Our main objective here at the National Coach Academy is to enable aspiring coaches to reach their full professional potential. One of the most effective ways to educate students about the world of coaching is by offering them a window into the world of real, practicing coaches and showing them all the different ways coaches make a difference in the lives of their clients.
We hope today’s interview adds another insightful glimpse into the dynamic world of coaching.
Today we are interviewing Matt Artisan. Matt is a Dating Coach and president and CEO of The Attractive Man Inc.
NCA: Can you describe your coaching practice and the kinds of clients you typically work with?
Matt: The Attractive Man has been in business for over 10 years helping guys overcome their fear of approaching women, talking to women, and meeting women. Situations vary but primarily in every day daytime scenarios like girls walking down the street, or in a coffee shop or a grocery shop, when they’re at the beach, etc.
We help them not only approach but also have the confidence to continue the conversation in a confident way and of course, close — get the phone number. We help them with texting and calling, getting the date, what to do on the date, and then turning it into a long-term committed relationship if they find each other compatible.
We help guys overcoming fear, gaining confidence, and overcoming limiting beliefs, challenges and sticking points that are holding them back in their dating life.
NCA: What initially got you interested in this career path?
Matt: I was very insecure throughout high school. I was very shy and had a lot of social anxiety, so I didn’t have a lot of friends. I had a lot of trouble meeting girls. I went to Borders bookstore looking for advice and I found some generic books on how to meet women and I started reading those and applying some of the strategies.
But what really helped me was I decided to start a band. I decided to play guitar and started a rock band. I moved to LA when I turned 18 and did that for almost 10 years. I got a lot of success with women and that definitely helped with my confidence. I didn’t really have to approach or anything.
Then when my band broke up in 2008, I felt like I hit rock bottom. I was even worse than when I was in high school. It feels like I tasted success but that was all gone. I felt like “Why would girls like me anymore? My cool factor is gone.” I was living in LA at the time and I found a workshop and I went through it and it was all pickup artist stuff like “Learn these routines, say these lines,” and I did it. It was a one-day workshop running around talking to girls. I did really well. It was like a newfound hope.
I did the pickup artist thing for a few years and became a coach for that company and put some ads on Craigslist. I got a couple of one-on-one clients and then started my business. But I realized a lot of guys in these workshops that I was helping out at this other company were getting confused and they couldn’t remember all the lines and it felt, even for me, kind of manipulative.
I decided to dig deeper into what really makes a woman attracted to a man and figure out a system or a way that’s a lot simpler, because it was all really complex. It’s all these steps and all these things you had to remember and it was very hard. And I didn’t think it needs to be that way.
I studied everything that was out there and met a lot of naturals, too. I was living in Newport Beach, California. There were a lot of surfer dudes who were naturals. Guys that seemed like they’re born to be with women. I studied what they did and just completely changed from pickup artist stuff to a more normal, natural, and more effective approach and just started traveling the world and teaching workshops in a bunch of countries.
NCA: What can you say would be the most rewarding part of your career and on the flip side of that, what is the most challenging aspect of the work that you do?
Matt: The most rewarding part is seeing the guys succeed. Seeing them come in a little hesitant and fearful and a little reluctant in the beginning and seeing their transformation after. It could be just two or three days or it could be a seven-day workshop. Seeing them a week later totally operating on a new level. They’re happy. They’re excited. They’ve overcome their fear of approaching and talking to girls. They’re getting success. They’re getting dates. They’re doing things that they’d never have done in their entire life. A guy who maybe for four years of his life never approached a girl and then comes on a week workshop with us and he’s talked to 100 women.
Also, getting testimonies not just at the end of the workshop but the best is when it’s a month or six months later and they say they found the woman of their dreams or they’re engaged now.
The most challenging would be the guys who just don’t want to do anything. We’ll take them out and they have so much fear and so much hesitation that they just don’t want to take that first step. We make it as easy as possible for those kinds of guys so that they can start taking action. But sometimes, we have guys who have such deep trauma and programmed limiting beliefs.
For example, I worked with a client in Sydney, Australia. I remember him getting phone calls from girls and then I would say, “Hey, good job man!” And he said, “I don’t know. She didn’t really like me. She was just doing that to be friendly.” I’m like, “Oh man, with that attitude, you’re not going to get success. You’re going to give up in a week.” Then a week later he was like, “Oh, this didn’t work.” He didn’t do anything afterwards.
That’s the most frustrating thing — when they just don’t do anything. They get the success and they don’t do anything afterwards. It’s like any other kind of coaching. A guy can go to any type of self-development seminar and get all pumped up and have all of these commitments and then he’s all fired up for a week or two and then goes back to his normal habit.
It’s the guys who actually do the work in the program where every single week they have action steps and they have tons of support. They have their own coach. They have a group call. They have one-on-one calls. The guys who actually do it get awesome results.
Just start. That’s the biggest thing. Coaches want to learn everything. They want to get all the certifications. They spend all of this money on educating themselves, on their website, on their business cards, on their office, and they don’t have any clients yet.
NCA: Can you think of a mentor or somebody who was the most vital to your success and in what ways did this mentor help you thrive in your career?
Matt: Vince Kelvin, a self-proclaimed pickup artist, helped me in the beginning when I was going down that path. I joined his year-long program to attend any and all of these workshops as a helper, as a coach, or a trainer in training. I learned so much about neuro-linguistic programming, psychology, tactics, techniques, confidence, etc. That was really helpful and transformative.
NCA: What is one piece of advice that you would give to somebody who is just starting out in their coaching career?
Matt: I think no matter what field an aspiring coach wants to get into, he/she should find a mentor. Find one of the top coaches in the field that they want to go into and learn from them. Most of the best dating coaches have had mentors, as well. Also, reading and educating yourself on everything that’s out there so that you can really figure out what resonates with you and your clients the best.
Just start. That’s the biggest thing. Coaches want to learn everything. They want to get all the certifications. They spend all of this money on educating themselves, on their website, on their business cards, on their office, and they don’t have any clients yet.
I think the best thing you could do — even if you don’t know very much or are just starting out — is to help somebody even if it’s for free. Start just helping people in whatever field that you want to go into because that will give you some feedback and will help you figure out if it’s the right decision. Even if you fail miserably, it will give you some insight like, “Okay, I need to work on XYZ.”
I think that’s really important and that’s what really gave me the fire to do it. I put an ad on Craigslist and it took me a month or two to find a client. I charged him $10 an hour which is pretty funny because I charge $300 an hour now, but he was my first client and I didn’t know that much.
After 3 days — 3 hours each day helping him — he was blown away. He was like, “This is awesome. It changed my life.” Hearing that and seeing his transformation made me think, “Okay. I’ve got to really figure out a system for coaching.” That’s what really put a fire into my ass to become a coach and really take it seriously.
There’s a fear of getting started. There’s a fear of helping people for the first time. Anything is scary the first time you do it. There’s a fear that you might screw the person up or there’s a fear that it might not work. A fear that they’ll be pissed off at you, etc. So a lot of people just don’t start. They keep learning and learning and learning and get all of these certificates and then they’ll start.
Really, just start.
