How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - How to Start a Conversation on a Dating App

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

How to Start a Conversation on a Dating AppChances are, you struggle when it comes to how to start a quality conversation on a dating app. Maybe you get few (or zero!) good matches, or the connections that you do get don’t lead to dates.And if you struggle on the apps, it can lower your confidence and make you want to give up on dating.The great news? This episode of Dating Transformation will give you some game-changingonline-dating tips to help you know exactly how to start a conversation on a dating app.Today, Connell is joined by Helen Virt, one of the bright, innovative minds behind the Hilydating app. Hily—which stands for Hey, I Like You—is among the top 10-ranked dating apps in the USA. And in Connell’s opinion, it’s the best dating app for men… period.Connell and Helen talk about how Hily has grown so fast (25 million users worldwide), and how you can use Hily to take your dating life to the next level.This episode will reveal…-The biggest online dating mistake you’re making… and you don’t even know it!-Connell’s favorite dating-app opener that works 80% of the time-Exactly what to write on your bio to ignite quality conversations-PLUS: How Hily’s innovative features can help you learn how to start a conversation on adating app.So listen now, and go from endlessly swiping and swiping… to starting quality conversations on Hily, or any dating app.CHECK OUT HILY ON INSTAGRAM:@Hily_AppGO TO THEIR WEBSITE FOR MORE DATING HELP:Hily.comFOLLOW THEM ON TWITTER FOR DATING TIPS:@HilyappGO FROM SELF-DOUBT AND LACK OF DATES TO CONFIDENTLY ATTRACTING YOUR DREAM GIRLFRIEND. BOOK A CALL WITH CONNELL TODAY:DatingTransformation.com

Yeah, you just got to drop the alpha male mask. Be authentic. You know, at best, the alpha male mask stifles that best authentic self, that attractive you. And at worst, it leads you to wearing Axe body spray and saying things like bra and baller. Welcome to the Dating Transformation Podcast. Here's your host, dating coach, Conal Barrett.

All right. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome back to the Dating Transformation Podcast. I am your host, dating coach, Conal Barrett. I'm here to help you gain confidence, learn to flirt, and find an awesome girlfriend, and to do this with authenticity and realness no sketchy pickup artist moves allowed uh yeah thanks for being here super psyched uh if for today's show because by the time you're done hearing this episode you're gonna get some real killer what i call game-changing tips from my guest and myself. My guest today is Helen Vert. She is a

very, very bright, innovative mind behind the dating app, Hiley. It's an awesome dating app, H-I-L-Y. And Helen and I are going to give you some game-changing tips before we're done here about how to start conversations on the apps, how to begin quality conversations, how to get those connections that lead to dates and that lead to dating app success. So stick around for the whole show because we're going to give you some game changing moves a little bit later. And actually, let's stick with dating apps for now in my little opening monologue here, because I am imagining that you're probably not crushing it on the apps. Dating apps are very competitive. I remember I was on a date a couple years ago and I glanced at a woman's Bumble and I said, hey, do you mind if I check something on your Bumble?

And she's like, sure, okay. She knew i'm a dating coach and we were talking about dating and i looked to see how many likes she had okay guess how many likes this very attractive but not you know model attractive guess how many likes this woman had on her bumble i'll take three seconds and let you guess jeopardy theme song is playing right now in my head. Okay, how many how many matches or how many likes did you guess? This woman had 22,700 likes on her Bumble. 22,000. So my point is that online dating is very competitive. There's a lot more men on the dating apps than women. And most of the men are pursuing and chasing the most quality, attractive women who are going to be most visible. So it's a tough market. And so if you struggle to get matches on the apps, which I imagine you do,

then that can be really frustrating because you swipe, you swipe, you swipe, and you mostly get crickets. Or maybe you get matches that just aren't that interesting to you. And then maybe you do get a few good matches that come in and then you start messaging with this woman and she doesn't write you back? Or it goes on for a couple messages and then she goes quiet. It's very frustrating. It's so frustrating. The reason I named my book Dating Sucks But You Don't, it actually came from a, there's a line in the book where I had this client who came to me

and he said, Connell, I'm not getting any matches. Help me out here. I suck. What do I do? And I looked at his profile. By the way, this guy was in his early 40s. He worked in the medical field. Very successful, very stable financially. A good, solid guy. Not a male model, but like a good, solid, dateable man. And I looked at his profile and it was terrible. It was selfies, grainy shots in his, uh, in his garage. Um, like he, there's one shot where he's like in his garage, it's in the dark, he's wearing sweat pants and kind of scowling. And I'm like, Kevin, you look like Dexter in his kill room. Why would any woman swipe right on this? So my point is, and I said to him, hey, man, you don't

suck. Dating can suck. Online dating sucks. That's actually where my book title came from. Dating sucks, but you don't. It came from this idea that if you're struggling on the apps, it's not that you suck. In the apps, it's not that you suck. In other words, it's not that women find you unattractive. It's that your profile sucks, or that's kind of harsh, but that it's not good enough. So here are three super, super, super quick tips that I can give you right now to help you start getting some good quality connections and matches on any dating app. This works across the board, whether you're on this dating app called Highly, which I

