"If I'm going to pay someone to teach me an appoach, I'd like to see it work. If the operator can't make it work then why would I want to pay for it" * Tomorrow you can join any room in existence described above with zero exceptions and see exactly the same things repeated. The operator will call a trade and it stops out. Calls a second trade and it profits to whatever degree the approach calls for. A few of the room members take the same trade and exit early for par or two ticks. Some hang on past the operator's exit, hoping for more. Others took the first losing trade but passed up the second trade that profited for a laundry list of reasons. Many members tune in past both trades, busy skipping thru several rooms at once to keep themselves entertained. They missed both trades, and now want to see a third one called. Lots of members are only present in the morning, others only in the afternoon. Some a few days each week, some come & go for weeks at a time. Meanwhile, the operator keeps doing what they do. But no individual can ever be followed per mirrored trades executed. If it's a limited-time only (brief) demonstration of trades, that's one thing. If the concept is to call = post trades day in & out, that is logistically possible but accomplishes nothing for anyone on its own.
It would demonstrate that the operator has a system that works. If the followers won't/can't follow the trades that is not the operators fault. I would like to see the operator call his trades. If the market does this then I'm going to do this. I'll put my stop here and take profit if this happens. One room I followed the operator called trades but only after the trade was closed did he mention the size he traded. As you can guess the stopped out trades were minimal while the profitable ones were huge. I think I would benifit by watching someone successful trade. Even if I didn't understand the method, I would learn about taking losses quickly, that not every trade will be successful, and to let the winners run. I think that is more important than the method. I want to be in a room with a successful trader.
The Only Thing the trader needs from you to become independent, is signals that OUTPERFORM. And it is YOUR job to prove that you can - eg, tracking service. Otherwise, what the hell can you teach a trader - how to lose?
One thing will tell the story. Go back 12-18 months and give me the list of those that signed up. I want to know how many of those people are still in the room. That'll tell me everything I need to know.
A pretty obvious (could resist it) request and very useful but some may have become profitable and moved on as well
I think I can speak with some authority on this subject having run a "professional chatroom" from 1998ish until 2002 and having made a few million dollars also doing it. First, you do have to make buy here sell now calls. 99.5% of the people coming into the room don't have a damn clue what they are doing. If you do not tell them they go in their own direction and blame you every time they f up. It's better to be clear and to the point. If you don't do this you might as well not even move on to the other steps. Next, people don't want just buy here sell now type services. There are thousands of them on the web, the majority are free. You have to set yourself apart, and not by the quality of your calls. If you have the best calls in the world, and you yourself are making money with them hand over first, the majority of your clients will not be doing the same no matter how clear you try to be. They have their own demons, and I don't think it's easy for a person to fully trust and follow another. So, you must teach them to think for themselves, to learn an actual method that gives them a chance of success. Upsell. If all you have a chatroom your a fool. I left millions on the table by only having a chatroom. Do a lot of free stuff. I went into "retirement" from the guru life just before all the interactive, social media web 2.0 stuff started coming out. Back in my day posting and being active someplace like ET, SI, Yahoo Boards etc was a good way to get trials. Right now if I was to start over I would use those places, but I think you also need to be in a lot of other places. I think that doing a "daily show" on Youtube would get you a lot of interest. Watch Ken Calhouns website. He's always coming up with new angles and marketing stuff and he runs a pretty good business and has for many years (about 300-500K a year as far as I know). Test, Test, Test and then test again. Try everything marketing wise. You need to spend almost as much time on marketing and promotion as you do on trading, which for a lot of people sucks, but for me was great because I like that. I have a side business writting sales copy all over the web and coming up with promotional campaigns and I enjoy it as much as I do trading (I'm not doing it very much right now due to my health) Love your customers and try to keep them. Alot of sites treat their customers like shit and think they are a bunch of idiots. Thats not the facts as I have seen it. Most of the people who I managed to connect to that got into this had been very successful in a prior career, doctors, dentists, entrepreneurs etc. If you want any other advice let me know, I'll have a look at your site and see what I think.
A tracking service is helpful and so is an audited track record, but the truth is that no one cares. If you have them or dont have them your going to get just as many customers, and the people who bitch and complain are always going to do so. Spend your time on something else.
This is actually not a bad idea. We went onto othernet for free for about 3 1/2 months when we relaunched our website and managed to get about 200 new folks at $200 per month.
Also, do not run the chatroom off the brokerage site. Have them as two totally seperate business. There is a very good way to use a chatroom for a broker, but its not by running it off the brokerage website. Off to bed now, g'nite.