The Secret to Prospecting in Internet Chat Rooms

If you are involved with affiliate marketing on the Internet, chat rooms can really provide you solid ground to find new prospects, customers and affiliates. As compared to other advertising methods, such as posting your messages in discussion groups, FFA. sites etc,nchat rooms can have the upper hand.

Firstly, chat rooms are open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Secondly at any point of time, live chat activities go on in the chat rooms, allowing you to instantly connect with people in real time (live communication).

You can initiate communication with anyone you desire and lead him to your web gateways, all in real time. I have personally, on many occasions, not only led the prospects to my gateway web sites provided by SFI Marketing Group, my affiliate company, but also persuaded them to register/sign up using the registration form, and to click the confirmation link which they receive in their e-mails. It is really exciting and fun to do.

Here are some tips and tricks that you can use and observe while prospecting in the chat rooms:

1. Always Be Professional

Remember, participants in Internet chat rooms are real people, just like you and me. Albeit the fact that they use fake identities (for privacy and anonimity purposes), there is flesh and blood behind it all. As a professional entrepreneur, the first thing you must observe is to behave professionally. Behave as if you are behaving with people in the offline world. Observe all the etiquette and manners. When asked, disclose your real "asl" (age, sex, location), and if need be, your real name. Never use abusive language. Approach the prospect with respect and you will get respect in return.

2. Be Focused

Mr George Little, in his book "Internet Income" (available to all SFI affiliates for free), said that Internet may prove to be a black hole, in the sense that it sucks your time. Please remember that your time is very valuable, and you're not in these chat rooms just to have leisurely talks. Of course, indulging in leisurely talks, even whilenprospecting may become necessary sometimes, but you should be focused on your objective. While prospecting in chat rooms, your objective in mind must be to acquire contact details from interested prospects. Your target is to cause your prospect to take a look at your web site, and if possible, to persuade him to sign up. Resist the temptation to get swayed by other matters or other opportunities. This becomes more effective if you can tactfully regulate the conversation / chat, whichnis a skill learned with time.

To manage your time effectively, as soon as you enter the chat room, initiate contact with each and every person there individually, by sending them short introductory messages one by one quickly. Do this fast from the first person to the last Normally there are a minimum of
5 to maximum 40 persons approximately at a given time. Suppose if you send "Hi" messages to 20 person, approximately 8 to 12 will respond back.. Some will start chatting and will lose interest. By this elimination process you may be ultimately left with 3 to 4 personsnchatting effectively. And out of them 1 or 2 may sign up. Even if no one signs up, you are way ahead. No need to get discouraged. Instead, simply go to another chat room and repeat the process.

3. Regulate the conversation effectively

As soon as you initiate contact with your prospect, such as with a "Hi" or "Hello", and after exchange of pleasantries, you should take charge and regulate the conversation. This is not to say that you should always be in control of the conversation. The key word is ton"regulate" and not to "control". If you try to take control, your approach will seem very unnatural. To maintain naturalness of the conversation, sometimes you may permit yourself to be led by your prospect, but always with your objective in your mind to bring the prospect back to your objective.

One of the best devices I found to start regulating the conversation is to ask your prospect "Can I ask you a question?" Or by saying "Let me ask you a question !". It has been my experience that the prospect invariably responds with a "yes" or "what is it?" or "sure" or "gonahead please". Rarely does a prospect deny me permission to ask him a question.

Once you get his permission to ask him a question, here is your best opportunity to start regulating the conversation. Now you may begin with asking the prospect a question. A word of caution here; Never ask a direct question such as "Will you join my MLM business?" or "Willnyou join my affiliate program?". Instead, ask a question which is co-relative of him to your business. Be interested in him. Your question should pertain to him, his life, his activities, but which will lead him to what you have in mind.

An example of such a question is "How do you spend your time?" or "What are your priorities in life?". Another way is to ask a question which will create curiosity in his mind. For example "in which Quadrant do you spend time?" This question is bound to result in raising curiosity withinin your prospect. Then you can tell him hownthe famous management guru Stephen Covey has categorized the ways we spend time in 4 Quadrants and how spending time in Quadrant 2 is important. Then you can lead him to the idea of how working in your business amounts to spending Quadrant 2. Of course for this you mustnknow beforehand what is Quadrant 2 etc. you must have read the original literature or the concerned book before proceeding in such manner.