really love, or maybe it's Tinder, Bumble, what have you. So here are the top three tips. Tip number one is you have to get a really good portrait taken of you. Well-dressed, you want to look the way you're going to look on your first date. In other words, be well-dressed and have the portrait taken with natural light, either outside or next to a window. The most important piece of real estate on your profile is that first photo. And that first photo should definitely be the best, most attractive portrait of you with you smiling authentically. Don't fake the smile. Don't make it a say cheese smile. That is tip number one. It's the most important thing. If

you do nothing else, make that change. My client Kevin, aka Dexter in the kill room, he went outside. He had a friend take a picture of him wearing a really nice button-down shirt, a nice crisp white shirt, good lighting outside, a couple other small tweaks. He had 15 matches waiting for him the next day. So just the right portrait can be a game changer. That's tip number one. Tip number two is remove all red flags and cliches. Red flags include, and I talk all about this in my book, red flags include pictures of you possibly being drunk in the photo. No pictures of you holding a fish. I forbid you. I forbid you.

You are hereby forbidden from posting fish photos. Look, women want to date an awesome, cool, normal, authentic man. She doesn't want to date Quint from Jaws or the old fisherman from The Simpsons. Okay? Get rid of the fish photos. And any kind of red flags, such as don't say anything negative on your profile, like no drama. I don't want women with drama. Fuck that. That's just low frequency thinking. Don't be the guy who's like, I don't want drama. Women aren't looking for drama. Fuck that. That's just low frequency thinking. Don't be the guy who's like, I don't

want drama. Women aren't looking for drama. Men aren't looking for drama. We're all just people. So tip number two is remove red flags because red flags is what makes a woman go swipe left, especially if she's got hundreds or thousands of potential other guys, right? And tip number three is you want to have some personality in your bio. Fun, a joke, something fun, something that shows your personality. Again, what do I talk about every single week on this show? Authenticity. Show women who you are. The best version of who you are, but show women who you are.

Crack a joke. Write something about you that's specific and completely original and unique to you, right? On my dating profile, I always wrote, I'm a dating coach for men, like Hitch. It's different, it's specific, it stands out, and women who are intrigued by that are going to be intrigued by me. What's your version? What's something specific and high value and awesome about you? I have a client who is a really good guitar player. So he wrote on his profile, warning, all capped with a little warning logo. My guitar serenading skills will make you swoon.

So now he's marketing something that he offers to women. And he started getting women writing him, hey, so what kind of song are you going to play for me when I come over? It's like, yeah. So three quick game, three quick mini game changing tips here is get a great portrait taken, remove all those red flags and cliches. Don't tell women you like The Office. The whole world likes The Office. Okay. Write original specific things. And then tip number three is have some personality crack a joke I had good success back in the day with the first line of my profile was I'm a man in the sheets no I'm a man on the streets with a dad bod in the sheets hopefully I'm

trying to get rid of my dad bod but a lot of women thought that was funny because that showcases my sense of humor and personality. Okay, let's get to talk to Helen from Hiley. Helen and I are going to chat about how to get quality conversations going on the dating apps. And she's also going to tell you some really badass stuff about the dating app called Hiley, which has some really cool features that other apps don't have. And anyway, let's take a break, and then we'll talk to Helen Vert from the Highly Dating app. We'll be right back. I'm going to read your mind.

Ready? I'll bet that you would love to confidently approach women, get great matches on the dating apps, flirt with charm, and attract your dream girlfriend. Right? But fear keeps you from approaching. You're not sure how to flirt. You struggle on the apps.

And desirable women just don't seem into you. Well, I have great news. Dating coach Conal Barrett can help. He's guided thousands of men like you to more confidence and help them attract their dream girlfriends. So book a free strategy call today to see if Conal's coaching is right for you. On your call, Conal or a team member will give you personalized advice to help you have more confidence, more dates, and more fun. Oh, and you'll be dating women as your best self, a charming gentleman. That's because Connell does not teach creepy pickup artist tricks. He unlocks your most confident

self so you can make authentic romantic connections. Your next steps? Book your free call today at datingtransformation.com forward slash contact and grab a time that works for you. Then you'll be on your way to more confidence, better results, and attracting bright, beautiful women. Oh, so you know, soon Connell will stop taking on new clients. So book a call today while you still can. Go to datingtransformation.com forward slash contact and transform your love life. Bye. All right. And we are back.

And I'm really excited to talk to today's guest because today's guest has a really cool job. She works with the Highly Dating app. Now, what's the Hylie dating app? The Hylie dating app is a dating platform that serves about 25 million users around the globe. And Hylie is also one of the top 10 dating apps in the US market and one of the top grossing apps in the world. Now, Hylie is H-I-L-Y, which stands for, hey, I like you. I love that name because it's about being vulnerable, direct, authentic, and clear. And hey, I like this app a lot. It's really fun to use. It's easy to use. There's a lot of cool toys and fun features that make it

really fun to use. And basically, the Hylee dating app is all about how to start a fun, quality conversation with another user. Because as they say at Hylee, and I totally agree with this, a quality relationship starts with a quality conversation. Now, my guest today is Helen Vert with Hylee. Now, Helen is one of the very bright minds behind Hailey's success. She's one of the most inspirational and influential women in the dating industry. She's the chief business development officer at Hailey, and she supervises all of the major Hailey partnerships with Apple, Google, Snap, Facebook, you name it, she's on top of it. And she also oversees Hailey's communication team.

