Based out of Miami, Florida, Incredible Love is a premiere matchmaking and dating coaching service founded and run by Michelle G. As a Veteran of 13 years, Michelle draws on her unique intelligence background in the Marines to fuel her unique matchmaking process. In today’s interview, Matt Seymour got a chance to ask Michelle all about Incredible Love, how it works, who the ideal customer is, and what is in store in the future for current and potential clients.
Let’s check that interview out now.
Full Incredible Love Matchmaking Interview Transcript
Matt Seymour:
Hi everyone, this is Matt from Healthy Framework. Today I’m very excited to be joined by Michelle G, the CEO and Chief Matchmaker of Incredible Love. Michelle, thank you so much for joining.
Michelle G.:
Hi, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me and excited to talk about love because that’s the business we’re in.
Matt Seymour:
Well, hey, let’s dive right in. Can you tell me first what separates Incredible Love from the rest of the matchmaking services that are out there?
Michelle G.:
That’s a great question. First off, let me just say that the matchmaking community, as a collective, we are a really tight-knit community believe it or not. We really do collaborate, support one another because we’re such a small community. With that being said, I would say that Incredible Love is really different based off of three areas. The first area is there is no other company CEO that has a background like mine. I served 13 years in the Marine Corps. I was an intelligence analyst and dealt with a lot of major conflicts, conflict resolution at a very high level, and I feel like I bring that to the table and that really does separate how we do things inside of the company from everyone else. Integrity first and foremost, all of my team members know that. So I feel that my background and the way that I run things really does keep a nice tight ship, but we’re able to have a lot of fun and we help our clients and we help them feel like family. We make them feel like they’re a part of our family. That would be the first thing.
The second thing would be that everything that we do in our company is science based. So my background, my degree is in social psychology, and I soon will be pursuing my master’s degree. And one of the reasons why we do things that way is because you can’t argue with facts. Facts are there. It really does give you solid metrics and indicators of what’s happening in the space. And so that’s really important to us. And so everything that we do is based on that. The third that I would say is, Incredible Love is it’s a promise. We want you to find that so we work really hard at helping you manifest and find that incredible love in your life.
Matt Seymour:
I like it. Those are awesome, amazing differentiators that you guys have, for sure. So if somebody’s interested in the possibility of Incredible Love, how would you describe the ideal customer that you guys are designed for?
Michelle G.:
So part of our differentiators that we’ve noticed over the years is that our ideal customer has changed over time. But what’s something that does remain is that it is a person who’s really relationship minded committed. And I will say that it doesn’t even have to be a person. Most people will say, oh, when you’re in your thirties, you’re really ready for that relationship, or that’s when you have your life together. And I’d have to say that what I’ve seen over time has been people who are in their early to mid twenties who really just have had a vast amount of life experiences and looking for that special someone. Our ideal customer is a man or a woman who is focused on having a serious relationship, open to growth. Part of our services and part of what we do is we always provide some coaching because we feel like you have some emotional blind spots and sometimes you need that mirror to be able to reflect back to you, Hey, these are some areas where you can improve, where you can grow to help you be a better partner.
Our clients range from being tech entrepreneurs to single professionals, to divorcees, to celebrities, to politicians. We’ve worked with politicians. The core of our business discretion is of the utmost. My team and I really know that. We’ve worked with different people who don’t want their information out there, and we do exactly that. So I would say that, and then lastly, lately what we’ve seen, because things have been changing just in society, a lot of the matches that we’re doing is really interracial. So it’s really been people who are open to dating outside of their culture and who are also open to dating outside of across state line, even crossing the pond, if you will. I’ve made a match between Virginia and Okinawa, Japan, which is my favorite all time story, but it’s possible. Love if you’re open to it, love is out there. I believe there is a pot for every lid.
Matt Seymour:
All right, I like it. A question that I had, and I think a lot of our readers do, is hiring a personalized matchmaker service like you guys is obviously more expensive than using your traditional dating app and just Tinder, take your pick. How would you rationalize the cost to somebody that might be concerned about the higher price tag?
