You’re chatting with this guy online.

He seems fun. He asks interesting questions. He tells you cute anecdotes about himself.

And so when he asks for your number, you give it to him. Why not?

But what you don’t realize is…

That person you’ve been messaging is NOT the guy you’re about to speak to on the phone.

Your potential Mr. Right hired someone else to do his online dating for him.

Welcome to the world of virtual dating assistants…

The Advantage of Outsourcing Dating

Online dating is a lot of work.

It takes time. It takes energy. You pursue a lot of leads that end up going nowhere.

So if you don’t have time but you’ve got the cash to spare, you can hire a virtual dating assistant to impersonate you online.

A virtual dating assistant can help you in two ways:

They can create the ultimate dating profile for you, and/or they can log onto your online dating account and send messages on your behalf.

The idea for virtual dating assistants sprang into public consciousness thanks to a guy named Scott Valdez.

Scott was putting in 70 hours a week at work. He had little time for a social life, let alone finding love. So he hired a matchmaking service to find a match for him.

Six months later, he’d only met a handful of women. Disappointed, he quit the service and decided to take matters into his own hands. He would try online dating.

To maximize his efforts, he collected data about what worked and what didn’t. He created dozens of spreadsheets. Online dating became his second job, and he was getting really good at it…

Until he realized that the time he was spending online was cutting into the time he had available to actually meet someone.

So he went onto Craigslist and hired an assistant to manage his online dating profile for him.

It worked. Today, Scott’s company VIDA offers virtual dating services to busy professionals who don’t have time to find potential dates or feel frustrated by their lack of success online.

Would You Use a Virtual Dating Assistant?

You may have seen services that offer to help you with your online dating profile.

They can help you take the perfect profile pic or write about yourself in a way that will catch the right guy’s eye.

Having a good profile gives you confidence. You know you look good, and the messages you get confirm it.

Few people would claim there’s anything wrong with getting help with your online dating profile, any more than there’s something wrong with getting help with your résumé.

But virtual dating assistants take that a step further.

If you’re not good at sending messages, why not get help from professionals who know how to write messages that get results?

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. You may have enlisted your friends’ help in writing the perfect flirty reply to a text.

Maybe you’ve even sat down with a girlfriend and shown her a conversation you’re having with a guy online. It’s natural to ask for advice on whether she thinks he’s a catch and what you should say next.

But our friends aren’t always the best people to ask for advice. They may not know what works and what doesn’t.

That’s where the experts come in.

The Marketing-Online Dating Connection

It’s no surprise that Scott Valdez was a sales and marketing manager before he founded VIDA.

Virtual dating assistants treat messages like a sales conversation.

They’re trying to make the person they represent seem like a “great buy” and close the sale. (Depending on the service, some virtual dating assistants will count their job done once they get a phone number. Others go so far as arranging dates.)

Chances are, that’s not how YOU think about chatting with guys online. You’re just trying to build a connection and see if you click.

As a result, rejection feels personal. You’ve put your best self out there, and he’s not interested.

But salespeople treat rejection differently. They don’t take rejection personally. They keep hustling and believing in themselves.

That may be one reason why virtual dating assistants tend to perform better than real people. Not only doesn’t rejection bother them—because it’s not their online dating account—but they’re getting paid to keep hustling.

Online Dating Strategies You Can Steal

Most of us would never be tempted to hire a virtual dating assistant. Having someone else pretend to be us online feels too uncomfortable.

But we can steal some of their secrets.

#1. Experiment
Try different strategies. Switch your profile up. Keep track of the results.

#2. It’s Not Personal
Try to see past the need for approval or fear of rejection. Focus on finding out what works and what doesn’t.

#3. Get Feedback
You don’t need to hire someone to benefit from a second pair of eyes. Ask some guys (rather than your female friends) what they think of your profile and messages.

What do you think about virtual dating assistants? Do you think you’ve encountered one before? Let us know in the comments!