And she is one of the women featured in the Women in Dating Power Book 2021. What does that mean? That means she's a true innovator and a mover and shaker in the dating industry. So before we talk to Helen, let me just give you a couple places where you can find out more about Hailey. You can go to Hailey.com online. You can find Hiley on Twitter, at Hiley app. So that's H-I-L-Y-A-P-P. On Instagram as well, Hiley underscore app. And they also have a really great YouTube channel, which features video dating tips from a certain redheaded dating

coach that you might know named Conal Barrett. Anyway, okay, enough of the intro. Helen, welcome to the Dating Transformation Podcast. Hi, Conal. Thank you so much for inviting me over. It's my pleasure to be here. I hope we'll have a great conversation today. Well, we better because highly is all about a great conversation.. Well, we better because Hiley is all about a great conversation. So if we don't do that, oh man, pressure's on. But I think we'll find a way to make that happen. So yeah, let's start with Hiley. Look, there's so many dating apps out in the world. There are dozens. Maybe there's even hundreds at this point. And when I first connected with Hylie and got to try your app, I was just blown away by how simple, how fun, how easy it is to use.

In your words, what is it that makes Hylie unique in a landscape of so many dating apps? Why is Hylie special? It's really great to hear how you're talking about Hylie. Really, really appreciate that. We're doing our best developing that. So Hailey's main goal is to make dating a high quality experience that is safe and entertaining. We as a team believe that dating should be fun, not frustrating or stressful or confusing. People should have fun while they're dating.

That's why we focus on conversations between singles and give them all the tools for meaningful interactions we've developed a whole range of tools within the app to make sure that our users can have quality conversations and actually take their new acquaintances out into the world so like one of the go ahead please one of the things that I like most about Hylia is that we don't push people into classic dating scenarios like yes or no. So on regular dating app, you would send a like or dislike to a person right away. So you're kind of making decision on whether you want to build a romantic relationship with the person. With Hylia, we are not pushing people into that. We give them an opportunity to know each other better before starting their dating

journey. So we've implemented a wide range of features where they can actually get to know each other before they make any kind of decision. And they can make any kind of decision. We're not saying that they have to go romantic after that. They can be friends, they can just hang out, anything they want. Wait a minute, let me get this straight. Are you saying that you think dating should be fun? Absolutely. It comes with all. What? Dating shouldn't be fun. It's all about stress and anxiety and rejection. No, I totally hear you. One of the things I write about in my book is basically you want to be authentic and yourself when you're dating. And you also want to find ways to have fun. Because in my experience, if your date or the person you're messaging with on a dating app, if they're having fun with you, then there's a much higher chance they're going to want to meet you and possibly possibly have romantic sparks happen. So I love your idea

of fun. Absolutely agree with you. I mean, we already get enough stress from the outside world that you have to get to date, you have to marry, you need to get kids by 30 whatever um so yeah i think that you should enjoy the process like shrug off all the stress and just be yourself just enjoy the process and then it will actually lead to something nice i also there's there's another thing there are a couple things that make highly stand out in my mind as different differentiate from the competition. Haile creates a compatibility quiz when you first sign up. Members take a compatibility quiz.

Can you talk a little bit about why there's a compatibility quiz and just about the importance of that on a dating app to help people make connections? Yeah, sure. I was actually among the founders of the compatibility quiz on the app. At some point, we were doing a research in the app, trying to figure out what users want to have on the app and what features would actually be useful. And this was one of the things that stood out.

So they wanted to actually know if they are compatible with the person person if any kind of interests overlap. So we decided to develop a compatibility quiz, but we didn't want to make it boring, because while it's available online, but they usually just match you if they if you reply to the same question the same way, we thought that it's quite boring. So we wanted to put science behind it. So what we did, we got in touch with a licensed clinical psychologist, Joe Solano, and he helped us to pull together 30 compatibility questions that actually match you based on a very complex mathematical algorithm. So we were among the first ones to implement this feature in the app. Overall, it consists of 30 questions,

but to get a compatibility score, you need to fill in at least 10. And it will show you the percentage of your compatibility with someone while you're looking at their profile. And you can see there the aspects you're compatible in and where you're not compatible if your compatibility score is over 80 you can send a message to the person at once without actually liking them and waiting for their like back and if you already started talking to someone and you want to check your compatibility, you just need to make sure that both of you filled in a couple of questions and you will see the score right away on your profiles. So is the benefit here, so you're on highly and you're messaging different people, you're looking at different people to potentially

have a conversation with, is the idea behind the compatibility quiz, is there's a much higher chance that you and a given person will have chemistry, will have compatibility, and potentially hit it off versus other apps? Is that the benefit? Yeah, exactly. You see, if you match within some interest of your match, or if you match in some basic views on life, you can actually see compatibility, both love compatibility and friendship compatibility. So it's not like romantic compatibility stuff. You can just see whether this person is someone you have something to talk about, basically. Right. This is so important because one of the biggest problems on using dating apps for many men, for the average man listening to this, first, he's struggling to get the kinds of connections he wants.

