Erika Ettin - Love at First Site: Tips and Tales for Online Dating Success from a Modern-Day Matchmaker

Published by River Grove Books
Austin, TX
www.rivergrovebooks.com

Copyright 2014 A Little Nudge LLC
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Distributed by River Grove Books
For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact River Grove Books at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group
Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group
Cover photo by Joe LeBlanc

eBook ISBN: 978-1-63299-014-3

eBook Edition

Other Edition(s):
Print ISBN: 978-1-63299-013-6

For anyone who has ever followed a passion, leaving the beaten path and instead pursuing the road less traveled. And, of course, for all of the amazing single men and women out there who might need a little nudge to go after what they want.

My journey as an entrepreneur has not been a straight path, but rather a winding road that took me through an economics degree in college, a seven-and-a-half-year career in finance, and an MBA at night. All of this happened before I realized my true callingwriting and helping people with online dating. I learned that its more important to take a risk and follow your dreams than to have a comfortable, yet not exciting, career even if you end up working three times the number of hours you did before!

Thank you to my family and my friends for your continued support and encouragement. I would not be who I am today without your support. I want to specifically thank my mom Joyce and my sister Elyse, who painstakingly read each and every one of my articles before they were published. I would also like to thank my friend Betsy, who is the best cheerleader a gal could ask for. In addition, I want to thank the team at Sixth & I for inadvertently coming up with my book title. I love you all!

You may be wondering how I got into the crazy field of online dating consulting. Good question. Its not like Cornell offered a class called Online Dating 101 when I was there. (I bet that would have been a fun class, though!) I was actually an early adopter of online dating, starting to use JDate (a site to meet a Jewish partner) in 2001, which was well before people really had any idea what it was all about. My parents, naturally, flipped out, thinking I was going to meet some psycho-killer, or worse, someone who wasnt worthy of their daughter! The worst that happened, of course, was a few bad dates with some socially awkward men er boys who were clueless as to what dating actually entailed. But why not try? I was technologically savvy. I mean, I did have a cell phone in college before anyone else did, even if it was this giant blue boxy thing that I didnt want anyone to know I had. (It was very uncool to have a cell phone back then. My, how times have changed!)

I had some relationships throughout college and afterwards, some with people I met while online dating and others I met in real life. Between every relationship, though, I logged back onto JDate, thinking, What if? In 2009, I made a major push to meet the man of my dreams. And as someone who gets really focused on a project (in other words, Im fairly Type A), I rarely do anything halfway. I was often going on four, five, or six dates a week (no shame in booking two back-to-back dates in one evening). At that point, my friends were taking notice. I was getting questions from them like, What are you doing that Im not? and Will you read my profile to see if its any good? Someone I had once gone out with for about two months even asked me to look at his profile. At that point, I knew I had something going for me. So, I proceeded to write and rewrite friends profiles, and lo and behold, they did better, getting more attention online and going on more dates.

On the other side of my life, I was working at Fannie Mae. (I think my last job title there was Senior Financial Economist. Not too shabby, right?) While it was a great job and the work was somewhat interestingthough not really to meI knew I couldnt spend the rest of my life behind a desk or in a cubicle. In fact, my former boss tried to urge me to find a more fulfilling career long before I decided that for myself. With some deep thought and some urging from my boyfriend at the time (yes, from JDate), I took a leap of faith and quit my job at Fannie Mae to move on to greener pastures. In my case, these greener pastures were in the form of starting my own business, A Little Nudge.

Ironically enough, even though I had my MBA, I felt like I didnt know the first thing about actually starting a business. Yes, I did know how to write an excellent business plan, and since my background is in economics, I knew that keeping the finances for the business wouldnt be a problem. I didnt know the basic things, though, like taking credit card payments (the iPhone/iPad plug-ins like Square didnt yet exist) or building a website. So I did a lot of reading, got my ducks in a row, and declared that my last day at Fannie Mae would be March 25, 2011. That was one of the best decisions Ive ever made.

I started with some beta clientsa friend, a former coworker (who volunteered himself when I sent my Im leaving email to my team at Fannie Mae), and a friends cousinall three of whom are now happily married. (Insert pat on the back here.) Then I was open for business. Since then, I have worked with hundreds of clients all around the United States and other countries, including Israel, Australia, and the UK. I help people with all aspects of online dating, from writing a profile to catch someones attention to sending emails that get noticed to planning dates.

I have never been as happy as I am doing the work Im doing, both as an entrepreneur and as a dating coach. Seeing my clients, many of whom are now married or engaged, in happy relationships or simply getting them out there again fills my life with such a sense of pride.

Im hoping that, with this book, you not only learn how to online date effectively, but you also get to share in the joy that I get from helping people. As youll see, this book is mainly geared towards opposite-sex couples, but all of the same concepts apply for same-sex couples as well.

In this section, youll learn:

• Which online dating photos work and which dont
• How many photos to use in your profile
• Why the photos are so darn important anyway
• Whether or not taking professional photos is a good idea

Anyone who has ever used an online dating site will understand when I say that some peoples profile pictures are, well, less than flattering. Ive seen it allthe shirtless bathroom selfie (often with dirty laundry sitting in the background), the photos of your last ski trip where all I can see is some guy in a ski mask, and the photo of you sleeping.

When it comes to online dating photos, I recommend using only three to five. With this in mind, lets look at the five rules of thumb for choosing your online dating photos.

On most online dating sites, you come up as a thumbnail, or a tiny, postage stamp-sized image that allows someone to briefly sneak a peek at you. If your photo is blurry or youre standing too far away from the camera, people cant see what you look like, so they wont even get as far as clicking on your profile.