Powerful Connections

I recently read a very interesting blog article at Boston PUA, in which the author attempts to explain recent developments in the worldwide seduction community. The article in question offers some explanations on the implosion of the pickup coaching market from an American pickup instructor’s perspective.

One of the key things mentioned in the article mentioned above is that the PUA coaching market has become over-commercialized. Many of my PUA friends around the world tell me that demand for pickup bootcamps has also declined greatly over the last four months. It’s a lot worse in the UK and the states than it is here in Denmark. As a result, many new aspiring pickup artists have set up shop as coaches only to discover how hard it is to succeed. Subsequently, they turn to establishing yet another forum so they can make money on affiliate deals.

The reality behind this trend is that with the launch and global exposure of best-selling book “The Game” by Neil Strauss, our little community changed, and it did so very quickly. The newcomers to the seduction scene are so much more pre-exposed to social success than we ourselves were as newcomers in 1999 (me) -2005 (Entropy). As a result, people with less than a year of exposure to the seduction community are now making fun of the gurus, who are but jokes to them. The guys that did well in 1999 had sex with 10 women a year. Where I was raised, that was normal for many of my friends, not for me. The guys that do well in the present day seduction community have sex with 50 women every year. Well, wooptidoo!

Let me tell you right away that I completely agree with the many socially successful newcomers. Putting yourself on a pedestal; proclaiming that you are a master PUA is ridiculous!

I am not making fun of anyone … in fact I have the utmost respect for “the old guard” for their personal development throughout the years. ALL development must be measured relative to the starting position. However, what’s hilarious is that the marketing of the “gurus” has not followed the development of the market profile. They promote their skills with women, and the result is dissatisfied customers, because the customers are already MORE successful with women than the gurus are.

Please, stop and think for a minute. Is it at all possible that you can be a great pickup artist, but a lousy coach?

A very famous English PUA visited Denmark in 2008, and a friend of mine used the opportunity to arrange a bootcamp with this English guy as a star coach. Some of my former clients attended, and a few weeks later I received an email from one of them asking me why on Earth we are not going global.

“He might be a great pickup artist but what he actually gave me for my money was nothing compared to the learning I got through your questions.”

I can tell you right away that both the English guy and my former client can probably out-game me any day of the week. So what?

This is what the gurus obviously fail to understand, when they set up shop as “coaches”…  In coaching, it does not matter if you are an expert in picking up women. What matters is your desire to understand your client’s model of the world and deliver coaching to suit his needs. I actually know a guy who quit pickup coaching when a guy at his workshop out-gamed him in a set! (One could be tempted to ask, was this man actually coaching his client, or was he pick-pocketing his client’s wallet with some show-boating?)

We recently had a discussion in our team as to where the market is going. This very interesting discussion was spawned by the fact that since the financial crisis kicked in, many of our competitors in the Danish market have suddenly gone very silent. One of my coaches was worried that it would affect us as well, and begged me to initiate a change in our brand values. “The market is eroding. We need to position ourselves as a pickup bootcamp company,” he said, “else we will lose business.”

To me, one of the key things that separate successful pickup artists and successful pickup coaches is the perception of their own ability to reach a result in terms of picking up women.  Poor coaches will need to keep up the appearance that they are successful with women – after all, if they were not, what would they have to sell?

I do not care if I am successful with women or not which, ironically, helps me to be extremely relaxed around women. My main concern for you is that you will meet your desired outcomes in life.

So, here’s what I replied:

“At Powerful Connections, we see seduction as a metaphor for living your potential and, as such, it is a perfect platform to conduct life coaching. The customers are fleeing the market because they decided to have their wallets lifted by one of the many great pickup artists with no clue on how to coach, … instead of engaging one of the very few great coaches that know how to pickup women successfully.”

In fact, I believe the above to be my entire response to the development of the seduction community in 2008. I also believe that it is one of the key foundations upon which we will build our success in 2009.

I know that you will make 2009 a great year in your life and the life of people you meet!

Lately, I have found myself in a strange place.

When I first started my little niche, supplying the market with accelerated life-coaching disguised as workshops for guys wanting to improve their skills with women, I had a principle. That principle has been my guide throughout my career as a coach ever since: Either be a coach, or a salesman. Do not attempt to be both at the same time. It was, in fact, deeply inspired by some true words of wisdom by my first coach trainer Steve Linder, a person I deeply respect and admire.

If you do the best for the persons that trust you to coach them, the word will travel.

As I started as a fulltime professional coach however, I started noticing that I - in some way chose to - feel a pressure on my shoulders. Use your network. Sell more to exisiting clients. Make sure you have business tomorrow.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that in itself, I have been a salesman for many years, and concepts such as cross-selling and up-selling are some I believe I master… And I have been able to generate quite a nifty profit in business coaching and training - however, I have always drawn the line at a point where business partners in my life-coaching business have asked me to think in some of the more radical extensions of these strategies.

