E-Business Institute graduate Joe Burrill is a legend at selling websites. He gets top dollar when he sells, and his two recent top performing website sales have made him 50 times and over 110 times the site’s monthly profits! That’s pretty impressive, so I thought it would be a good idea to catch up with him to see how he’s done it.
Today I chat to him about how he’s applied the strategies that we teach for selling websites. Plus he adds his own secret sauce to get these awesome returns.
Matt Raad: G’day, Joe. How are you doing?
Joe Burrill: I’m good Matt, how are you?
Matt: Good! Good to catch up again. Thanks for jumping on. I did just want to do a quick little recap interview with you. So, anyone listening here this is Joe Burrill, one of our amazing students. And you’re in sunny Sweden at the moment. Is it nice and cold?
Joe: It’s a bit overcast at the moment.
Matt: A bit overcast. But you’re heading into Spring at least.
Joe: Yes.
Matt: Hopefully the sun will start coming out real soon for you.
Joe: Fingers crossed.
Joe’s latest website flip success story…
Matt: Fingers crossed, yeah. So, I wanted to grab you today, Joe, because when Liz and I were speaking to you last week, you’d told us how you’d just done yet another (go Joe!) amazing sale of one of your just a small, websites right?
Joe: Yrp. This is one that I built myself quite a while ago. I built it up to be earning about two hundred dollars per month. I sort of neglected it for a little while, and then it dropped down and its sort of making about thirty dollars a month when I went to go sell it.
Matt: Awesome. When you say is it you know, a simple site that you built up, how old was the site?
Joe: When I sold it, it was about three years old, pretty sure.
Matt: Three years old. And you’re happy to say what niche it’s in?
Joe: Yeah, it’s in the CrossFit niche.
Matt: Awesome. And that was your passion niche, wasn’t it?
Joe: Yeah, well I CrossFit myself.
Matt: Yeah, and I’ve trained with you, and seen how good you are at it. But I also do remember helping you with your site a little. Like, having a look at the site when you started. And I remember, we were both really excited, you and I! I thought it was just a cool, cool site. And, like any of these sites in the early days, I’m guessing you were really enthusiastic, and you started it from scratch, didn’t you?
Joe: Yes, just basically following your templates and your teachings, yeah.
Joe’s website was mostly passive…
Matt: Perfect. Being a passion site Joe, like in the beginning you were probably posting quite a bit. But say, once the thing got established, how often would you be posting to that site?
Joe: Once a month, at most. Towards the end, it was probably six months before I posted one. Which is another reason why I sold it, you know. Because it just wasn’t doing anything under my hands.
Matt: And it takes head space and stuff.
Joe: Exactly.
Website Monetised with simple affiliate offers in crossfit niche
Matt: So, really well done. And we should mention to everyone, how was it monetized?
Joe: Amazon affiliate.
Matt: Amazon one hundred percent?
Joe: Only.
Matt: No physical stock at all, it’s just you’d talked about CrossFit and then, every so often you’d do an article on some piece of CrossFit equipment, presumably, and that would be enough affiliate links,
Joe: Yeah, specifically knee sleeves, yeah.
Matt: What sort of stuff were you promoting?
Joe: It was mostly knee sleeves. The main keyword I was going for was knee sleeves. So, CrossFit knees sleeves.
Matt: So, what was that, say it again?
Joe: CrossFit knee sleeves. So, they’re sleeves that you put over your knees when you’re doing squats and things like that.
Matt: Oh, wow, okay, so quite fun, that’s pretty niched.
Joe: Yeah, it is.
Matt: Aw, yeah, nice one!
Joe: Yeah, forty to sixty dollars for a pair.
Website Sales commissions automatically paid each month…
Matt: Yes, and then you get a commission. So then, you don’t have to hold stock at all. And so basically that site was making you (in its peak) two hundred bucks a month. But then, over time (because you kind of just left it truly passive) – the day you came to sell it, the site was making around thirty bucks a month, wasn’t it?
Joe: Yeah. Thirty to fifty a month, yeah.
Matt: Alright! So tell us all the good news. What did you sell it for?
Website sold for record multiple!
Joe: It sold for two thousand five hundred and fifty.