But then once he starts to get them, then the issue is, oh, I'm meeting all these nice women, but they're just not right for me. We're not compatible. But for example, last year after I came out of lockdown, I started dating a lot. And I met up with a woman and we hit it off in terms of chemistry. And then two or three dates in, we realized we had completely incompatible views on politics. I mean, 180 degrees off.

And I thought, oh no, we wasted two or three dates here because she's a nice person. She was interested in me, but I just said, I can't be with you. You support this person. I can't go there. So I would have loved some kind of better alignment of our compatibility before that first date yeah that's true uh like i think it's the same for women like you're

figuring out stuff uh while you're talking to the person and compatibility quiz helps a lot but like you need to remember that compatibility quiz does not do 100% compatibility. So you still need to talk to a person. You still need to discover something about this person. I married recently, and I'm still discovering stuff about my husband. So yeah, it takes time to see a lot of stuff about your partner. So don't just rely on compatibility quiz. Okay, give us one example. I So don't just rely on compatibility quiz. Okay.

Give us one example. I'm going to put you on the spot, but don't, don't nothing, don't nothing too embarrassing, but what's something about your husband you didn't know going in and you thought, interesting.

I didn't know that about you, honey. That's so hard. I'll give you one from my girlfriend. When my girlfriend and I cook, she's an amazing cook, Jess. And I'm a bad cook. And I realized she kind of bosses me around in the kitchen. And I find that really attractive. But sometimes I feel like she's like, Oh, you didn't do this with the Pam on the pan. didn't put the butter on the pan and i'm like well i don't know i'm not great at cooking like here uh so all these little things we're always revealing different things about ourselves even into a relationship absolutely it's actually uh probably a bit of an opposite uh in my case

because i recently discovered that my husband is completely not capable of bossing someone around. So like, even though he's strong, and he's independent, he does a lot of stuff and takes responsibility. He is just not capable of bossing someone around. For the record, by the way, Jess, if you're listening, I'm not saying you're bossy. I'm just saying that in the kitchen, you can say bossy things. And I'd never seen that side, but that's okay. We can all be bossy. There's nothing wrong with being bossy.

My girlfriend's an amazing girl boss. Okay, let's talk about icebreakers and how to, not just how to, but how highly helps users send that opening message. Because I would say that maybe the number one biggest problem that the man listening to this wants to fix, or top three problems, is, oh, what do I write? What do I say when I connect with somebody on a dating app? Do I ask how their day is? Do I ask a question? Do I ask how their day is? Do I ask a question? Do I flirt? And you have a feature

on Hylee called Icebreakers, which makes it so much easier to send that first message. Tell me a little bit about the Icebreakers feature. Yeah, so Icebreakers are not new. You can see those on many apps. I think that what makes Hylee super different from any other dating app in the market is that we have icebreakers that you can send from multiple spots on the app. So it's not only when you open the message and you can send an icebreaker. You can actually see those in many places on the app and start your conversation in multiple ways. So for example, first off, we have personalized icebreakers based on interest. So we see what interests are listed on the profile of a person

you're messaging, and we will offer you personalized icebreakers related to that interest. So for example, if say I'm messaging you, and you have, you indicated movies as an interest on your profile, then there will be several icebreakers related to movies, like what time of movies do you prefer top three favorite movies of all horror movies or comedy, so you can start talking about some interest. that sparks a conversation right away because that's the person's interest. Okay, got it. Then we also have a profile answer feature. So overall on Hylie, when you're registering on the app, we give you a couple of questions that you can answer about yourself. and these questions and answers

will be listed on your profile and our second type of icebreakers is based on that so uh we will see what kind of answer uh you're given to on your profile and when it comes to match we offer the initiator of the conversation the ability to start the conversation using the icebreaker based on that. Yeah, and then the third one, the very standard and preferred short phrases. So for example, if you are too lazy to fill in your profile, which is actually a big mistake on dating. We have just simple lines like, hi, how your day is going? Want to talk? Eager to chat. So like short lines that you can send right away. But do fill in your profile on dating app that really increases your

chances of getting a good conversation there. Yes, fill out your do your taxes and fill out your dating profile. If you don't do this, you're going to be in trouble. Okay, no, fair enough. You may not have invented icebreakers, but I've been on a lot of dating apps, Helen, and I like the Hailey icebreakers the most because some of them are very silly, which is like catnip to other singles, just having fun being silly.

So I'm on highly right now. And for the record, I have a girlfriend. I'm a date. This is business only. This is research only. I'm a date. I'm a faithful boyfriend. But I do spend time on a date.

You'll have a very serious talk with your girlfriend after this interview. Yes. If my phone rings during this conversation, I have to take it. I could be in big trouble. No. Okay. I'm on highly right now. I could be in big trouble. No. Okay. I'm on Hiley right now. I matched with a very nice young woman, and I'm getting some options of what to write.

