I’ve been having many conversations of late explaining the difference between being in a passive matchmaking network versus being an active client. Now for my couples out there stay tuned because there will be at least a nugget of wisdom for you lovelies as well. Also, you might know someone who is single and needs this guidance today. As one wonderful client said to me last week “You’re doing the Lord’s work, Erin”. Help me do the Lord’s work today.
At Dateable, that’s us, our passive network is comprised of lovely individuals we send on dates with our paying clients. They do not pay for the match. Now, not all agencies work this way. Some only match paying clients with other paying clients, but in my experience that drops the dating pool to a very small size, like not even one of those inflatable options. I’m talking plastic kiddie pool filled with swampy grass soup over a layer of grit and mud. If you’re already struggling to find your needle in a haystack, hoping you’re someone else’s and that it happens at exactly the same time, well that sounds like fifty shades of once in a blue moon to me. Don’t hold your breath. Some agencies use passive networks, but you pay a membership fee to join them. To be fair, there are benefits to being in the passive network. I’m not here to say it isn’t worth your money to be considered for their wonderful, quality active clients. But if you’re engaging with us, the passive network is complimentary. You are so very welcome. Only our active clients pay the fees.
So what is the difference you keep asking me. And I’m so ready to explain.
I consider the passive network to be like the “love lotto”, only without the six dollar weekly investment. You get the benefit of being considered for wonderful quality clients, and you get the benefit of our interviewing and vetting, which is in itself a discovery process for you as much as for the lovely human whose campaign we are running. You’re much more likely to steer in the right direction and to gain clarity on your wants and needs in relationship after engaging with us. After all, this is not our first rodeo. We’re kinda magically great at this and are passionate about making it work for everyone involved, including your Labradoodle, Sunny.
If you’re looking for love, availing yourself of this service is a no brainer. Because you just might win, and because you get more out of it than the occasional free play.
Having said that, there is a big difference between passive and active levels of service.
We are a very high touch, curated, hands on service. We believe that we need to be in this day and age, when most daters, whether they are living otherwise fulfilling lives or properly lovelorn, are struggling to connect. Algorithms aren’t getting them connections that are meaningful or sustainable, for all kinds of reasons that are another blog entirely. When you engage with us you are receiving a world of expertise, time, care and attention that is dedicated to understanding your needs, helping you understand them, clarifying your attraction profile, searching the dating pool, the BIG ONE, for the most wonderful suitable wow factor clients, but also the real ones, the ones who are going to get under your skin and surprise you and reveal what you didn’t even know you wanted on paper, let alone a swipe. And we support you through it. We talk to you, we give you the tools, oh I know you have so many already, but we have extra special ones, allen-keys for fitting it all together and building something that sticks.
Now bear with me on the analogy that is to follow. If you remove the Hollywood, and the production value, and the audience gripping drama, guilty pleasure though it may be; if you remove the ridiculous premise of establishing the engagement worthiness of a relationship in a ridiculously small timeline, not even what I refer to as the ‘first trimester’ of relationship…..if you can, for a moment indulge me and put all of that on a shelf, the difference between active and passive is kind of like the difference between being a candidate who is meeting The Bachelor or Bachelorette, and actually being the Bachelor or Bachelorette. When you are one of twenty five select candidates, you have a one in twenty five chance of being the one they fall for over a dating “intensive”. And that is lovely. Someone is going to take that spot. When it’s done via matchmaking your odds of a wonderful marriage as the outcome go up exponentially, because you’re not squishing everything into six weeks and limiting your interaction to occasional one-on-one and group dates. Also, we aren’t vetting for high drama, we’re vetting for relationship success, with a quarter century of expertise brought to the process. So there is that.
But consider when you are our version of the Bachelor/ette. Well now we are cooking with cheese! Because we draw on our passive networks, all of those lovely relationships we have built and nurtured over the years, and we draw on our collaborative networks, and we search, out in the wild with our ninja like skills, much like an executive head hunter will do. We leave no stone unturned, and then we ask the questions that will save you the heart ache later, the painful years of trial and error. We bring in lovely candidates, NOT based on who will start a fight with the others in the house, because no one is in the same house. Boring to watch on TV, but pretty amazing to experience in reality. And then we leverage the matches. We get feedback from you, we discover interesting mysterious things that you didn’t even know to tell us about out of the gate. We mix up the ones we know you’re gonna love with a few outliers who may surprise you by winning your heart.
When you are a candidate for the Bachelor/ette you have your one in twenty five chance and it’s much like that with us. But when you’re the star of the show, the odds are twenty five to one in your favour, so to speak. The entire gig is set up to find your relationship.
Because you deserve one.
Because life is more fulfilling with someone to share it with.
Because you want a family.
Because you’ve worked your butt off to get to where you are.
Because your time and emotional energy matter.
Because you’d rather be spending your nights with your love.
Because you would rather do this now, than waste another few years on painful trial and error.
Because we can solve things for you that you cannot.
Because you know the value of investing in yourself.
Because you’d rather invest in creating a wonderful relationship than padding the divorce lawyer’s pockets (though I love lawyers).
Because you have the intelligence and the commitment to make things happen in your corporate life, so why not make them happen for you in your personal life?
Imagine if fifty hours of work and decades of expertise went into every date you went on.
Just sit with that for a moment.
Well you’d be off living your best relationship life right now, wouldn’t you?
There are times it does not make sense to enter into full blown matchmaking, to be the star of the show.
Dating comes easily and is going very well. You actually have years to explore. Or you just got out of a relationship and need time to reassess. You like leaving things to chance, like that character in the Serendipity film with John Cusack.
But sometimes even chance needs a chance.
I was chatting with a friend of a good friend the other day. He’s lives in Texas, works in oil and gas. He likened the work we do to head hunting a CEO for your business. “It makes sense” he said “to invest in that service. Like finding the right CEO, but more important.” I mean he’s not wrong, in my humble view.
What a revolutionary idea to invest in your romantic future, and to imagine and then realize what that can do for your life. This goes for couples too you know. Your relationship or marriage doesn’t have to broken to get a hell of a lot better. And you don’t have to wait for something to break to invest some extra mojo into it. You can work with a coach, or you can simply rejuvenate your date night, or take an inventory of everything you love and appreciate about one another in order to set the stage for steering the path.
But if you are a catch and no one’s catching you, maybe you want to switch sides, not teams silly, sides. Maybe you wanna talk to us about how we could change all of that; how good it would feel to swap out your lotto dreams for a well executed game plan, to explore what the right CEO could do for the future of Yourlovelife.com.
I’m willing to bet on you.
Much love,
Erin