Sell by Chat: How to Use Chat to Book Appointments or Sell Your Program

Let’s dive deep into convert territory and look at how you can sell by chat.

How do you start one-on-one conversations with individual prospects to sell them into a program?

That’s the question we’re going to answer here.

If you want to get them booked onto calls, I’ll show you how. And you’ll get all of the info on how to sell directly via chat too.

By the end of this deep dive, you’ll have a great system for selling by chat.

Why do You Need This?

I think you have three big problems that you’re going to face if you don’t have a system to sell by chat:

Problem #1 — No Consistency

You just don’t get enough people wanting to play. You don’t have enough leads in your inbox so you end up in a famine situation.

You react and send an email or whatever and you get smashed with leads.

There’s no consistent lead flow and that’s going to cause problems with your pipeline.

Problem #2 — Your Chats Don’t go Anywhere

Even when you do get chats, they don’t result in anything.

You’re not having useful conversations that serve your business.

And “interesting” doesn’t mean “useful” here. Someone might have an interesting personality and be fun to talk to. But that doesn’t mean anything if they’re not going to convert.

Problem #3 — Multiple Conversations With Multiple People Across Multiple Channels

You’ve got no focus when you have no system.

That means you’re talking to people via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all these different channels.

It gets too complex and people slip through the cracks.

With this system, I want you to achieve a consistent flow of leads that’ll go somewhere. And you won’t have people slipping through the cracks.

The Four Stages of a Chat

When you break it down, there are really four stages to a chat.

Let’s map those out here:

Stage #1 — Engage

This is the thing that gets someone to raise their hand. Usually, you’re posting somewhere public or sending a message to your list.

And that causes the chat to start.

This is really simple from your end. You post something public, like a 5130 thing to your Facebook wall. Or, you’re prompting a conversation for an email or message.

When you post or prompt, the prospect’s going to show an interest. They’ll raise their hand and say “I want to talk to you.”

Stage #2 — Qualify

You don’t want to make offers to people who don’t want it or don’t match.

So, you have a qualification stage to get rid of the tire kickers.

How much of this you do will depend on your offer. We qualify pretty hard so we have a fair amount of questions that we want prospects to answer in a certain way.

If they don’t, we point them in the direction of someone who might help.

But if you’re selling a course, you probably don’t need as many go-arounds.

Whatever the case might be, you ask and they answer. After a bit of back and forth, you’ll know where they’re going to go.

Stage #3 — Confirm

This is where you make the offer.

Say you’ve sent a nine-word email and you get a response back asking how the thing works. You tell them and qualify them and they say “I’m in”.

You’re either going to offer a call or offer the product. They confirm.

They haven’t paid yet though. And there’s plenty of people out there who’ll confirm and disappear. That’s where our last stage comes in.

Stage #4 — Convert

The prospect either books in for a call or whips out the credit card.

You give them the link and hold their hand through the process until they either pay money or book an appointment.

Where Does This All Fall Down

So far, this is pretty high-level stuff. A lot of it’s common sense.

But it might fall down for all sorts of reasons. These include:

• Asking the wrong questions.
• Asking questions like you’re the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld instead of like a bartender. The bartender lubricates the relationship where the Soup Nazi makes it feel like an interrogation.

You end up getting pushback or really short answers. Or, the prospect just stops responding at all.

The key lies in the lubrication. You need to ask questions in a way that encourages people to answer them.

Say you’re a little bit left-brain, or logical. You’ll probably go for the “question-response-question-response” model.

That’s an awkward way to do it. You need the social lubrication to keep the wheels turning for the conversation.

The Five Key Points for Selling by Chat Like a Pro

First up, I want to give a quick shout out to Josh McKitterick. He ran point on this side of things and he’s awesome at selling by chat.

A big thank you to him as he helped me to pull together these five key points.

Point #1 — Always be Opening

Most Black Belts have either the feast or famine thing going on. They’re either choking on leads or have a completely empty inbox.

What you want is a drip that’s constantly filling the glass.

The way to do that is to make sure you’ve always got conversations starting.

You’ve got stuff like your emails, your super signature, and your monthly 5130 posts. These are all conversations.

Schedule all of that in to make sure your chat box’s always going to be full.

Point #2 — Map Out Your Chat

The four stages I showed you above is a good place to start here.

But the key is that you want to map out a path to your endpoint. What are your milestones?

That means figuring out how you’re going to engage. It means coming up with the questions you’ll need to ask to qualify.

You’re mapping out the conversation to make it more predictable.

Think like a chess master. Always be a couple of moves ahead of the prospect.

You want to know where you’re going, what they’re going to say, and what your options are.

Point #3 — Not Soup Nazi. Bartender!

This is the lube piece and it’s super important.

The Soup Nazi asks a question and waits for a reply. Then they either say “No soup for you” or “Next step for you”.

