What's your advice to someone who wants to be a professional matchmaker?
What we created at the Matchmaking Institute is really a way to organize the researching of the business in your area. So you'd want to know, how many matchmakers are in your area? What type of income do people make? Get an idea of the business in your area. What else exists there? And then if you learn about it and if you're taught through the Matchmaking Institute, you're really learning about what the business is around the world, and then locally in your market. What other business exists, the history of matchmaking, how to do dating/relationship coaching, how to do sales, how to really open up your business, get your first client, and really have that support network. And I think that coming from a social work background where you had to get your master's, and then you could get certified, and then you belonged to a network with resources and referrals -- that hadn't existed in the matchmaking industry before we created it in 2003. So we have a school, we have training, we have a network of matchmakers around the world. We have resources of potential matches for your first clients. We have referrals of singles to matchmakers, and leads for the press, as well as business opportunities. So I think that's a really viable way to enter into the matchmaking industry with a lot of support and following the code of ethics and accountability and supportive peers, conferences, etc. I think that that's a really good way to enter into the matchmaking industry without making a lot of the mistakes that a lot of matchmakers make.
