We were lucky to catch up with Amber Lee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Amber, appreciate you joining us today. Your ability to build a team is often a key determinant of your success as a business owner and so we’d love to get a conversation going with successful entrepreneurs like yourself around what your recruiting process was like -especially early on. How did you build your team?

Select Date Society is a luxury matchmaking firm focused on getting our clients into long-term relationships. We are not a dating service, so our process is much slower paced than dating apps, yet highly effective. We have used the same strategy for hiring our team, preferring to build slowly and effectively vs hiring quickly. We have definitely used the approach of hiring slowly and firing fast if it’s not the right fit. When we launched in 2020, our team consisted of me and my co-founder, Sandra Myers as well as one recruiter. We now have a team of 8. We have made it our policy to only hire experienced matchmakers with stellar reputations in the industry. That means that we offer a competitive compensation package to attract the top talent in the industry and we strive to keep our team happy and excited about the work they do! Most of our hires have come through direct connections to someone on our team, which speaks to the fact that we take care of our team and they tell others in the industry that Select Date Society is a great place to work. By hiring matchmakers who are directly referred to us through our current team members, we’re able to expedite the training process because we already have an idea of each persons strengths and weaknesses before they start with us. The majority of our clients come from direct referrals and we have built our team in the same way!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I began my career as a professional matchmaker in 1998 and spent over 20 years in the matchmaking industry before launching Select Date Society with my co-founder, Sandra Myers. Sandra and I were colleagues working for another matchmaking firm and we always talked about how we could do matchmaking better, with the idea of focusing on clients, rather than focusing on revenue. On May 10th, 2020, I suffered a sudden cardiac arrest and survived after having my heart re-started with a defibrillator. That was the catalyst we needed to move forward with launching SDS! I called Sandra from my hospital bed and told her that I wasn’t going back to work for someone else. Nearly dying puts into perspective just how short life is, and I knew that we had something unique to bring to the world that we needed to start. We got to work building a website, setting up the business, and reaching out to our networks. Less than a month later, Select Date Society was born!

Our focus has always been on taking care of the client. Since launching SDS, we have had more client success than I had experienced in my previous two decades of matchmaking. Our laser focus and results oriented process has resulted in many happy partnerships, engagements, and marriages! We have truly become the gold standard for what a luxury matchmaking firm should be. We work with high net worth singles who value discretion and privacy. Our clients are not going to post profiles on dating apps, so they are seeking a better way to find love. They trust us with this important area of their life, typically finding us by being directly referred by someone who we have successfully matched.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Sandra Myers and I met in 2009 when we were both working for a franchised dating service. We both loved the client work in matching up individuals who were looking for love. We shared the same frustration in that the owner of the company was focused on revenue rather than client success. In fact, that owner seemed to completely dismiss the need to get the client to their end goal and was instead focused on simply fulfilling the client contract by getting them out on dates as quickly as possible. Sandra and I both agreed that if we could work with a limited number of clients, and truly focus on getting them to their desired outcome, we could build a successful, referral-based business. We had the vision for Select Date Society for years before we actually took action to launch the business.

Sandra and I have become great business partners because we complement each other, both bringing different strengths to the business. I think many people make the mistake of seeking out a business partner who is just like them, when they should actually be seeking out someone who sees things differently!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

In the matchmaking business, reputation is everything! Our clients choose to trust us with the most important area of our life because we have a stellar reputation. We are fiercely protective of our reputation, which means that we don’t take on clients who we do not feel confident in representing. We are not the right matchmakers for everyone and we have not built a one size fits all business. We are completely transparent with potential clients, often referring singles to other resources if we are not the right fit for them.

Sandra and I have made it a priority to connect with and collaborate with other top matchmakers in the industry. We have always been willing to share what we have learned with others, knowing that we can help lead the industry in having high standards and doing meaningful work. We have spoken at conferences, been recognized in the media, and openly shared our experiences to help elevate the industry as a whole.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://selectdatesociety.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selectdatesociety/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/selectdatesociety
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/select-date-society/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj-gv89nx50sEbUJIGc2_eg