[This message has been edited by MarkInTx]
Personal Ads
I realize that certain people will disagree with me on what I am about to say regarding personal ads.
That is fine.
I am a happily married man, who has no business connections with any agency, and I don’t care whether anyone likes me, my wife, or my advice. I honestly couldn’t possibly care less…
I only offer this because recently I have had a few guys from both boards write me and ask me about personal ads.
So, FWIW, here is my take…
First off, I think that the personal ad is unquestionably the best way of approaching this. Whether you are a WOVO (like me) or a WMVM, I think you are better off going the personal ad route.
Why? Because there are a lot of women who would never darken the door of a marriage agency, but who will sometimes glance through the personal ads, and wonder: “What if?” It is my opinion that those women are the ones an American man is eagerly seeking: A woman who hasn’t made the decision: “My life stinks, and I am leaving the country no matter what!” but rather the woman who thinks: “I have heard things about American Men… I wonder if I could find one who would be the kind of husband I want...”
This is not to say, of course, that there aren’t many good women in agencies, nor that every woman who answers a personal ad is sincere… it just seems to me that the odds are better. (At least that has been my experience. I met women from an agency, and I met women – on a couple of occasions – from personal ads. The women who answered my ad made a better connection with me…)
Also, if a woman responds to your personal ad, you already know that she is (at least somewhat) interested in you, so you won’t have a lot of frustration by writing a woman who was also written to by a hundred other men – all promising her the moon and sending her money…
OK, so, you’ve decided to write a personal ad… what now?
Here is my suggestion:
1. Get a professional picture made.
And WEAR A SUIT and TIE! You want to make a good impression. That means a suit and tie. In America, you can be a CEO and wear dockers to work every day. But in Ukraine and Russia, successful men wear a suit and tie. (And a GOOD suit and a tie…) Don’t skimp on this part – either the suit or the photograph. This is your future wife’s first look at you! Make it count!
I was fortunate (if you can call it that) because my EX-wife is a professional photographer. She made a great set of “head shots” of me. BTW, I have used these pictures several times: My Personal Ad, my Visa Picture, and recently my company asked for headshots to put on our internal web page. I guess what I am saying is that a great picture is never a bad investment. (Neither is a good suit!) My ex-wife’s studio charges $150 for a sitting, for about 18 poses, with one 8x10, and all of the “proofs”. I didn’t pay that, but if I had, it still would have been worth the price.
2. STOP BUYING ADDRESSES.
I know what it is like. You have decided to find a wife in Russia or Ukraine (or Thailand, or anywhere) and you can’t help yourself… you find yourself browsing all of the agencies in your spare time… you pull up profile after profile, and are mesmerized by these women… you play “What if?” in your head… then you read the profile, and see that this gorgeous 23 year old will accept a man up to 50, and think: “Hey, I’m only 42… she’ll love me!” and you buy her address and write to her. (see #4 for why this is REALLY a bad idea!)
And you have just wasted money and time. If you are going to go the personal ad route, then you have to stick with it, and give it a chance to work. It only takes a week or so… be patient! So many guys go into this with a scatter-shot approach – join an agency, buy addresses, place a personal ad, and sign up for a tour – all at once – that they find themselves suddenly stretched too thin and running around suddenly like a chicken without its head on.
Whatever method you decide to use, you should stick with it. Consider it a campaign… follow it through. If it doesn’t work, then you can switch strategies. But you should focus on one at a time. Focus is very important in this.
3. STOP DATING AMERICAN WOMEN.
If you have decided to do this… then do it! One of two things is going to happen if you continue to date AWs… either A) You will find yourself in a relationship with her, and will have a severe complication when you connect with some woman via email in another country or B) you won’t find a relationship with an AW, which means that you are wasting money that is better spent on your trip to Ukraine (or Russia.)
4. MAKE YOUR AD VERY SPECIFIC
When I started out in this, I hired an agency that I think most of you know, and paid the guy $250 to place some personal ads for me. Since he called himself an expert, I followed his advice, and let him control everything – even writing the actual copy of my ad. He promised me a huge response. And I got one…. Something like 300 responses in all.
And it was a disaster.
Why is 300 responses a disaster? I’ll tell you why: 297 of the women who responded were absolutely nothing like what I wanted. I mean, they were not even close! Many were over 40 (I was 39 at the time) several didn’t speak any English, and they were not attractive to me. At all.
So, you may ask, how about the other 3? What were they like? The truth is, I never wrote to the other 3. Crazy? Well, let me give you a scenario… you get about four letters a day. When the first batch arrives, you are excited. You eagerly open the letters. But, the letters are all in Russian. The pictures are of women that you would not (to be honest) cross the street for an opportunity to date… let alone the world. You put them aside. The next day, it happens again. And again. And again. A whole month goes by. Day after day after day you get letters. NONE of them are anything near what you were hoping for. A second month goes by. By now you are completely demoralized. The guy from the agency had sold you a dream (Hell, it is the NAME of his agency) but you don’t see any dream here… He told you that the women in Ukraine were all gorgeous, and you have 200 pictures from women who are anything but. The dream is dying. You are discouraged.
When a letter arrives with a good looking woman – in month three – you are already too discouraged to even write her. (BTW, this probably happens to the good looking women there, too.) You are simply completely underwhelmed… Trust me.
An agency will tell you that it is in your best interest to generate as many responses as you can get. Why not get a slew of responses, and then YOU decide who you respond to? I’ll tell you why: Because your time is too valuable to look through a bunch of women in whom you have no interest whatsoever.
