place your warm market as the place to go to tell people about your busi-
ness or products.
Cindy is one of my favorite online success stories. Her organization in-
creased by more than a thousand people in three months as a result of some-
one whom she met on the Internet. Here’s how it happened and how it can
happen to you, too.
Cindy was a 32-year-old postal worker who lived in a small town. She
really didn’t like working at the post office. Her goal was to make enough
money in her part-time networking business so she could quit her full-time
post office job. She wanted to spend more time riding her horse. Having re-
cently moved from New Jersey to Florida, Cindy didn’t know anyone in
town. She didn’t have a warm market. In fact, the only people she knew in
Florida were her fellow co-workers at the post office. And no one there
wanted to hear about her new business.
She’d heard from other people in her company that people were using
instant messaging on the Internet to meet other people. A few of the people
she talked to about business networking on a computer said they were using
it to find dates, too. Cindy knew that if other people could find someone on-
line to talk to about their business, she could, too. So she purchased a com-
puter with the sole purpose of using it to meet people.
The first thing everyone is required to do when signing up for any of the
free instant messaging systems (Yahoo!, ICQ, MSN, AOL) is to create a
screen name. Most people use a variation of their birth name when they ini-
tially sign up. Cindy learned very quickly that her choice of screen name
would influence the content of her instant message conversations. A good
screen name makes people curious about who you are and what you do.
Cindy chose CS33407 as her first screen name because her initials were
CS and her zip code was 33407. Whenever she had an instant message con-
versation, the person always asked about her screen name. Why CS33407?
What did CS33407 represent? What was the significance of the number
33407? These questions became a predictable part of every instant message
conversation she had.
When Cindy changed her screen name to TheCynergist2005, people
still asked questions about her name. Why TheCynergist2005? What did
TheCynergist mean? What was going to happen in 2005? Cindy’s answers
to these questions made people interested in learning more about what she
did. “Synergy is a combined action or operation between people that is mu-
tually advantageous to all the parties involved. I enjoy connecting success-
ful people together in an enterprise that changes their lives. I really like
what I do” was her answer every time someone inquired about her choice
of screen name.
“I’m working with a company that is creating a growing stream of
residual income for me. By the year 2005, I expect my income to be large
The Internet Can Replace Your Warm Market 227