route then you may want to retain ownership of your domains, another reason to not attack your competitor for doing the same.
      Our business model relies on placing the site in their corporate domain/brand.

      We rent them their corporate site.

      Not a SEO or ranking situation here, while SEO'd niche domains have alot of value, thats not the case in here. But if that was the case, like you said, I would retain the domains and their value under my wing.
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