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Friday's Domain Auction Picks: Kill Your Competitors

Friday's Domain Auction Picks: Kill Your Competitors

Shane Cultra
June 27, 2025

“When your competitor is drowning, stick a hose in his mouth” -Ray Kroc

This was my dad’s favorite quote. I used to think he stood alone in his competitiveness. He was just as focused on making his competitors fail as he was on succeeding himself. I was always more of a “worry about myself” kind of person. Yet as I became more involved in high-level decision making, I realized weakening the position of your competitors actually does help the business grow.

For instance, we noticed that our competitors were selling hundreds of thousands of dollars of a certain product, a product they bought in, but we grew. So we grew five times what we used to and sold it just above cost. We ran ads pointing out that if you were paying double at a competitor for a product grown somewhere else, you were dumb for doing it. If you count the ads, we broke even. But we had a plan.

We did that for three seasons, and it had such an impact that our competitors stopped bringing in volume and switched to trying other things. Our smaller competitors stopped carrying the item altogether. They were getting beat by the big guy because we were known and well-trafficked, and now they had to lose money just to be competitive. Once everyone in the market dropped out, we started moving the price up over the next three years. We had captured the entire market — there was nowhere else to buy the plant. By the third year, we’d added $250K in revenue and $100K in profit to the bottom line each year. Over the next five years, sales dropped off a bit, but even now we’re still the go-to place for this fall product.

I looked for two weaknesses: my own company’s and our competitors’. Fixing my own and capitalizing on theirs. If they were hurting, I tried to make it worse. I rented the billboard outside their store and told customers to come to our place instead. Something like, “Look at your odometer, come to our store, tell us how many miles you drove, and we’ll give you 50 cents for every mile.” I knew the other store was 8 miles away, so it was basically a $4 off coupon. It also reminded people we weren’t that far away. Everyone acted like they were driving across the country to see us.

Again, I always focused on how we ran the business, that was most important, but I also learned to view competitors as people taking money off my plate. I tried to keep it just business, and we never did this in the landscaping division because we also sold plants to all the local landscapers. They were customers. Even to the point that if our landscape customers had already bid a job, we wouldn’t bid. They put food on our plates, and there was plenty of landscaping to go around, so it was the right move. Our sales team didn’t like it, but until they sold more than our wholesale division did, the math made sense.

I’m getting back that drive in domains. I love the industry and the people in it, but in the hunt for names, I’m going to make them overpay. If I want it, and I can’t have it, they better be ready to pay up…. way up. If they can see my username, I’ve even gone much higher than planned just to show I’m bidding seriously. Next time they see my name, they need to come prepared. We’ll see if it works, or if it just ends up costing me more money 😂

Links

Some people don’t believe in Solar but Puerto Rico will say otherwise

Prisons are starting to become empty

How to write compelling release announcements

Faith Kipyegon tried to be the first female to break 4 min mile yesterday

Quote of the Day: “The goal is not to beat your competitors. The goal is to make them irrelevant.” –Steve Jobs,

Domain of the DaySouthernGrace.com Love this one. Southern Grace is a real and beautiful thing

Please Note: The list below contains affiliate links and/or names that have been posted for a fee. It is how we pay for our time since it is a free site. More details at bottom of page. Can go to any of the auctions by adding the names at the end like this one

Friday's Domain Auction Picks: Kill Your Competitors

Godaddy Domains with Bids

Godaddy Names with 1 or NO Bids

Other GoDaddy Names With More Than One Bid