Now these are only examples. You need not confine yourself to these recommendations. You can be creative and invent your own questions. With some practice you'll be able to formulate your own questions and effectively take control of the situation.

Allow your prospect some time to completely answer your question. If you find the answer very simple, encourage him to tell you more. Be a good listener. Here your object is to find out his motives, his desires. Once you know that, then begin your task of connecting achievement of his motives with your business.

4. Act with Dignity and Self-respect for Your Business.

Follow this rule of thumb: never throw your URL to your prospect without his readiness to see it, or without his permission. Remember you are a professional business person doing business with dignity. You respect yourself and your business. Your URL is not cheap but is very important, and you treat it with respect. Moreover, bombarding your prospect with your URL, may not only annoy him, but also may cause him lose respect for you.

Now this does not mean that you must never give your URL, but what I mean to say is that you must first put your prospect in a positive mindset of looking at it. Only then give your website URL to him. And as soon as you create that mindset in your prospects head, DON'T WASTEnA SINGLE SECOND in giving him your URL. Take your judgment and give your URL. Always keep your URL handy with you so that you can quickly copy and paste it and hit the ''Enter'' button. For this purpose, you can use a good software such as Typeitin. Don't forget to tell yournprospect that he could click the link directly to see your web page.

5. Be tactfully persuasive

Immediately after you give your prospect your URL, give him sufficient time to view it. After about 45 to 60 seconds ask your prospect whether he clicked the link, and wait for the answer. If the answer is not forthcoming, don't be anxious. He may have actually clicked yournlink and is viewing your web page and is reading it. So wait for some time, and utilize such time-gaps to look for other persons and keep prospecting them too. After some time, come back to your first prospect and begin conversation. If even after sufficient time nonresponse is forthcoming, then again give your prospect your URL with a request to view it by clicking it directly. But remember NEVER TO FLOOD your prospect with too many messages because that may annoy him and may put him in the negative, resulting in ignoring you totally.

Now, when your prospect tells you that he clicked your URL and that he is viewing your web page, ask him a positive question like this "What do you like most?". Never commit the folly of asking a question which may result in a negative response, such as "How do you find it?" orn"Do you like it?" or "Is there anything that you like?". You should proceed on the footing that your prospect has liked it, and therefore you ask "What is it that you like most?" Or something like "Which thing has appealed to you most?" Then proceed in accordance with the answer which you receive.

6. Suggest your prospect to sign up

There is nothing like power of suggestion. While your prospect is viewing your web page, suggest him that he can sign up for FREE (refer to your companay's plan), and without any obligation. If you fail to suggest, you may end up losing the prospect, and an affiliate. He maynask you certain questions and answers. Handle your prospect's objections tactfully. Keep on suggesting him to sign up for FREE, tactfully. Tell him you are awaiting to welcome him in your team and are looking forward to work with him. If he asks a question about anything which can be answered by clicking the link on your web pagen(and many questions are like that), then direct your prospect to that link. For this purpose, it is a good idea to keep the web page which your prospect is viewing, open in front of you in your browser.

Assist your prospect through the whole process, and offer help where needed.

7. Respect your prospect's decisio

There may be some prospects, which would stop responding to your messages totally, even if they are online. This is a clear message to you that he is not interested in what you say. There may be some prospects who may directly tell you that they're not interested in your proposal. As a last attempt, add such to your friends list in your messenger, by sending them an invitation. If they accept the invitation, add them to your friends' list. This will help you in always being in touch with him, and may be at a future point of time, they may become your affiliate. The prospect may also deny your request to adding him to your friends list. Whatever be the case, respect his decision and tell him so. Thank him for his time with you,nand tell him that you respect his decision. Wish him all the best in whatever he is doing, and close the conversation.

8. The winners never quit and quitter never wins.

Remember your attempt to prospect in chat may sometimes result in no signing ups. Don't get disheartened and discouraged. That's part of the numbers game in any network marketing or home business opportunity. Remember you certainly learn something. Your finenessenand skill sharpens every time. Try with same enthusiasm and zeal next time. You will definitely get some positive results.

Wish you good luck and success.