Because most men say, oh, wow, I finally got a quote match. Now what do I do? Now what do I write? Some of these are so fun. There's very simple ones. What if I told you? I love this. What if I told you, I love this. What if I told you I knew exactly how to make you smile?

Now, that's a really good icebreaker because what that's doing is it's kind of, it's almost like clickbait. You're saying to the other person, I know something that is going to, you want to know. I have a key that I can help unlock your smile. So that's going to make so many people on the other end of this dating app want to say, well, what is it? What are you going to tell me that's going to make me smile? And then you've got women writing you, that man, back. And that's one of the biggest things I want to help men do is be able to make sure they have a fun opener and then they get that fun conversation or get a conversation started from a fun point of view. And I also like, there's another, oh, there's a poem here. I've actually

used this because of Hiley. Roses are red, violets are blue. I can can't rhyme but can i date you that's really good um and the underlying concept here is your opener doesn't have to be amazingly funny perfect incredibly you don't have to be shakespeare but if you can find a way to have fun, be silly and playful, which icebreakers on the app helps you to do, then you're going to get so many more women writing you back. I'm talking about the male point of view. Does that make sense to you, Helen? Absolutely. I was actually going to add that since we have icebreakers, we have analytics behind that and we know which ones work best so the silly ones the easygoing ones definitely work much better than the serious ones um like sometimes even icebreakers with like the shortest ones work so well compared to some well-prepared phrases

um yeah but like i think the worst thing you can do on a dating app as in, well, it's not about our icebreakers anymore, but like, I hate when men just write one message and copy paste it to every single girl they are talking to. So that's like, the girl sees that right through. Like, you can see that right away.

Don't do that. Gotcha. Okay, you just inspired me. I'm going to text my girlfriend right now this is not a joke okay i'm gonna send her a i'm gonna send her a poem ready roses are red but i'm colorblind just true um i am so glad that you are mine so i'm to send her that right now and we'll see if she writes back. Also, I'm trying to preempt me calling her bossy. So hopefully I don't get dumped. Oh, you're very sweet. Okay.

Let's see if Jess writes me back in the next 20 minutes. But let's move on to a different topic. Another thing that people hate, hate, hate on a dating app, any dating app, is catfish, fake profiles, people who just aren't what they say, or they're not even who they say they are. Tell me a little bit about what Hylia does to keep all or most of these people off of the platform? Yeah, so generally, from a dating app developer standpoint, I can say that we can't remove 100% of this kind of profiles. But we are trying to implement as many features as we can to help you with that. Starting off a very background verification of users that we are doing on our end and you don't even see it.

But then also we offer to each user a number of tools that you can use to make sure that the person is a real person. I guess like one of the greatest features there is the video, all kinds of video features. So we have a video chat on Hylia. So before going on a date, before taking it offline, before sharing any kind of personal information with the person, you can actually hop on a call with them, see them on the video,

see if their profile picture matches the person in the video. And it's very alarming if it doesn't. So you can just do a 20 minute video chat, drink a coffee, chat about some common interests or hobbies. First of all, you will make sure that it's a real person. Secondly, it will save you a lot of time because you will understand whether you want to meet that person face to face um so yeah but generally like one of the things that also can help you a lot uh to make sure that the person is not pat push on the platform uh apart from like all the video stuff uh is actually being a responsible user of a dating app. So whenever you see someone that is not real,

it would help everyone a lot if you reported that person. And every app offers that. Because if the person gets a couple of reports, our team has a closer look at them and removes them from the platform if it's catfish. But from a safety standpoint, I guess my best recommendation to everyone would be do not share your personal information do not share your bank account details uh keep that until

you're got married with the person not before that right i'm totally fine with people, especially women, but anybody not even sharing a phone number yet until you meet. It's totally fine. I teach my clients, I say, it's okay. You're perfectly within your rights to ask for her phone number. But if she says, oh, I'm not comfortable with that, let's stay on the app, don't push her. Don't make it a big deal because just showing that empathy for the other person, showing that you get that he or she, especially a she, is coming from a place of having to be extra careful and think about her safety, that goes a long way with somebody realizing that, oh, this person is actually not focused on a great date. They're actually caring about me. That'll actually help you have a better date if you meet.

So yeah, don't push hard for a phone number. And you want to make the other person feel as safe as possible. Rejection, ghosting, loneliness, lack of dates and lack of confidence. For many men, dating just sucks. But it doesn't have to. There's a simple yet powerful way to gain instant confidence and attract a great girlfriend. Be radically authentic. It's all laid out in the number one Amazon best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't.

Your step-by-step guide to attracting wonderful women and doing it with total authenticity. Author and dating coach Conal Barrett has had and fixed all the dating problems that you struggle with. He's also helped thousands of men gain confidence and find love. He's put his best tips and strategies into dating sucks, but you don't, so that you can. Confidently approach women and get dates. Become magnetic and attractive, even if you're not tall or great looking. Always know what to say to make sparks fly. Get lots of great matches and dates on the dating apps and attract your dream woman. You can find Dating Sucks But You Don't on Amazon or wherever books are sold in

paperback, Kindle and audiobook. Get Dating Sucks But You Don't today to transform your confidence and find your dream girl. That actually works the other way around as well. So if I were on a dating platform and the guy was pushing to get my phone number, I could actually think that this is catfishing because like why would he need my phone number that much? So we've actually seen many profiles being reported for catfishing just because people, real people, nice people, but they were just behaving in a very weird way. So don't behave in a weird way. Yes. Just be normal, authentic, respectful.

