Copyright © 2007 DMarie Holtz
Selling Web Sites Like McDonald's Sells Hamburgers...
Global Domains International is doing for web sites what McDonald's has done for hamburgers. McDonald's has grown by appealing to the masses with instant, inexpensive, tasty hamburger meals. Global Domains International has grown by appealing to the masses with instant, inexpensive complete web site packages.
And so far it's been working - because just like McDonald's, Global Domains International has been experiencing the same kind of tremendous growth. In fact, within it's first four years, GDI became #37 on the Inc. 500 "List" of the USA's 500 fastest growing companies.
Where It All Began...
Less than ten years ago, in 1997, Global Domains International was but a twinkle in the eyes of Internet entrepreneurs, Michael Reed and Alan Ezeir, the founders of, and the CEO and President respectively of Global Domains International (GDI).
In 1998, during the dot com craze, people and businesses were scrambling for a piece of Internet real estate by buying up a lot of dot com domain names. Mike and Alan realized that dot com names wouldn't last forever. They wondered, "Besides dot com, are there other extensions that Global Domains International could sell as a domain name?"
A domain name is an Internet address and can be used only once. They are usually made up of words or letters so they are easier to remember and can be more relevant to a person or business. Extensions are the codes at the end of a domain name. The extensions signify which country the domain name belongs to, i.e., .WS in the domain address, http://www.website.ws means this address extension belongs to Samoa.
Mike and Alan knew that each nation had it's own country code, i.e.: United States was assigned .US and so on. And they knew the popular .COM and .NET extensions were dissapearing fast, so they researched the codes and ultimately decided on the extension .WS for Global Domains International to promote. They liked .WS because it was easy to remember, could possibly stand for the words, "web site", and had plenty of room for growth in the coming years.
Samoa Agrees to Let Mike and Alan Sell .WS Domain Names...
The extension, .WS, is owned by the Island nation of Samoa which had a population of less than 200,000, so Samoa had not yet utilized their .WS domain name on the massive global scale Mike and Alan had planned for it. But, could Mike and Alan get the rights to market the .WS extension through Global Domains International?
Mike and Alan offered a 20 page proposal to the Samoan government. Samoa, however, wanted to see how well Mike and Alan could perform before committing themselves to a long term contract. The Samoans wanted Global Domains International to produce 15,000 registrations in just three years. They did that in the first month!
As a result of that initial success promoting the .WS domain names, Global Domains International became the proud owner of an exclusive unprecedented 12 year contract to market the .WS domain names worldwide, with first right of renewal. The Samoans get a percentage of all the .WS domain names sold by GDI.
Positioning GDI For Success...
So how did Mike and Alan pull off 15,000 registrations in just the first month? Well, you can sum it up in just one word, and that word is FORSIGHT. Just before .WS recorded it's first registration, they did three key things to ensure they were on the road to building a multi-national conglomerate. They did their research and choose the best possible domain extension; they surrounded themselves with a lot of multi-talented individuals they knew were capable of taking Global Domains International into the next century as the next big "dot com"; and they took out some large ad placements in major media like Fortune magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today.
In November of 2000, thousands of radio spots and a World Baseball Series ad campaign later, less than nine months after launching .WS to the global online community, Global Domains International announced it had sold over 100,000 .WS registrations to companies and individuals in more than 180 countries.
Global Domains International Today...
Recently, in July of 2007, Global Domains International announced it had become a full active member of the DSA (Direct Selling Association). This was no easy task and took over a year of intense interviews to become accepted.Through forsight, hard work and making the right choices, Mike and Alan continue to grow Global Domains International into the multi-national conglomerate it is today. All this, because they saw a need emerging - and did their best to fill that need.
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