Many companies that already have an active website, acquire exact match domains and put them to really good use.
Most people know of companies that built their brand on an exact match domain. For example, CreditCards.com, CarInsurance.com etc.
Walgreens, the popular pharmacy chain that generated over 100 billion dollars in revenue markets their main website walgreens.com and that is what most people know. However, this smart company also purchased exact match domains to help drive traffic to their site. They own DrugStore.com and Beauty.com, both redirect to their main site.
However, other companies buy exact match domains and instead of redirecting it, they build a complete site on it with content and other value added items and it becomes a major source of organic traffic.
If you want to be a success you can stop asking people about things you can observe on your own. You can learn what successful companies do and try to copy their techniques instead of listening to people and their opinions. Just do what successful people and companies do.
Always look for a dotcom, ignore all other extensions because one of the benefits of an exact match domain is typin traffic and nobody types in an extension other than .com
You want to have a name that people can remember and a nice EMD give instant credibility.
Good things come at a price, so you might be shocked at the sticker price on EMD .com domains, however, if you have reached a point that you are ready to take the big steps to either start or expand your business, buying EMD domains for your industry is a smart step to take.
Another billion dollar company that does this is Priceline.com. Most people just know their domain PriceLine.com. However, they also invest in EMD domains like TicketPrice.com.
Unfortunately the majority of people starting or expanding their business, do not understand the importance of a premium EMD .com domain and in many cases they either are forced to rebrand or their business fails. People that disregard something as important as their domain, usually will be sloppy in other important areas. They might have amazing logos, but no logo covers up a horrible name.