That goes, it goes a long way. It really does with women. Women just want a guy who has some cool things happening in his life. He has some self-confidence and knows how to be a gentleman and not push too hard. I want to ask you one more tech question before we get into some fun practical dating tips that I'd love to conversation dating tips. But I wanted to ask you about this. Is it correct that there's AI technology involved in the way highly works?

Is that involved with the compatibility part of it or any other aspect of the app? Well, AI is a very loud word. You can say AI about basically every app on the market right now. Basically, yes, we do have very complex algorithm behind how we are showing you people when we are showing your people. So we're constantly testing that we're seeing, for example, we are seeing which picture on your profile works best, and we will show that more to other people. Or we will see how many people we need to show you when you open the app to make sure that you send at least a couple of likes. So these are very small things, but there are there are i guess hundreds of them that make a good experience on the app so we are tuning that all the time to make sure that you see the right people the right people see you that you see people within the right distance that uh yeah

especially when you don't choose the distance on the app because you can set it but then if you don't we are adapting that to make sure that you're seeing people within the distance on the app, because you can set it. But then if you don't, we are adapting that to make sure that you're seeing people within the distance that you can actually date if you're willing to date. You can do that technically, it's very complicated. I'm not a tech person myself. So that's something that I was overhearing on the meetings. But overall, yes, there is an algorithm, it's very complex. And we are working on it constantly. Gotcha. When I think AI, I think of the Terminator computers.

Computers taking over the world. So if you would like to admit here that Haile is trying to take over the world with giant computers, it'll be a scoop. We'll break some news here. By the way, I wonder what Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator, I wonder if he'd be a good first date. He would just spend the whole time He'd be shooting the waiter as he brought drinks to your

table. That's true. Let's have some fun. Let's talk about some what I call game-changing dating tips. So far with all the guests I've had on my podcast, I like to say, hey, let's talk about three game-changing dating tips. And so since you're here today, I thought I would share with you three of the game-changing

dating tips that I've seen help my clients and the readers of my book, help them get more connections, get more dates, have more confidence. And then you're welcome to give feedback if you agree, disagree, maybe you have some tips to throw in. How about that? So I'm going to give you my three game changing dating tips and you can give me the Helen slash highly point of view. Sound good? Okay. Game changing dating tip number one. And this is for men and women, but I'm primarily talking to straight single men. Tip number one is take a great portrait. Instead of another selfie with your seven chins and bad lighting. And hey, it's me in a garage. Go outside or go find some natural light,

put on a nice collared shirt and have a portrait taken of you giving your best authentic smile, well-dressed. I found that a really good portrait is the most important photo on a given person's profile. What are your thoughts on that tip? Yeah, absolutely. From highly development team standpoint, a nice picture really makes a great profile. So a portrait one is perfect. So if you can do that, go ahead, do that. If you can't afford that, you need to at least make sure that your picture looks nice, that you have nice background, that it's not some fuzzy selfie, that the image is good quality, that it's nicely cut pictures, especially with professionally taken profile pictures, get way more reactions than profile with some blurry, low quality images. And I'm actually a very bright example of that because like I've been using dating apps for a while before I met my husband. And well, I was never too popular there. But then I had a really nice photo shoot,

put those photos out there, and I started dating my husband two weeks later. So it works. So that date you had with Arnold Schwarzenegger was the last bad date you had, and then you met your husband. So that's good. You probably said, oh, that guy's like a robot. I just didn't feel that compatibility. Anyway.

Okay. By the way, thank you for mentioning something. You've mentioned something a couple times, which I think is great. Hailey does a lot of research. You have a lot of data, right, about things that work, things that don't work. Can you talk a little bit more about the fact that there's a lot of information, stats, data that you highly put together to help its users? Could you elaborate, please? Yeah. So we do have, again, a complex algorithm, not an algorithm but an a program that is embedded into the app where we actually can collect insights from our users we are not only doing that on the app we're doing that on outside sources as well but we believe that as an app developer we really need

to have all the information and know what our users are thinking if we want to build a really great product so we are talking to them about all of our features whenever we launch something new we're always asking for feedback and we are also collecting data on all the kinds of fun stuff fun topics just to make sure that we know our audience well and then to share this information with our audience and with the rest of the world. So you can read our blog. There are so much stats there. So yeah, I can tell you about a fun one that we've had recently, if you want to.

Please, go right ahead. So the most recent one I remember was about the prejudice prejudices based on human literacy so we were searching the user's decision to continue or not to continue to communicate with grammatically challenged people uh ignoring their personal qualities and what they think about grammar um so yeah we found that women are more likely to date someone good at spelling and they pay way more attention to detail and take texting more seriously than men moreover one out of 10 women would never go on a date with a poor speller which was extremely surprising for me because i never paid that much attention to it anyway.

