GLR Spotlight is an interview series featuring Matchmakers, Dating Coaches & Relationship Experts
Global Love Report – November 24, 2021
Interviewed by Global Love Report
GLR Spotlight was created to feature some of our industry peers as a way for our community to get to know one another – Learn from what has worked successfully, as well as gain different perspectives and insights into various business strategies. We hope to continuously grow as an industry together by sharing these best practices with everyone!
About Elena Vygnanyuk
Elena Vygnanyuk is the CEO of Prime matchmaking agency. She is a matchmaker and a newly certified relationship coach, as well as a professional psychologist.
Elena has been in the business for almost two decades and is very passionate about what she does.
Global Love Report (GLR): Hello, Elena! What made you decide to become a dating and relationship coach? If you are a matchmaker, what made you decide to add relationship coaching to your list of skills?
Elena Vygnanyuk (EV): First of all, I think all of our choices in life are strongly connected with our personality type and also our life history. So, since my childhood (I think, starting from when I was 14 years old) I was thinking of becoming a psychologist and helping people to build a happy family. I come from a family with only a mom so, this topic was always interesting for me and of course, I have always dreamt about having a happy full family.
Secondly, then, being a student of the sociology department at university, I found a part-time job in a marriage agency and was really fascinated by this work. So, actually, it became my first and last job that captivated me so much.
After some time, I understood that psychology is highly necessary for success when it comes to finding a match. But psychology has a lot of directions, approaches, and in some years of studying it, I chose decided to coach [in order to achieve the best] results in the shortest time.
Dealing with a “difficult ” client, strengthening their self-esteem, helping clients to understand their unrealistic expectations from a partner, understand their own personality type and needs, ability to listen to the other, being conscious about relationships, understanding “to get- to give” balance and many other intangible but important issues can be covered by the coaching skills, if a client is ready to work on it and is open for changes.
Without [education in psychology and coaching,] I would hardly be able to do this type of work and business.
Because for some clients—for the matchmaker—it’s not that they don’t have enough prospective partners around them who are “right” for them. But it’s because of deeper reasons that are not obvious to those clients. And by delicate and careful work you can help these clients to have successful relationships.
GLR: How do you think singles will benefit from a matchmaker with coaching skills?
EV: Clients applying to a matchmaker with coaching skills will definitely get a deeper insight into their situation and personal life. If they are open to it, they can get a lot of useful techniques and approaches on how to improve their love life, they can learn more effective dating strategy and use it and finally meet their other half.
Matchmakers with coaching skills can choose the matches in a more effective way, making it possible for a client to meet their Mr./Mrs. Right just from few dates—there’s no need to arrange 100 dates.
Also, I believe that a matchmaker with coaching skills, is more sensitive to clients and can sense important issues while working with a client. And they can make a client conscious about what is really happening with him.
GLR: What’s something new that you’ve learned that you’re excited to implement in your own business?
EV: More detailed coaching session for clients about first date tips, using new approaches for forming their perfect match profile, testing their readiness for new relationships, and finding out the level of key values compatibility in a couple
GLR: What’s something that you learned from the course that surprised you?
EV: That sometimes clients really need even tips advice about the right odor and being neat enough 🙂
That women are usually more positive about finding a right match than men.
That it’s necessary for a man to be physically separate from a partner to get emotionally free while women can stop loving even while still living together and can be ready for a new relationship right after the divorce.
That men fall in love in a quicker way than women.
That it’s highly important to give signs of affirmation to a man in a couple more often, because it is rarely done in our society.
GLR: Who do you aspire to be as a coach (e.g. Matthew Hussey, James Preece, etc.)? And why?
EV: Well, it is a really tricky question. I am rather inclined to compare my achievements of today with yesterday etc. So of course, I like watching videos and reading books of well-known experts in our industry such as John Gray and learning from them. But I understand each of us has his own path in life and in profession too. And we always attract those clients who will benefit exactly from our experience and knowledge.
GLR: Thank you for your time, Elena!