Michelle G.:
Well, and I get that question a lot. Here’s what I’m going to say. Take how many years, however long you’ve been single, and if you begin to start adding the cost of the dates, gas, clothing, getting ready. For women getting our hair done, eyebrows, all that stuff. For men, shaving your beard, getting a fresh haircut, all those things. When you really think about it, you’ve already been spending the money, but you’ve been spending the money really blind. You haven’t had someone who’s there to personally guide you. And you have to do all the legwork. So what I tell individuals when they’re saying to me, “Oh my God, but that’s such a high price tag. What do I do? I don’t think I can afford that.”
I say, “You know what? You’ve probably already spent that or maybe close to that or maybe even more in this process of trying to find your partner. Now, you don’t have to do any of the legwork. All you have to do is show up for the date. You get to pick. We show you your matches. You get to tell us, yep, this one, this one, this one. And then you sit back, get ready for the date and go in there stress free.” The most important thing is peace of mind and just not being stressed out. A matchmaker brings that peace of mind. Plus you have a coach, you have someone in your corner who’s there to support you on this journey. I mean, for our team, when we take on clients and sometimes our clients are like, oh my God, this is really scary. I’ve never done this. Am I a loser? Does this make me weird?
Part of what we have to do is be able to create that mindset shift, and when that mindset shift happens, it’s amazing to see that it’s not only in dating, but it ends up happening also in effect in seeing the results of that in other areas of their life.
Matt Seymour:
And that’s good color and perspective, I think, for somebody that just hasn’t thought through it, of just the amount of time that goes into that. Switching gears a little bit, would you say, again, somebody interested in this for the first time, are there any potential drawbacks to using a matchmaker that people should be aware of?
Michelle G.:
I wouldn’t necessarily say that there are drawbacks in using a matchmaker. What I will say is it’s really important to understand a couple of things. Number one, all matchmakers are not created equal. All matchmakers are not coaches. Some matchmakers are just matchmakers and they’re really fantastic at them at that. And then some matchmakers are great coaches and matchmakers. So you got to really be clear on what it is that, what’s your objective. Is your objective just to be set up on matches or is your objective to also use this as a journey of personal growth? Secondly, again, this isn’t a drawback, but we got to remember that us matchmakers, we do our best and we are not magicians, by no means we are definitely not magicians, and I think that people have an expectation that we’re going to just pull everything out. Matchmaking is a lot of hard work.
It takes a lot of time and tension, and so patience is something that we tell our clients like, “Please be patient because you’re coming to me and paying that for that price tag, but there’s a reason for that because we’re going to give you quality.” And I would say the third item would be being open. Our job as a matchmaker is to be able to push you a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Yes, you come to us with a list of all the things that you’re looking for, but it’s also us taking that list, taking stock of that list together and being able to see, at the end of the day, what’s truly important. Is a person who has hair really important three or five years from now or 10 years from now, where they’re going to start losing their hair? How much weight do we put on the list that a person has? And I would say that that’s our job as a matchmaker to just push you a little bit outside your comfort zone.
Matt Seymour:
No, that makes total sense. That’s why people are paying for the services and your background with it. Excellent. Would you say that there’s anything unique about the way that you might find matches for someone?
Michelle G.:
So I would say that, yeah, there’s a couple of things unique. Because of my background, I definitely do have such a great community of military service members, a lot of people who are in three letter agencies just because of my background, the relationships that I’ve built. I think something else that’s unique is we encourage our people to ask their friends, introduce us to their friends also to see if there’s matches that we can make, because sometimes people just get in their own way and they’re not able to see the forest through the trees. So I think that’s something that’s unique. And I think also our approach, our approach to how we present our matches, we are very discreet about it. We are also, anytime that I say or any of my team members say, “Hey, I’m a matchmaker.” I promise you there’s a circle of people around us telling about the 15th date that they had with Tinder and how Hinge doesn’t work and how OkCupid sucks and you know what I mean?