But yeah, and when it goes to, when you talk about men, three out of five men said that they don't care about their date spelling skills at all. I think that men are probably more forgiven towards their dates grammar flaws because they don't get as many dates as women, especially through dating apps. Well, that's the stats. Women get more likes and more dates. Fascinating. That's so helpful to know because you just confirmed something with hard data that I've always suspected, which is I told my clients, I was looking at my client's profile yesterday on a different dating app. And I noticed two different misspellings. And I said, Hey, you got to fix these things. Because if that's important to a lot of women, she doesn't want to date somebody who

is either can't either can't spell or is too sloppy and lazy to spell check his profile. Yeah, one of the things actually, like uh if we don't think about spelling too much like we had uh many different uh outcomes of the survey one of the things that cheered me up and i think it will cheer up most of your listeners uh is that both genders would prefer someone who may not be great at writing so you might be misspelling hard. But if you're fun to be around, if you have a good sense of humor and an open mind, this person will definitely go out with you.

Okay, great to know. So there's still hope. You don't have to be a perfect writer, speller, as long as you're a fun, good company date, is what you're saying. Absolutely. You just have to be yourself that makes the best date and the best conversation. Yeah, absolutely. It's all about authenticity and getting in touch with your value, your worth, and really leaning into that best authentic self. Okay, before we go to game-changing tip number two,

my girlfriend wrote me back. She wrote me a poem. I'm not kidding. Here's her poem back. Pansies are lots of colors. Cats are too. I want to kiss your face. I must see you.

So yeah, anyway. Okay, poetry with your girlfriend, with Hailey. Thank you for the rose. It all started with my icebreaker. Okay, let's go to tip number two. Game-changing tip number two. Number two for me is, we already talked about this, but we can go a little bit deeper. Send a fun personalized opener after you get that

connection, that match, as opposed to a copy and paste opener. So for example, the Roses are Red icebreaker, I love that. I love that icebreaker that highly suggests. However, what I would probably tell my client is add something specific to that poem that makes it about her. Maybe use her name in that poem. Or if you're not going to, maybe you might ask a question, but don't ask, hey, how was your day? That's boring and lame. Instead, ask, oh, I see that you just adopted a rescue dog. What is her name? How are you liking being a dog mom? That's going to be so resonant to the person you're writing to because it's personalized to them. What's your thought on the importance of a personalized opener? Yeah, absolutely. So we can do as much personalizing messages for you. And yeah, you can use icebreakers, of course. But if you really, really like someone, and if you really want to start a conversation, you need to make it

personal. So what I would do i would look through the pictures the person has on their profile i would look through their interests on the profile and make sure to compile some personalized message like even as you mentioned adding a name into the message actually makes a change because there are so many people that don't even say hey amy but just say, hey. And that is a game changer for, at least for a girl. I can't talk from a male standpoint, but I was much more touched on a dating site when I was actually getting a message where my name was mentioned, where something from my images was mentioned. I was right away open to talk to this

person. Because if you get a generic message, you're just sitting there looking at it, and you just don't know what to reply, even if you want to reply to that person. Okay, so it's not just that let me ask you from a formerly single woman's point of view. So it's not, it's not just, oh, this person didn't try. It's, this is generic and copy and paste. What you're saying is even if you want to reply, it's, if it's not personalized, the person isn't giving you as much to work with. Is that what you mean? Yeah, exactly. So like if you get just generic, Hey, how are you? Um, yeah, you will, you can reply and find things, but then that's all your conversation is over

right and both people don't know how to continue it so the first message is important because it gives you a chance to start this conversation and to give some to give some topic that you'll be discussing later that will actually lead into the conversation. Great tip. Great tip. Okay, game changing tip number three is, this might be the biggest one of all, which is let your authentic personality shine through. Parentheses instead of sounding like everybody else. So what do I mean by that? I'm talking about online dating, of course, but I'm also talking about when you meet in person, when you're chatting on the phone, when you're texting, letting your real true personality come out. And the reason why this one came to me today as I was getting ready for our conversation is, you know, Hiley has all these

cool ways on the app of letting your personality come out. There's the live stream, right? There's personalized icebreakers. There's video dates. So I always feel like, look, there's 7 billion people in the world. There's billions of single people, but there's only one you. There's only one Helen. There's only one Connell. There's only one John Doe listening to this. You're one in seven billion. So put that authentic, real personality out there. Let people feel who you are. And not everybody's going to like you or want to date you, but the people who are going to like you and want to date you, they're really going to like you because you're completely unique. What's your thought on that tip? Absolutely agree with you. Yeah. So many people pretend

on first dates, pretend on first conversations to be someone they are not. and they don't realize that three five ten days dates later you will actually open up and you will have to be yourself because you can't wear a mask your entire life and i believe that so many couples split up because of that um so yeah you definitely need to be yourself uh on an app in a real world to make sure that you match with the person right away and that you are the right people for each other because you won't have a chance to change or if you do, you will split up. So that's first thing. dating apps standpoint of you, obviously take this opportunity. Like apps give you like highly and all of the apps on the market give you so many opportunities to express yourself. Do a nice profile, indicate your interests,