Here’s the cold fact: It is not in YOUR best interest to have a lot of responses. It is in the AGENCY’S best interest. The guy who runs the agency who “helped” me has even bragged about how many responses I got to prospective clients: “Yeah, I placed an ad for a guy who got 300 women writing to him!” I can just see that poor guy’s eyes widen as he imagines 300 super-models writing to him. Trouble is, the claim that all women in Ukraine are supermodels is one of the most hyped myths out there.
Yeah, if I had 300 women like Victoria all writing to me, it would have been great. But they weren’t like that at all.
BTW, the same thing happens on the other side, too.
Several years ago, my wife (responding to nagging from her mother) went to a friend who was opening an agency in Kherson. They needed women for the agency, and since the owner was actually a cousin, Victoria went in. When she filled out the profile, she put what she was looking for in a man: “Tall, fit, and no more than 5 years older than me.”
“No, no,” the agency owner told her. “You should not be so specific. It is better to have a wide range. Let many men write you. Who knows, you may find someone who is a little older that you fall in love with. The point is, you should have as many responses as you can get, and the YOU can decide who to write back!”
Now, the agency never got off of the ground as it turns out. But it wasn’t for lack of business sense. Think about what they were telling her. They were encouraging her to lower her standards.
Why?
Because they were trying to be helpful? Well… maybe. But more likely, they were advising her in a way that that would make the AGENCY more money. If she lowered her standards, then they could sell her address to more people, which means the agency makes more money. Think about it… most agencies already tell guys that only about 30% of the ladies they write to will respond. What a great racket that is! They sell her address 10 times, and she is only interested in a third of them! But the agency makes money on every sell! This is like selling bottled air!
Maybe I’m just a natural born cynic, but I think that pretty much you can always simply “follow the money” and learn the truth…
OK… enough of that… next step:
5. ONLY INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS.
I know some “experts” will tell you that you need to include your home address so the woman knows you are a real person. Rubbish.
I also have been told (and paid for) having a local address so the women can write you using local postage. Again, I say: Rubbish.
And here’s why:
First off, you probably don’t have a local address. Which means that you have to hire someone to gather your letters, scan them, translate them, and forward them. Who do you think benefits from that the most? You? (… follow the money…)
Secondly, if a woman writes you via standard mail – be it local or international – that means that she has to send you a photograph. That isn’t cheap. Most of them don’t have a ton of pictures that they can afford to send out on a whim. Scanned pictures, however, are free (once scanned). Victoria told me that if I had only had included a local address, she wouldn’t have written to me. She wasn’t about to send one of her only photographs to a man she had never met, and who may very well never respond.
Thirdly, the women aren’t stupid. If you have a “local” address, then they know that you are working with an agency. There are a lot of women who are VERY cynical of all agencies, and want nothing to do with the men who come from agencies. (And, IMHO, these are the women you want…)
Fourthly (and this is the most important) who wants a woman who can only send snail-mail to a local address? Stop thinking quantity, and start thinking QUALITY! You don’t want a thousand responses… you only want GOOD responses. If a woman can send you an email, it means that she has already worked out internet access. If you are going to carry on any kind of a correspondence relationship (these days) she needs internet access.
If she writes you via a local address, and your “agency friend” forwards her letters to you… who do you think will end up paying to set her up with internet access? That is if the girl is even savvy enough to do it! Maybe she will have to pay someone to type her letters, translate them, and send them? (Who benefits from that, do you think? … follow the money… But let me clue you in: Not you..)
6. TELL HER THAT HER RESPONSE MUST BE IN ENGLISH.
See above for the reasoning. It is another filter. She needs to somehow be able to understand English, or the burden for all communication falls on your shoulder. Is it unfair that a woman needs to be able to handle English? No. Why? Because you’re not moving to Ukraine (or Russia) she is moving here. Any intelligent woman already knows this. (You don’t want an unintelligent woman, do you?) If she is considering moving here, she will HAVE to learn the language. (Exception would be if you are seeking a woman in Colombia, and you live in Texas – she could live here depressingly easily without ever speaking anything but Spanish – but that is a different story altogether…) Victoria used an online translator to write me initially. It made for some interesting translations sometimes, but it worked…
7. PUT THE DATE OF YOUR ARRIVAL IN THE AD
What I mean is pick a date when you are going to go to the city your ad is appearing in. It should be 2 – 4 months out. Less and you won’t have enough time to get to know her, and more and she will not take you seriously.
And you SHOULD have a date in mind when you will go. You don’t HAVE to buy the ticket, but you should be ABLE to. If you connect with a woman, it is in your best interest (and hers) to see her after a couple months of correspondence. If you can’t commit to doing that, then don’t even start any of this. You are only going to cause problems. Be honest and don’t get the women’s hopes up.
OK… so, having said all of that, here is the ad that I placed, and that Victoria responded to, which eventually led to our meeting and marriage. There is nothing magic about the ad. It is short because it has to be. But you will see that it includes all of the elements I described above…
=========================================================
HELLO! I am coming to Ukraine in March
I am a successful American man in search of a beautiful, young woman. She dreams of a secure and happy life with a special man who will love her forever. Her young child is welcome. If this might be you, reply (in English) to:
myname@hotmail.com
The place I used to place my personal ad is:
http://www.ukrservice.kiev.ua/
I paid, I think, $65 for that ad, and it ran in several cities. To run it in Kherson would have cost $8.00, but I didn’t know my wife was in Kherson at the time J
In fact, I would recommend not focusing on one city. I would place the ad in a scattershot of cities, and then pick the city to go to later.
But, that’s just me.
That’s all I can think of for now.
If anyone would like to discuss any details of this, I am happy to respond to email queries, though I said about all I can think of.
If anyone wants to start a flame war… don’t waste your time. I have no intention on arguing about any of this.
As I stated at the beginning… the above is simply my opinion.
And this is what worked for me…