Matt: Alright! That’s a nice one Joe. What’s that as a multiplier, a monthly multiple?
Joe: So, gosh. It’s fifty-ish? Maybe slightly more. I don’t know.
Matt: So, yet another record. Go Joe!
Joe: So two fifty five divide by fifty, yeah, fifty one times multiple.
Matt: Fifty-one times multiple, there you go. For a very passive site that you had fun building up. It’s a win-win for everyone because, even for the new person, if they get passionate about it, they can obviously build that back up again, pretty quickly.
Joe: Of course.
Matt: To two hundred bucks a month.
Joe: If I had the time, I would have loved to have done that myself.
Matt: Yeah.
Joe: But, not really. It sort of starts to get a bit stale after a while. Better to just give it to some new hands who’s going to take it.
Perfect website for a beginner looking to learn how to earn income online…
Matt: So out of interest, would you say that site is a really good one for a beginner?
Joe: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, definitely.
Matt: It’s the classic kind of beginner site, isn’t it? It’s a nice site that can easily be renovated and sold on for more later on.
Joe: That’s right.
Matt: So, you must be very happy with the results. So, here’s a question for you Joe. Seriously, that sale price is darn impressive, and it’s a nice result for you and for the buyer…but for yourself in particular. It’s a nice result.
And people want to know, what’s your secret? How are you getting such high multiples, day-in and day-out? I know I’m building you up here a little bit. Because you are now a broker on Flippa.com. And, well of course mate, you’re a legend! But what do you think is the secret, for a site like that one?
Joe Burrills tips for selling websites for a top price…
Joe: Alright, so, I have three main things that I do. One is I treat every single buyer as though they’re going to be the one to buy the site.
Matt: Awesome.
Joe: So, I treat them like that. And then, for the smaller to medium sized sites that I sell, I always list it with no reserve. So it starts at one dollar, with no reserve.
Matt: Good.
Joe: It sort of it creates a mental game for the bidders. They know it’s going to sell. And so, it’s the fear of missing out. They don’t want to miss out on a deal, so they bid. And then they keep bidding.
And when it hits sort of the final stages of the auction, I then message all the bidders and say “hey, we’ve got this much time left”, and then basically try get them to keep bidding.
When it starts to slow down a little bit in the last hour or two, I’ll message the top bidders and offer them a few extra benefits. So maybe some extended support, or some additional keyword research, or some advice moving forward etc. to get them to keep bidding. And that creates a bidding war. That’s what pushes the price right up there.
Matt: Nice one. So, that is just unreal. Because, whilst these websites you’re building or renovating are passive; when it comes to selling them, what stands out is you’re very active in the sales processes. You’re very proactive, taking big action with the engaged buyers.
Joe: Yeah.
Matt: Gosh, you must have learned that off someone really good, Joe! That’s good to hear. It’s exactly what we used to do when we’re selling big multi-million-dollar bricks and mortar businesses, it works the best.
I really like what you’re doing here. It just shows that even with the smaller sites, when you get down to those last few hours in the bidding (or the last couple of days) you can really get those buyers building up. So really well done, mate. Really well done. Congratulations Joe!
Joe: Thanks, Matt. And if anyone wants to check out my brokerage site, they can. It’s jwburri.com, or J.W.B.U.R.R.I dot com and I’d be happy to list a site. I typically list anything that’s over one hundred dollars a month.
Matt: So Joe is a legend at selling, you just heard it there, he’s a legend. And we would thoroughly recommend if you have a site that is making some money, and you’re thinking of selling; then why not contact Joe and see if he can help you get a great result. He’s a really good broker. You just heard some of the results. You can go and see his track record there. But really well done, Joe.
Joe: Thanks a lot, Matt.
Matt: Look forward to speaking with you again soon
Wow, that’s pretty impressive right?! Have you considered building your own portfolio of digital assets to sell? Or have you ever used a broker to sell a website? We would love to hear from you in the comments below.
Joe has been a long-standing successful graduate of the EBusiness Institute Digital Profits program. If you would like to find out more about the course where Joe learnt to buy and sell websites, or starting your own portfolio of digital assets to sell, you can find out more here: https://www.ebusinessinstitute.com.au/digital-profits-program/