add a lot of stuff to your profile that actually show you that will eliminate all the people that don't like you right away so the ones you will actually start talking to uh will definitely be a you will have a higher compatibility rate there and it will definitely lead to someone to something bigger um highly yeah you mentioned live streaming um live streaming is not a typical feature for a dating app at all and that's the feature we're having there because it actually helps people to showcase themselves to everyone on the app so we have live streams in a separate tab so they don't overlap with your

dating experience so you don't have to use them if you don't want to. But you surely can and you should actually. So we created live streams for two reasons. First off, it's a great way to spend your time on the app while you're waiting for a message from someone you like. So you will not miss this message. You will not forget it. You will get back to it.

But most importantly, it's a great way to showcase yourself, to show your true self. Whenever you start in a live stream on Hylia, you will be seen by all the people that are online in the app. So they can see you and message you right away, comment on your stream, send you a reaction. So you will get seen much faster because of course people have to go through all of these profiles on the app to find someone and if you do a live stream you are right people see you right away um and we actually noticed with the live streams that there are many many people that start their conversations in the comment section on the live streams and then move on to personal messages and it's not just between the

person and the streamer but it's also just between the people that are watching the stream which is very nice it's it's a really great uh dating as well, even though it seems like it has nothing to do with dating. No, there's so many great upsides to it. To your point, it lets you be center stage and convey that true personality to attract your type, potentially. Yeah. And to your point, I didn't thought about it until you just said it, but if I just sent

a message to somebody and I'm waiting for them to write back, if I leave the app for three hours and they write back, they might lose interest or they might then be off the app. But it gives me something to do for a few minutes while I wait for that attractive someone to hopefully write me back so I can watch a live stream or do a live stream. It's really innovative. It's really really cool, innovative feature. I haven't used it myself yet on Hylee, but it's really badass. It's really

smart. I don't know who came up with it, but good job on that. Bing me when you do. I'll watch your live stream. Excellent. Excellent. It'll be a live stream and I'm just going to read poems. Roses are red poems for the whole time. I'm sure I'll get a million watchers doing that. I'll be texting with your girlfriend in the comment section, right? We're almost out of time. Helen, I want to give you the final word. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you'd like to mention in terms of

highly either features on the app or maybe what's the vision? Is there anything we didn't talk about that you'd like to mention in terms of Hylie? Either features on the app or maybe what's the vision? Where do you see Hylie and yourself a year, two, three years from now? Feel free to share any final important thoughts about what your app is bringing to the dating world. world yeah so uh generally i can't say that um anyone on the market can predict now what's going to happen next because the last few years were amazingly surprising for the whole world um so i think that's the best thing that everyone on the market like all the apps on the market can do is to really listen to their users and adapt to their needs so when people were went to on lockdown obviously implementing video features was a great thing to do and whoever did it first won the prize so it it goes for the all the upcoming years as well i really can't say that

i have uh predictions on what happens next of course they are talking about virtual reality and all the stuff that is coming in terms of this and more people are staying home uh so yeah online dating is growing in terms of that but i guess like one of the tips that i would want to give to all of the daters out there all of the singles out there um just keep trying don't be yourself go out there talk to people like even if everyone stays at home and even if everyone goes virtual people will still meet offline people will still go on dates they will still look for someone to spend time with because like i can't see a development in this world where you will be locked up in a room with no one there and you uh will not be willing to find someone for you.

So don't stop. Go on dates, have fun, enjoy yourself. And apps like Kylie will be there to help you. Great advice. If I had to boil my whole message down to one sentence, it's be authentic and take action. You have to put yourself out there. You have to keep going at it, whether you want to approach people in real life

or try a new dating app, do a live stream on Hiley, but be yourself, but keep taking action because action leads to progress, results, connections. So that was a really good final tip. For people who want to test out Hylee, give it a try. Where should they go? Is there a free version they can see if they like it? What would you recommend to somebody do if they've never tried Hylee, but they're interested? Yes, they can just go to App Store or Play Store to download the app. And then you can use the app for free. If you like it, you can get some paid features

if you think you need those. Also, you can sign up for a free trial where you can get the full version with all the paid features for a couple of days to test it out. If you like it, you can continue with it. If you don't, you can just stay on the free version. So yeah, just go and give it a try. All right, I'm going to finish with a poem

that I'm going to write right now for you. Here we go. Roses are red, violets are blue. You're a very good podcast guest, so thank you. Genius. Thank you. Genius, right? You are ingenious indeed.

I'm just being silly. Helen Vert with Hailey. Thank you so much for being here. Check out Hailey, Hailey.com, Instagram, Hailey underscore app, Twitter at Hailey app. And they have a really great YouTube channel, the Hailey YouTube channel. Thank you, Helen. And that's all for today. Till next time. Bye, guys. Thank you for listening to the Dating Transformation podcast.

For lots of free tips, videos and other goodies, go to datingtransformation.com. See you next time. Produced by Heartcast Media.