How I Became A Full-Time Dating Coach (from 2008-2010)

For 3 years of my life I was a full-time dating coach.

People have often wondered how I became a one. It’s a valid question I guess – there was no dating coach academy out there, no university degrees or training courses.

This is my story.

Brisbane Lair

I was always looking for a way to improve my dating life.

Around age 25 I discovered there was a worldwide community of guys devoted to improve their skills with women. I decided to commit myself to really figuring out that area of my life.

At that time I was a full time university student in Brisbane. I found a local internet forum where guys used to talk about improving their dating lives, called “The Brisbane Lair”.

Due to the private nature of talking about your love life, the forum was capped to 50 members. I had to wait for someone to leave. Soon enough, I got the e-mail saying I was accepted. I was very excited.

For the next year, I kept going out with these guys, on every weekend night and on many weekdays, consciously pushing my social comfort zone. Many of them became my best friends.

As for me – bit by bit, I got better. I had more confidence approaching girls I was attracted to, leading interactions, taking phone numbers and so on.

Pickup 101

At the end of November 2006, a post written by a username I’ve never seen before appeared on the forum. It was titled “Pickup 101 is hiring”.

The post started with 2 questions.

“Ever wanted to be part of the PickUp 101 family?”

Me: I never really thought about it. It does sound like a pretty interesting family.

“Want to get paid to flirt with girls?“

Me: “Ummm.. Hell yeah!”

The gist of the post was that PickUp 101, one of the bigger dating coaching companies in America were looking for Australian instructors for some future workshops.

The post went on to describe their ideal candidate. Someone with teaching experience, good “game” (ability with women), a positive and fun person. It sounded just like me!

Those interested were asked to send an e-mail. I quickly wrote something up.

A few days later, I got a reply. It said two PickUp 101 instructors were passing in Brisbane to make a presentation. They asked that I come to see the presentation.

So a week later, on the day of the presentation – there I was, at a local hotel’s conference room. The instructors were positive, confident and down-to-earth guys. I didn’t mind associating myself with people like that at all.

At the end of the presentation I went over and introduced myself to the instructor I corresponded with.

Our conversation was brief. At the end, he said “We’re both going to be at Down Under Bar from 9pm onwards tonight. Come hang out.”

I was clear they wanted to see me “in action”, talking to girls. And it was going to be in my home territory.

Down Under Bar

 

Oh, the memories.

Brisbane’s nightlife during the week isn’t too active.

Down under bar (or “DUB” to its few regulars) was a backpacker party bar located at the lowest floor of Brisbane’s biggest hostel.

Except for Mondays it was always packed. That made it a perfect place to practice approaching and chatting up women for a committed guy like me.

Fair to say I had been there a lot during the preceding year, at least twice a week. I even met my girlfriend at the time there.

It might have been an absolute dive, but it was my dive. I felt completely at home there.

At 9:15pm, fashionably late, I was there to meet the guys.

The two coaches were chatting to a group of cute girls.

I was a little nervous but I knew it was time to perform… I figured the coaches would be observing me closely.

Be still my beating heart. I counted to 3, took a breath and I leaned over into their group, smiled and made eye contact with everyone. I turned to the ladies and said:

“Hey! I see you’ve met my friends.”

The two coaches relatively quiet vibe, but I was high energy and louder. I think I was the shinier object. Within about 2 minutes I was holding court in our little group, with the two instructors by my side. I figured I did well.

“That was pretty impressive buddy.” One of them whispered in my ear. I felt validated.

Two months later, PickUp 101 was to hold a 3-day weekend workshop in Melbourne called “The Art of Attraction”. I got a formal invitation to join as an intern.

BAM.

Art Of Attraction

The participating students in “Art of Attraction” paid a lot of money to be in that weekend workshop. $3000 each to be exact.

That hefty price tag helped explain how PickUp 101 could afford to run the seminar in the conference room of a posh hotel.

Out of all that money, I was only getting paid for my flights to and from Melbourne. I had a nice room I was sharing with another coach.