So it comes with the job but I will say that it’s a lot of fun and in those interactions, it’s really interesting how people, once you hear them out, they feel more comfortable and open to the idea of possibly being matched and not feeling like, oh, there’s something wrong with me, or it’s taboo.
Matt Seymour:
That makes sense. And transitioning a little bit, you touched on this a little earlier when you said, keep in mind you guys aren’t magicians. So wondering, have you ever struggled to find an ideal match for a client and if so, what’s your process when that happens?
Michelle G.:
Absolutely. There have been some clients that, I mean, typically we’re not saying, okay, we make that assessment in the beginning. How matchable is this person? And sometimes we make the assessment and maybe the person, there’s some things that change or possibly it becomes a little bit challenging, not because the person’s not worthy or not because the person’s not a great partner, but just certain nuances when it comes to very specific things, whether it’s ethnicity or political beliefs or religion. So when that happens we always, first and foremost, is to maintain communication with the client because we don’t want the client to feel like, okay, I’m out here doing all these things and I’m just disappeared and you don’t know what’s going on. So we involve the client as a part of the process just to let them know and offer different alternatives.
That’s the biggest thing what we do in terms of when that happens, because when there’s a challenge that arises, we just got to be honest about it. But I promise you, me and my team, we just hit the ground running and we start thinking of alternative creative approaches. Could we do some sort of social campaign if the client’s open to it? Could we do some sort of private mixer or some way to be able to bring in more matches for that person and also for them to feel like, look, you are wanted. It’s just we can’t manufacture chemistry, but we definitely are going to introduce you to someone that’s fantastic.
Matt Seymour:
Those are some excellent ideas on how to approach it if you guys are hitting a few roadblocks along the way. Changing gears a little bit, would you say there are any misconceptions about matchmakers that you’d like people to better understand?
Michelle G.:
I think I mentioned it a little bit earlier. Number one is matchmakers are not magicians. While our service for, I can speak for Incredible Love, our service does guarantee a minimum amount of matches. We provide really high quality customer service. At the end of the day, a matchmaker cannot promise you that the person within that time period she’s going to introduce you to or he’s going to introduce you to is going to be the love of your life. That’s one thing that we can’t guarantee, and if anyone ever guarantees that, run. That’s what I’m going to say. But what I will say is another misconception, I think people think that us, as matchmakers, we have it all figured out and we don’t. We are humans too. We just happen to be in this business because personal experiences, curiosity or we just have a knack for it and a lot of talent. But remember that we’re also human at the end of the day and struggle as well.
Matt Seymour:
Those are excellent points. Thank you for sharing those there. Something a little bit different. Wondering if you have any metrics that you’re able to share with us. Obviously not looking for the secret sauce or anything, but anything like, let’s say the average time it takes to find a match, success rates, number of clients, anything along those lines that you might be willing to share?
Michelle G.:
Hey Matt, I think I had asked Stacy to remove this question from… This is the only question that I had requested.
Matt Seymour:
Thank you for the reminder. I forgot to strike it out beforehand, so I’m going to make a note here. Thank you for that. Sorry, I did not get that beforehand, but this is where we’ll just have the team edit that. Thank you for that. Changing gears. No worries. Excellent. So Michelle, your company’s based out of Miami, Florida. Is there anything unique about dating in Florida or Miami that you could share with us?
Michelle G.:
Miami. Miami, the magic city. It’s not called the magic city for nothing because the moment I feel that you step in Miami, you just get enthralled with the energy in the air. It’s just like you can’t help it. The music, the food, the people, it’s fantastic. What I would say is Miami also can be a place, and I find that it’s not just Miami, but it’s major cities as well. It can be really challenging to find your match because it may feel like through the dating apps that you might have so many different options. Also, I think Vegas has a reputation of what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and so people have a very transcendental state of mind. So when people come to Miami, they adopt that same attitude, what happens in Miami stays in Miami, but there is a huge community. There are local people who are a lot of people who are looking for love. There’s a lot of serious people. Yes, Miami is a city that loves to party and everything else, but that doesn’t take away from people really looking for relationships.