There’s no flow to that.

What you want to do is build a relationship.

Think about your chats like you’re training a puppy. You call it with some love and attention. When they reply, you give them some love. And that builds the relationship.

So relationship lube usually looks like this:

• You give them some positive reinforcement when they do what you want.
• Show them you understand but don’t show them how to solve their problem.
• Ask the next question.

It’s a little bit slower. But slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Point #4 — Micromanage the Moment

As soon as someone says “I’m in” you’ve got to make sure they actually do it.

It’s like you’re tucking them in at night. You’re going to turn the lights off, put a blanket on them, and maybe give them a glass of water.

Then you’re going to stay with them until they go to sleep.

You’re holding their hand on the entire journey.

Don’t just give them a link and assume they’ll follow it.

Send them the link and tell them what they need to do when they get there. Ask them to let you know when they’ve done it. Leave the chat open on your end.

Now there’s expectation on their end.

It’s like giving someone a contract and a pen and watching them until they sign it.

Micromanage the moment and you’ll have far few people drop off during the Confirm stage.

Point #5 — Make it Simple

We want to make the managing of the chat and the having of the chat as simple as possible.

It’s time to take some shortcuts. There are three “T’s” that’ll help you here.

Text

Know what text you’re going to send and use a tool to keep those common snippets of the conversation. You can just drop them in as you need them.

Tools

Think about the tools that you can use to manage multiple people so they don’t slip through the cracks. Dean Jackson, who invented the nine-word email, has a simple flagging system.

He uses Gmail to flag people. If someone replies to an email, they get a single flame emoji. If they confirm, they get two flame emojis. Once they’ve paid, they get three flame emojis.

Team

Hand the prospect off.

Have the conversations and learn the conversations. Get them qualified and then hand them off to a team member.

How to Put This into Practice

That’s about enough teaching for one day.

You’re probably ready to build your own system and put it into practice.

We’re going to take these key points and show you how to use them.

The Nine Different Openers

Remember that your first job is to always be opening. You need that consistent drip of leads rather than the feast or famine flow that you’ve got now.

I’m going to share nine openers with you here. I want you to pick three, write your first one, and schedule it in.

And you’ll use these all of the time. Keep sending them out every day to get that consistent drip of lead into the business.

Opener #1 — The Nine-Word Email

These are super simple. You send a really short email to your list and see who responds. Here’s an example:

“Would you like a free copy of my book? Let me know and I’ll send you the link.”

A simple question that gets people to respond so they can get the link.

Opener #2 — The Facebook Group Questions

When someone joins our Facebook group, we ask them three questions to qualify them. They go something like this:

1. This is a Facebook group for people who earn X amount through coaching. What’s your monthly income right now?
2. Are you committed to scaling your business?
3. Do you want to work with me?

Assuming they get through that, we send them the opener message. It goes like this:

<Name>!

Just approving your request to join the Million Dollar Coach group. You mentioned you’d like to work together to scale your business. What do you need most right now?

They answer and now you’re away.

Opener #3 — The Lead Magnet

This is really simple.

Jump into your Facebook group and just drop a lead magnet. For example: “Would you like a free copy of my book? Comment below.”

If you haven’t got a book, find a worksheet or something of value.

You’re going to get a ton of comments. And that’s more conversations started.

Opener #4 — The Call Out

This one comes straight from Black Belt member Aaron Crawl and it’s one of my favourites.

If you’ve got someone who’s had a great result, call them out:

“Congratulations to SaaS founder for achieving <x>.”

You’re saying what kind of person you help and what the result was.

Then, you prompt anyone reading to join a group zoom party where you’ll talk about the case study and how to implement it.

Ask them to put something in the comments like “zoom party”, and you’ve got another opener.

Keep it natural and relaxed.

Opener #5 — The Case Study

Send a message out telling people that you’re creating a new case study group for specific people.

You only have a couple of slots left, so the reader needs to send the words “case study” to try to book their place.

That’s nice and simple. And the idea is that you’re looking to make someone successful so you can turn their story into a case study.

Opener #6–5130 Posts

Another simple classic:

“I’m looking for five coaches to get one result in <x> amount of time”

Just plug in the number of clients you want, the result you’re promising, and the timeframe for achieving it. Then, post it to get people to start talking.

Opener #7 and 8 — Your Super Signature

This goes at the bottom of every email that you send out. It’s the P.S. after the sign-off.

You make four offers that count for two openers.

The first two are just connection offers that don’t require any cash. Get the recipient to reply to get the offer and you’re away.

The other two are your conversion offers. You could get a quick sale out of the opener, which is a big win.

Prompt them to reply with a keyword and you’ll send them the details.

You can see how to make one here.

Opener #9 — Facebook Group Comment Thread

Your Facebook group is the perfect place to start conversations.

