Just yesterday, I posted part one about selling websites on Flippa. Now we are about to get our hands dirty. This is something that is rarely covered in detail, so I am going to dive in head first. You need to look after your prospectives. This is of huge importance. And you need to do it right.

Chances are that you are going to see a bit of interest for your website on Flippa, some people may just silently bid away, and others may contact you and want to know more about the auction and message you on site. Every single prospective that you have is going to be valuable, if not for the auction that they are inquiring about, but for others down the track. A return customer is always the best kind of customer, and how you earn that return customer is vital.

How Do I Deal With Offers?

On Flippa, offers are strictly prohibited, as their policies stress that all auctions must be completely transparent. In my opinion, this is completely fair, and once you have been selling websites on Flippa long enough, you will see that sometimes, even though someone may offer you a high price for a website, there will always be buyers who are prepared to pay more. Here are a few examples of wrong and right ways to deal with these requests:

EXAMPLE ONE: “Hi John, as you should already know, it is against Flippa policies to make offers on auctions. As such, I can’t respond to your request”

EXAMPLE TWO: “Hi John, We currently have no intentions of adding a BIN price for this auction, at the same time, we can not take any offers due to Flippa policies. I can however see that you are very interested in buying this website, and I want to help you win this website as much as I can. Although you did offer us 500$ for the site, my best suggestion for you to secure this website would be to place that bid on the auction. This is the best way to secure this website at this point in time. If you need anything else though, my e-mail is name@domain.com”

Can you see a distinct difference between the two? The first one is a straight up negative, and neither party get anything out of it. The customer will more than likely never look at any of your auctions again as well, and probably wont speak highly of you in their own circles, so there is nothing to be gained here at all.

With the second example, there are a handful of things that occur here. I build rapport with the customer, I wasn’t harsh in telling them that I cant respond to offers, I gave them the best option for purchasing this website, and at the same time, I opened up the possibility of acquiring their e-mail address, which will be handy for following up if they are the winner of the auction, and in the case that I want to let them know about any similar opportunities. Try incorporating this into the way that you have been selling websites on Flippa, you may be pleasantly surprised at the return buyers that you earn.

Regular Follow Ups Are Key!

I am going to be very careful with this one, so please take this with a grain of salt. Feedback on Flippa is a huge part of how you build trust with potential buyers and to be completely honest, feedback doesn’t occur enough. This is not a bad thing though. A negative can almost always be turned into a positive with a little creativity.

Recently, I sold a large handful of websites for David Jenyns (check out the auctions here, sign in required!), and one method that I used (with great success) was to track those who hadn’t left feedback. When I listed a fresh set of auctions, I contacted those who hadn’t left feedback with something along the same lines as the following:

“Hi (name), recently you purchased a website from us on Flippa, I just wanted to follow up and make sure that everything has all gone well, and that the transfer is complete on your end. If there are anything that you would like us to follow up on, please let me know. At the same time as well, as I am still new on Flippa, I am curious as to how well I ranked as a seller on Flippa. I would also like to be able to display this to potential customers as well. If you wish to leave some feedback (please be as accurate as possible, it gives me an idea of what I need to improve on!), I am more than willing to offer you this free recorded interview that I did a few weeks ago with (person). Please, don’t feel inclined to leave positive feedback just because I am offering something for free, I truly want to know how we performed from your perspective”.

So, what is the bonus of this. First point is rapport. You are showing that you truly care, and that you want to connect with your customers on that level. You are demonstrating that you want to make sure that everything is moving along nicely, and if not, you are willing to help. Second, you are offering your buyer something, which also helps them get to know what it is that you do a lot better. Last, and most importantly, it reminds them of you, and will in a lot of cases instigate further purchases, even if they have forgotten about you already.

To cap this off, I am going to state the obvious. Flippa is exploding, and as much as people are quick to jump the gun and say that its just too easy to start selling websites on Flippa, there is a distinctive difference between listing a site that sells for 300$ and one that sells for 3000$. There is a difference between a customer, and a return customer. There is also a difference between making a sale and building rapport at the same time. Sure, focus on filling your pockets, but place equal emphasis on an evergreen result.

Both myself and David Jenyns (Davids Bio) are currently working on a new project, Website Flipping Broker. If you want to be kept in the loop, visit the home page and sign up for updates, or you can do the same here. More coming soon!