There student-instructor ratio was good. There were 6 students, 3 coaches who flew from the US, and 3 of us Australian interns.

The workshop was pretty well structured.

During the day we did drills in the classroom. Drills are basically simulation exercises with a goal – fix someone’s body language, hold eye contact, approach a girl, and so on, and learning so you can soon be using a sext for free app with girls.

The students would practice on each other, on the instructors and on female “models”.

After every drill, the instructors, interns and female models gave the participants feedback.

At night we went out together to bars. A few students approached a woman for the first time after I gave them the nerve to do so.It was exciting and gratifying. The atmosphere was electric.

The guys were pushing their boundaries, having a ball with it and getting results.

Art of Rapport

The following weekend, I flew to teach another workshops called “The Art of Rapport”.

The focus of this workshop was on meeting women in regular daily situations, like walking down the street, in a book store or a café.

After doing some drills in the morning, each student got paired with an instructor or an intern, and we hit the town – literally.

I was assigned to Brad, a nervous and stiff 28-year old carpenter. He was absolutely terrified of approaching anyone in the middle of the day, even to ask for the time or directions. To buy time, he asked me to “demonstrate” first.

So I did. I walked up to a pretty girl, told her she was cute and that I just wanted to meet her.

And… That was the first time I ever approached a girl in the middle of the day in my life – while teaching someone how to approach in the middle of the day. Of course it all worked out. It was just talking to another person…

And eventually, even Brad managed to get over fears that day and approach some girls.

“Good work, Brad!” I said as I slapped his shoulder, proud, when he came back from an approach.

I loved every moment of teaching in those workshops. It seemed like a win-win-win.

I was solidifying a lot of confidence and conversation fundamentals by teaching them to guys.

I was getting free flights and accommodation.

And most importantly, I got to help guys out.

I did all of this while getting to talk to cute girls.

I thought it was the coolest job in the world, and even my girlfriend at the time agreed.

What do you want to do in life?

In the following 6 months, I was flown to teach in 4 more workshops – 2 more “Art of Attraction” and 2 more “Art of Rapport” ones. The workshops were always held on weekends and so it was easy to fit them into my full-time university study schedule.

Eventually though, my relationship with PU101 broke and I had stopped teaching for them. It’s a long story…

In the rest of my life, I graduated from university with a degree in Computer Science and was working as a programmer in a local Brisbane company. Something didn’t feel great though.

On a visit home, my parents asked me what I planned to do now that I graduated. Was I going to stay in my programming job?

“No. I have a different plan for the next few years. I want to do 2 things.

“Be a dating coach and learn how to make money online.”

I didn’t know how I was going to do any of it, but about 6 months after graduation I decided to take some action. I let my boss know I couldn’t keep working for them – I was going to move to Melbourne.

Melbourne lair

I had some money saved. I loaded my little Ford Laser (affectionately called “Jill”) with all of my worldly belongings, and during 3 days drove the 1800- kilometer journey from Brisbane to Melbourne.

I had a few friends in Melbourne, and I moved in with them.

I didn’t really plan how I’d become a dating coach. I realized that maybe, for money, I might have to find another IT job.

I did have some time though. I had my savings and was in no particular rush.

Naturally, just like I had in Brisbane, I joined the Melbourne Lair.

On my first post, I introduced myself as a recent arrival to Melbourne, told people I had coached for an international company.

I told everyone that I found coaching very rewarding, and was happy to coach one student, for-free, for a few months.

I asked people who were interested to write me an e-mail and tell me a bit about themselves. I expected maybe 5 people to write in.

Instead, I received 20 e-mails. Whoa.

But it’s easy to write an e-mail to someone thinking they would fix your life. If I was to take a free student, I wanted him to put serious effort into it.

To make sure I only pick a serious student, I sent all applicants a questionnaire with 10 open ended questions.

10 serious guys wrote back. I decided to respect the time and effort they put into this by meeting each and every one of them for coffee.

I wanted to give each of them some value, even if I wouldn’t pick them as my free student.