When someone asks a question in the group, chime in with an answer. Most importantly, slip some of your know-how stuff into the conversation. Reference some systems that you have without explaining what they are.

The other person’s going to get confused. They’re going to want to know what you’re talking about.

And now you’ve started a conversation.

The Chat Flow for Selling a Program

Now let’s talk about actually having the chat.

You’re going to have your chats to either book a call or to get someone to buy something.

The 1–2–3 Step handles the buyer program.

Let’s use the “Call Out” opener here. You get the opener out there and prompt a response, which is the zoom party comment in this case.

When someone responds, you send them something like this:

“Hey <Name>, I just saw your comment about joining the zoom party. Thanks so much for coming. I really love your engagement.

Is it okay if I ask you a couple of questions before I give you the details, just to make sure I can even help.”

The prospect’s going to say “sure” and you hit your questions:

• What kind of clients do you coach?
• How many clients do you have right now?
• How many would you like in the next 60 days?
• Have you got 90 minutes a week to work on this stuff if I give you a system?

Whatever it is you need to qualify them is what you’re asking here.

Then, you launch into the 1–2–3 Step:

1. If it all checks out, you drop them a PDF with all of the details into the chat. Ask them to have a read and respond to let you know if they’re in or out. You’re going to get this started next week so you want to get the ball rolling. You’ll keep the chat open while they read.
2. They tell you that they’re in.
3. You send them the link and hold their hand through the signup process.

And you’ve got yourself a conversion.

You can do this via email or chat. The only difference is that email isn’t as immediate as a chat!

You don’t need a discovery call or anything because you’re going straight for the conversion.

You 100% want to use this little chat flow if you have a low-ticket program that you’re selling. If it’s $3,000 or below, this flow’s going to get results for you.

The Chat Flow for Booking a Call

This one’s a bit more involved because you’re selling high-ticket items. You still go through a similar process. But you’ve got a different goal at the end.

It’s a bit more involved too but there are two main steps to it.

Step #1 — Qualify

A lot of these questions match the questions you ask for selling a program.

But you’ll dig a little deeper with them. So you might ask if they coach one-on-one or in group sessions. You might ask about their monthly income.

However, you’ll generally have pretty similar questions to the stuff you’d ask for selling a program.

The key here is that you’re adding that social lubricant.

For example, don’t jump into asking the next question when they tell you what types of clients they coach.

Say something like “That’s cool. That’s an interesting industry to be in. By the way, do you coach one-on-one or in groups?”

Just that little bit of friendliness goes a long way. You’re giving them a bit of a response to their answer before asking the next question.

Step #2 — The Handoff

Once you’ve got them qualified, it’s time to go to the handoff.

So, you’ll say something like:

“Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. Let me connect you with <Name>, who’s my <x> specialist. They’re amazing and they work with every new client when we first start working together.”

“You guys can brainstorm on <problems> and work out how to get you where you want to be. Are you up for that?”

The “Here’s what I’m thinking” bit is important. It makes it sound like you’re just coming up with the idea in the moment.

Again, social lube. It’s a more natural conversation.

The same goes for “Are you up for that?”

It’s a nice little check-in that keeps the conversation smooth. Remember — no Soup Nazi.

When the prospect says “yes”, tell them you’re going to grab you guy’s calendar for them. Send them the link and ask them to let you know when they’ve found a time slot that suits them.

Keep your chat window open and wait for them. If they don’t respond within an hour, send a follow-up message.

When they’ve found the slot, you walk them through the process of signing up.

And that’s it. They’ve booked their appointment and you’ve handed the prospect over to your team.

They’ll then go through your appointment setup to qualify and try to bring the client on board for your high-ticket item.

It’s Time to Get Started

We’ve unpacked a lot of content here.

We’ve looked at the basic problems that a lot of people have when selling by chat. And we’ve looked at the four main stages.

I’ve given you my five key points for doing it like a pro.

We’ve looked at nine different ways that you can open the conversation.

And you have a couple of examples for how to manage the chat flow once it’s started.

I hope you’ve found all of this useful. Now, it’s time for you to start putting it into practice. Follow the examples I’ve given you and build on them.

You’ll start selling more by chat in no time.

P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your coaching business:

1. Grab a free copy of my book

It’s the roadmap to attracting prospects, signing clients, and scaling your coaching business. — Click Here

2. Join the Coach Dojo and connect with coaches who are scaling too

It’s our new Facebook community where smart coaches learn to get more income, impact, and independence. — Click Here

3. Join our Implementation Program and be a Case Study

I’m putting together a new coaching case study group at Black Belt this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with me on your client-getting and scale plans… just send me a message with the words “Case Study”. — Click Here

4. Work with me and my team privately

If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take you from 6 to 7 figures… just send me a message and with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! — Click Here