OPW INTERVIEW -- Nov 1 -- Julie Ferman is one of my favorite matchmakers. She hosted the Matchmakers Conference in September and I interviewed her there. - Mark Brooks
How is the conference going?
Its going great. The Matchmaker’s Conference has probably been one of the highlights of my professional career. It’s like a love fest. The level of professionalism is just astounding to me.
Tell us about your company.
Cupid’s Coach is the largest personal matchmaking company in all of California now. I have over 13,000 people registered now with me. It’s free and private for people to be registered but they can’t browse. I’m the matchmaker and I have another team of people that work with me as matchmakers. They’ve been with me for a long time so we know the people.
Our clients are spending $2,900, $4,900, $8,800, $15,000 for a statewide search. And very often I will partner with some of the people here. So I’m not keeping all of that $15,000, I’m strategically placing those dollars very effectively with my buddies within the State of California and we are lining up some amazing candidates for our clients.
How can the matchmaking industry work with the internet dating industry?
They can work very well with each other. Some people on the dating dating sites need more help, so they can bounce up to the next level. Or if our clients are not ready to spend $3,000 so we’ll partner with the internet dating company and just share it back and forth.
Now if I’m not the right resource for a particular person then I’ll refer them to one of my other colleagues who is. There is more then enough business for everybody. There are so many millions of single people looking for help and complaining that they don’t know how to find each other. Then once they do find each other they don’t know how to stay together and love each other and that’s a whole other division.
Cupid’s Coach, the company’s name is really more about dating coaching then it is about matchmaking, but I ended up doing the matchmaking because that’s where the money was.
Walk me through the process, what is like for a brand new client, somebody who has just joined the service. What happens?
First they fill out their resume. Then they come in for their consultation. I’ll only accept them if they are a good fit. I will not take their money if they are not. I’ll send them back to internet dating or to the weight loss center first before they spend the money.
Then, over the phone, we explain them every step of the process including the navigation through our website. They also get their professional photo taken and have a dating/coaching consultation with my chief dating coach. I read every note of all my staff members before I go in and start the search.
I search for men differently then I search for women because you guys are visual and you want to see photos. So if you’re my client and you’re a guy I’m going to present you my top 5 candidates, their detailed resume with photos. When I’m picking those 5, it’s always based on who you are, who you’re hoping to meet and who I think you have a shot at because I know her preferences too.
So I’m going to present you my top 5 candidates and maybe you pick 3 or 4 of them. Then I pick up the phone and call them to tell them about you. When she agrees to meet you, you’ll call her and invite her out for a date number one.
Then we do a lot of follow up, we want post date evaluations from both people and you are going to hear the feedback.
So it’s very organic and my relationship with each client is organic and we learn. My home run is to get an active search client connected with another active search client and they go off into a relationship and we go on vacation. That’s our favorite thing to do. But I will also refer my active search clients to somebody I recruited and they’re not spending any money at all. That’s okay in my model because I know I recruited him specifically for her.
I treat men and women exactly the same. They can be clients or members and members don’t pay. I don’t hide my fees, they’re right on the website, www.CupidsCoach.com. We’re doing very well, our revenue has doubled or tripled over last year.
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