In the meeting, I really drilled down with each of them. I helped them define what they wanted to achieve in their dating life, and see where they were stuck.

Then, I gave all of them a small homework mission to do – something which would push them in the right direction towards their goals, but be just enough outside of their comfort zone to provide a worthy challenge.

First client

Eventually I chose one of the guys.

I wrote the rest of the guys to let them know they weren’t picked. I also asked how their homework assignment went and encouraged them to ask me questions if they had them.

To my surprise, of the 9 guys I didn’t pick, 3 wrote and told me that they wanted to hire me for some coaching!

One of the guys was the owner of a successful software company. He asked me how much I would charge for a night of coaching.

I didn’t expect any of this to happen, so I had no idea!

I decided to charge $70 an hour, because that sounded like something between “a lot of money” and “affordable”.

Now I had my first paid coaching client. I had to be ready. But I had a lot of field experience, read a ton about the topic, and had solid philosophy in this area.

Before heading out, we met in his apartment to talk some philosophy. I told him to focus on having fun first. If he wasn’t having fun talking to someone, he should leave. Next, try to give value to other people. Make other people have fun, give value.

The night was wild. He had a lot of balls and really pushed himself. We had a blast.

At the end of the night, we were in a lounge bar chatting with two cute ladies. My client was holding hands with one of them under the table, making strong eye contact, sharing a moment.

The next day I got this text message from him:

“I’m giving value all day. Feels great to give for a change. My batteries are recharging. For the first time in ages someone has given me permission to do only what adds to my emotional wellbeing. Crazy good stuff man. Nuts wrapped in chocolate.”

Not only did I seriously make his life better, but in those 5.5 hours out, I made enough to pay rent for the month for my tiny room.

I had an awesome night out, made my first money in Melbourne, and I made a difference in this guy’s life. I figured it was a sign. I was meant to be a dating coach, and now finally all the stars were aligning.

Warm Alpha

So I started my own little dating coaching company, called “Warm Alpha”. It was the first time I started a business. I had no idea what I was doing, and it wasn’t always easy.
Many early business mistakes meant I ate through a lot of my savings.

I thought being a good dating coach would mean there would always be students knocking on my door asking me to coach them. It wasn’t so easy.

Either way, eventually, I figured out how to market myself. I played with price points and various services, and eventually managed to find a few that I enjoyed offering, made enough money, and had demand.

My favorite was a 2-day weekend workshop on nothing but conversations. The other was taking a student out during the day to approach women “in-field”.

I eventually went on to teach dozens of workshops in Australia, as well as one in Japan. I taught other students in online workshops, spoke at public talks and conferences. I stayed a full-time dating coach for 3 years, and quit only when I decided to focus on financial freedom. I even had this cool little 10-minute documentary made about me:

Conclusions

I really wanted to become a dating coach. Initially it sounded like a cool idea. Then I got to practice doing it, working for someone else. And then, I did it for myself, eventually.

My biggest lessons were to focus on learning the required skills, and then to give value.

Working for PickUp 101 taught me a lot on how to structure a workshop, and how to really help dating students.

I may not have gotten paid when I was an intern – but that didn’t matter. I got to learn the skills and structure I needed to coach by myself. That was worth a lot more than money.

My lesson here is, which I’ve repeated when I wanted to educate myself in internet marketing – find a job that would teach you the skills you want to use by yourself. I was lucky to have had that opportunity, and applied for it the second it popped up.

When I arrived in Melbourne, things happened quicker than I thought. I figured I would build a reputation for myself in the forums. I wanted to take a student and really help change his life. I figured this would be a good way to give value, and show off my capacities.

What happened was that I found people wanting to be my clients, the good thing is now a days we can also use a meet and fuck free site to meet even more girls.

This happened because I focused on giving value.

The lesson here – give enough value, help people solve their issues in life, and eventually, money will come. Sometimes giving value for free is the best way to start a business.

In other words, become good at solving people’s problems, and then go out of your way to solve them.

At least, that was my way to become a dating coach.