I am pretty sure that I could have grown the brand Powerful Connections to a much bigger one by now, if I had compromised on my base principle in this area. We would have been able to “go global” 6 months ago, if I had chosen a different path from the beginning. But, what would I be believing about my clients, at my heart, other than that I would need to attach to them like a bad habit that they are addicted to.

My pride comes frome my ability to release my clients soon after they come to me, feeling more powerful as they walk out of my office, or hang up the phone, not from the bank statement I get each month. That’s what coaching is all about to me, and that is why I will always think ethics into our product offerings, and our business model.

If my up and coming eBook “Powerful Game” priced at some $ 20 helps you out, I will be just as happy as I would, if you decide to attend one of our live events at around $ 1,000.

And of course, when all that is said and done - I don’t grow fat from the attraction business. I have given away tons of stuff for free, I have coached many people without hesitating or asking for a charge, and I have enjoyed every minute of it.

One of my clients wrote me, 6 months after he attended our PowerBOOST! His life has changed immensely, he sees opportunities everywhere - and acts on them. He would gladly have paid three times what he did back then.

But he didn’t. And that, to me, is priceless.

I love the internet. So many endless possibilites out there.

For more than a month now, I have been working on our new web-shop and the new products we are about to launch, in order to gain a bigger footprint for the philosphies that equal our name and tagline: Powerful Connections - “if you live with power you will achieve,”

Achieve what?

Well I am about to unveil that in a minute. It has been a reality in my life for many years now. Not since I first became a member of the seduction society in 1999, no. But, after making the decision to stop being a copy of “good” pickup artists some 5 years ago, and after having gained a lot of great experiences with non-canned and routine free game I made a realization.

It’s funny though, only one person has ever stopped to ask me what exactly one would achieve through living with power… and that was one of my business customers, that googled my name before hiring me. Not ONE of our clients have never asked. Maybe they knew, ?

For years now, I have known the answer to the question, and yet, when I first started Powerful Connections, I knew that it wouldn’t make sense to say it out loud, let alone market it.

But now I do. And I will reveal it in this post.

But first, let me share with you the business challenge of the day. For a long month, working more than 8 hours every single day with building stage 2 of what I believe will move through the seduction society like a ghost ship on fire… Of course while also working 5 days a week with business coaching, AND hosting our PowerBOOST! events… I have managed to shoot DVD’s with the help of Martin, one of our fantastic coaches that also does media work, and I have almost completed the first of a series of eBooks.

Martin really has been a great help in this project, and he will be rewarded for his efforts. Not only in DVD production, but also setting up our new web-shop and inspiring me to do more on the eBook frontier. Yeah, Powerful Connections is going through massive change these days. This blog is part of the process. As I write this, a good friend is looking into redefining the old web-page www.powerful-connections.com so it fits in the new business strategy. This was a big decision for me to make. I was proud of that old site, and I am sure the guys who helped build it are, too.

However, at some point, you must look in the closet and decide that it’s time to throw out some of the clothes you haven’t been wearing for a long time. No matter how you look at it or whatever you try and tell yourself, the old clothes just don’t feel the same as they used to. I guess… I have just grown too fat!

I will be keeping my “idealist” shirt though. And the “ethically oriented” one, too. They are probably the most important cornerstones in the business closet of Powerful Connections. Even though they have cost me money due to the implied marketing complications, such as “don’t lie” and “don’t over-sell.” In case you’re new to the seduction industry, let me just give you a quick run-down… It’s a “I guaranTEE that THIS is the BEST bootcamp/workshop/eBook/DVD/audio CD you can EVER get your hands on” kinda market. It’s a market full of buyers so confused about the truth and so focused on quick fixes that they will swallow any old blue pill if the guy who sells it to them has 1 more approach of experience than themselves. It is a market where the ethical consciouness and the integrity of the supplier alone, or his ability to camouflage bad quality of the project, that decides the satisfaction of the buyer.

And, if you’re on the buying end of that stick, just remember - a good pickup artist might be a good instructor. Above all, he is a master of illusion.

We will be wearing new shirts, too, and they will look and feel great… And I’m sure you will like the new style, based on good coaching values, such as honesty, integrity and respect. So, in that sense, we will be the Ghost Ship of the seduction coaching market. To my mind, our philosophy is unique: The art of seduction is a metaphor for the art of living.

Powerful Connections has been known as a noble old lady, respected, but not walking quite as fast as an Olympic athelete. Well the Old Lady is going through a make-over. The Old Lady is going to Live with Power, and Achieve Powerful Attraction!