But I love Miami. It’s got my heart.
Matt Seymour:
Perfect. Piggybacking off of that a little bit, your company also is in several other cities. Would you say there are any unique dating trends that stand out in any of the other cities that you service?
Michelle G.:
I think I will say that unique trends would be, it really does depend on what coast. So we work with clients in San Diego. People are a little bit more laid back, more focused on health, more focused on other areas where maybe in other cities, people are a little bit, maybe might not be as focused on fitness and health, but they might be focused more on outdoor things. So people are different and have adopted to whatever major city they’re from. With that being said, every major city struggles and every major city always says to me, “Hey, I can’t seem to find good man and a good woman out here, or are there any good people?” And what I say to them is, “There’s 42 million singles just in America, northern continent. I promise you there’s someone in your city that’s there for you. You might just not be looking in the right places.” It’s like wanting to buy a Maserati, but you go to the Lexus dealership, why would you do that? You go to the Maserati dealership.
Matt Seymour:
That makes good sense. That’s a really good set there. So to close out, and I know you mentioned one earlier, I don’t know if you build off of that one or another one, but I wanted to see if you had a favorite success story. I remember earlier mentioned somebody, I want to say maybe it was Virginia and Okinawa but I don’t know if that’s a favorite success story you’d like to share or a different one, but wanted to turn it to you to close out there for a favorite success story.
Michelle G.:
Yes, that is my favorite one. So this amazing woman, she owns a marketing agency, and we met through a networking mixer and she had been on and off with a gentleman for about six years and finally she said, No more. I’m done with this guy.” Hence, we end up connecting, we end up meeting and we have a conversation and she’s like, “Look, I’m really looking for something serious”, blah, blah, blah. And then she orders a very specific drink, which is a bourbon, and then she’s a football fan, and I start learning all these things about her that I had no idea. And immediately I say to her on that meeting, I said, “You know what? I actually think I have the perfect guy for you.” And she’s like, “No way. No way. You’re such a liar. There’s no such thing. I don’t believe you.” Literally, this is after 25 minutes of us talking.
I said, okay. I said, “Am I able to scan the earth? Can he be far and wide or does he have to be in California?” She’s like, “At this point he can be in China and I’d be okay with it.” I was like, “All right, well funny you say that. He’s in Japan, he’s active duty military, getting ready to retire, has had an honorable career for all this time. And funny enough, he’s been single for quite some time and looking for his better half.” And she’s like, “Wow, I didn’t think you would really be serious.” I was like, yeah, I mean, he’s in Japan. I’m like, “Well, look, how about this? I’ll introduce you both through Facebook. I’ll connect you both. I’ll let you guys both start talking, and then from there we’ll see how it goes.” She’s like, “Fine.” She was super skeptical.
Fast forward a couple of days later, I introduced them. I had already talked to him and he was like, “Yeah, I’m open to it. I’m going to be over there”, blah, blah, blah. Next thing I know, they start talking day and night, day and night, day and night. A month later, she flies to Virginia. He flies from Okinawa to Virginia. Two months later she goes to Japan. Three months later they’re engaged.
Matt Seymour:
Wow.
Michelle G.:
And it’s just a testament that love knows no boundaries. It’s a testament to the fact that when two people find each other and they love each other and they see a future with one another and are aligned in values and goals and morals, distance doesn’t exist. It works itself out. So for anyone who’s watching, if you’ve ever been hesitant of trying to find somewhere or dating someone outside of your comfort zone, give it a try. You might be that next Lisa and Keith story.
Matt Seymour:
Excellent. Well, that’s an amazing story. Thank you for sharing that. And I think it does speak to the truth, like you said, that it often doesn’t matter when all the stars align, love happens. Excellent. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for joining today. Definitely appreciate your time. I think we should probably check in again, maybe another three or six months and just see what the latest and greatest is. But we do appreciate you giving us color today into your organization and Incredible Love. So thank you for taking the time.
Michelle G.:
Thank you so much for having me.
Matt Seymour:
Absolutely.