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7 Steps to Improve Your Dating by up to 1100%
by Dr. Alex Benzer
of Tao of Dating
April 2nd, 2008
Yesterday, I was thinking about my background before starting The Tao of Dating. I used to work in the drug industry -- you know, big pharmaceutical companies. And it struck me that my training in the ways of that industry was strangely relevant to the world of dating.
Really?
Well, allow me to explain.
The way you develop a drug and ultimately bring it to market is through the 'pipeline' model. You start out with a bunch of candidates. A lot of them, actually -- thousands upon thousands.
Then you screen this initial batch to find out if there any good candidates. Most of them are going to be complete duds. A small percentage will have the effect you're looking for. Those you keep and move along to the next phase.
Now, you test the drugs for toxicity. You toss the ones that have unacceptable side effects and keep the rest -- again, only a small percentage of this batch.
Now, you take this new batch, and you test it for efficacy. How well do these candidates work? You keep the good ones and toss the rest.
There are many more steps to this, but you can see where this is going. There's a linear weeding-out process going on here. You start out with many candidates at the top of the pipeline, and end up with one or just a few at the end.
A simple insight, which I'm sure you've already had yourself, is that the more candidates you have coming into the pipeline, the more winners you can have at the end. Simple law of numbers.
Now let's apply this to dating. You're starting out with a large number of candidates -- the entire female population of the world.
Of those, a vast number get eliminated because you never meet them. Another bunch get eliminated because they're already taken, or the wrong age, or not your type.
Now you're left with local, single women who are your type. This is the start of your dating pipeline.
I've identified seven phases in this pipeline. If you look back on the relationships you've had, you'll see that almost all of them went through these steps:
1) Find.
Are you going to the places where there are women who are interesting to you? What is the size of the total pool of women in your living area that you could potentially date?
2) Meet.
Of those that catch your fancy, how many are you actually saying 'Hi' to?
3) Get contact information.
Okay, now you made the first contact. Did you get a phone number or email?
4) Follow-up.
After you got the information, did you actually follow up with her in a timely manner?
5) Second encounter.
Did that follow-up turn into a date?
6) Progression to intimacy.
Did that first date turn into some kind of physical intimacy down the line?
7) Third encounter and beyond.
Were there repeat dates after the first?
Like the drug pipeline, you start out with a large number of undifferentiated candidates. And then, gradually, the initial group gets whittled down to smaller and smaller numbers. The process is multiplicative -- each step builds on the previous one. Thus, most of the candidates get eliminated.
That's the bad news. The good news is this: the process is multiplicative! Which means that an improvement in ANY one of the steps reverberates throughout the chain.
And if you're able to improve your performance in multiple steps of the chain, you can improve your overall results MASSIVELY.
What am I talking about here? Well, let's say you improve your performance by a measly 30% in each of steps 2-6.
For example, this means you talk to 4 girls in one night instead of 3. You follow up with 8 instead of just 6. You catch my drift.
A 30% improvement in those 6 steps leads to an overall improvement of 482%!
That's almost five times as much dating success than you started out with -- however you choose to define dating success.
My definition of dating success has always been around fulfillment. And often it takes only one really good woman to have all the fulfillment you can handle.
I've always said that if you use the principles in The Tao of Dating, you will have more women in your life than you can possible handle.
And that number is usually anything greater than zero. It's not like you're Pfizer and need 12 blockbuster drugs to keep you going.
However, what will happen is that as you improve your skills in each step of the pipeline, you'll start to get more candidates who make it all the way through.
And then they start to accumulate, which is what I call a 'high-quality problem.' And believe me, it will be a challenge. I look forward to your having to deal with that ļ
Now let's say you're a real trooper and you improve your results in each phase by 50%. That would mean improving your bottom line by a factor of 150% to the sixth power -- or
1139%!
Okay, this is getting a little theoretical here. You're probably not going to start out with one girlfriend this week and 11 the next. But you do get the idea -- small improvements, systematically applied, can lead to HUGE results.
In some departments, you can improve by 100-300% overnight. You can do that by saying hi to 4 women a day when before you were just saying hi to one.
Done deal.
But are you actually going to go out and do that now that I've told you about it?
For some of you hardy, diligent souls out there, the answer is yes. All it takes is reading this article here, and you're off to the races.
More power to you, but over the years, I've figured out that I'm not one of those people. It really helps me to have some encouragement along the way.
Turns out that most people are like me. You do a lot better with some coaching and encouragement. A little accountability. A little mentorship. A deadline here or there.
As much as we're all interested in growth and self-improvement, there are ways in which it works and ways in which it works even better. Many of my students found a monthlong coaching program quite valuable, so you may wish to seek out something like that yourself.
Speaking of value, in these articles, we have a tradition of always providing usable solutions whenever we define a challenge. The challenge is making your pipelines more efficient. So here are some suggestions for each phase:
1) Find
There are only so many hours during the day, so spend them in the right spots.
If you have a choice between going to the snazzy supermarket where all the cute, gainfully employed girls are and the beat up one where there are none, go to the snazzy one.
If you have a choice between a bar and art gallery opening, go to the latter. And sign up for a night class. This is straight out of The Tao of Dating Chapter 6, 'Find'.
2) Meet
Use the two-hit system. This means you automatically say 'Hi' to every woman you meet, before you even have a chance to think about it. Then follow up a few minutes later, easily and naturally, since you've already made contact once.
3) Get contact information.
Do this as EARLY as possible and at the PEAK of rapport, not at the end as the rapport is waning and you both need to run off to catch your ride. This alone will improve this step by over 50%.
4) Follow up.
Have a system: write down all of your new contacts on a master list when you come back home at night or first thing in the morning. Now schedule them for email follow-up within 48 hours -- no later.
5) First date.
Think about setting up the first date WHEN YOU FIRST MEET HER. Figure out what interests you share, and keep in mind cool events you could bring her to. That way, when you call her up, it's just to cement in the logistics of the date, not to ask her out cold. Another 50%+ technique.
6) Progression to intimacy.
Sit at right angles or next to her if possible -- never face-to-face. Start by casually touching her in 'safe zones' -- hands, forearms, shoulder -- and notice her response. If she's okay with it or she reciprocates, take the lead and proceed to the next phase.
7) Repeat business.
If you had a good time with her, send her a message indicating such the next day -- especially if there was physical intimacy involved.
Hope you find all of that useful.
The power is within you,
Dr Alex
PS: Can you think of two friends who would also find this article useful? Then send it to them! They'll thank you for it.
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