Here are some probable reasons you’re seeing visible turnover at Uniregistry.
On Friday, Konstantinos Zournas at OnlineDomain wrote about something people have been mumbling about on message boards for a couple months now: turnover at Frank Schilling’s company Uniregistry.
Konstantinos is correct. There has been quite a bit of visible turnover at the company. A lot happened over the summer, but there has certainly been turnover for a while. I have explained DNW to a couple marketing people at Uniregistry, only to have them leave a week or two later. (I hope that’s not correlated!)
I think there are many reasons for this.
First, I should state that I know for a fact that not everyone leaving Uniregistry has been let go. Some have left on their own volition. Others have been fired.
I also know that headcount at the company is at or near its peak. So the company isn’t laying off people as a cut-your-way-to-profitability plan.
That said, here are some reasons I think Uniregistry has had visible turnover lately:
1. Grand Cayman. Not everyone who works at the company lives in Cayman. But for those that relocate there, I imagine it takes a special circumstance to really embrace it. It’s a small place and certainly not for everyone. I could never talk my family into moving there. If I did, I think they’d constantly nag me to return to the States. Some people love it, but it would be hard for others.
2. Frank is a demanding guy. Frank Schilling didn’t get rich just by being lucky. Read any profile of the man and you’ll know he worked like crazy to snap up domains in the early 2000s. He’s going to expect his employees to work extremely hard, too. His extreme expectations might not mix with the balance some employees seek.
3. It’s a sales organization. While there are a lot of tech employees at Uniregistry, a large number of employees are salespeople. Sales departments have lots of turnover. It’s a numbers game. (I imagine sales head Jeffrey Gabriel is also a demanding, numbers-driven boss. Otherwise, he’d no longer be with the company.)
4. New TLDs. New top level domains aren’t doing well. Uniregistry’s TLDs aren’t hitting the numbers the company hoped for and that’s not going to change anytime soon. I’m not sure if some layoffs were directly related to new TLD sales, but when sales are going gangbusters at a company they often don’t bother to cut the dead weight. A revenue miss will lead any company owner to take a hard look at his or her team and make some difficult decisions.
That’s my four cents.
It seems that Uniregistry has “lost” a few of the higher executives and hired more sales people. As a head count that may seems fine but as a company and where it is headed as a registry and registrar not so good. Quality over quantity.
Maybe. I don’t know for sure if the executives were good ones or not because I’ve never worked with them.
I heard Scaramucci was hired as Communications Director and was gone in ten days.
I hear Sean Spicer is looking for a new jerb as well…
That’s what happens when your boss PLAYS both sides of the fence (.Com and new gTLD’s).
and we all should also . i do.
page howe
haven’t seen a .la sale in a while, I wouldn’t call that playing
Not me.
OnlyCom.com
There is only so much you can do with domain sales, there are many options if you get a $100k quote for a random
4L.com. Not much you can do, as a broker or what not.
Some of the oldest brokers there I believe would be Ben, Brooke, and Mohammed.
Many times I noticed uni payment delayed either due to a caymans holiday or a us holiday, it is kind of annoying you have the worst of two countries Holidays to deal with. Need better support, and faster response times.
The company is still growing, the team serves me well and and a lot of the people that leave don’t seem to come back to the industry. I’m sure there is a backstory in there somewhere. I notice a lot of bloggers don’t like UR. Maybe some industry jealousy. No other company in domains is doing what UR is
Name 3 things.
I figure the people that lasted less than a year got down on that island and pretended they were Robin Leach.
BBC Two produced a documentary on the Caymans titled: Britain’s Trillion Pound Island – Inside Cayman. Broadcast in January 2016, the documentary found housing prices to be cheaper than US metros. The problem for many people is food, most of which is flown in from the UK. Not only is it British food (whaa!), it’s at least twice the price you’d pay in the old country.
The documentary looked at the consequences of the Caymans’ status as a low/no-tax jurisdiction. With tax revenues that are insufficient to provide for much of a social safety net, the Caymans are portrayed as a place with stark inequalities between rich and poor.
The BBC does not make all of its documentaries available all the time. Those of you who are interested in watching it will need to keep checking back periodically on the BBC’s iPlayer. But first, you’ll need to set your VPN to an IP address in the UK. Then open a private window in your browser, which you may need to clean up first. There are also several text articles about the documentary, accessible now.
Interesting article. I thought many of your readers would be interested in this tool, https://www.salestestonline.com/sales-test-the-cost-of-failure-calculator-what-does-it-cost-to-hire-the-wrong-sales-person
“(I imagine sales head Jeffrey Gabriel is also a demanding, numbers-driven boss. Otherwise, he’d no longer be with the company.)”
Ironically Jeff’s fb profile says – Former Vice President at Uniregistry
Not sure what that means though.
And this after a record year(?) too.
and all the comments on the purchase by Go Daddy ……. I only hear crickets chirping now
The praises for Uniregistry in some comments are varied, I only know what I have seen and read in his blog, news blog market domain and email to receive from Account Manager 2017 to 2020, Product Manager, Support and Help, Broker domain and Business Development and Marketing team since my first day at Uniregistry give me as never any other registrar a 25% discount registration generic domains and 30% discount for new domain extensions, I think good start.
The reality has been different since 2015 today the stages in Uniregistry have been great to a Godaddy acquisition which is a disguise for the mismanagement of its Executives in Uniregistry, the reasons many, it is not all gold that glitters.
Employed many changes and dissatisfied most, some live and work for Uniregistry in the city of Manchester, UK joined at best as the Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territories of the United Kingdom, but not seeing a concrete difference because an Account Maneger and Business Development 2017 should be in a city like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, I see it better and they too.
Many new workers do not come from domain market companies, they are from other markets and countries to give a curious example, Person with his family offers to work at Uniregistry in Cayman Islands his former place of residence and work in a company in Helsinky city and the capital from Finland in Helsinky only in the month of December have 5 hours of sun and 19 hours of night, in particular if they give me to choose to come to work and live the Cayman Islands with this I believe that the current Product manger think alike and Better work, this is also my guess, we all change jobs for a reason to go up in category and better salary and more knowledge of a market where also having the same previous position should only adapt.