A Holistic Matchmaking Service With a Strong Success Rate

The Short Version: Matchmaking makes a lot of dating easier, but it won’t magically solve your dating problems. Matchmaker Trea Tijmens walked us through her holistic method, and explained why matchmaking works best with coaching behind it.

Building a dating app profile means answering a ton of questions, some of them pretty personal. The last time I used Hinge, it let you add all kinds of details to your profile, everything from your height and age to your star sign and the pets you own.

Answering those questions, and then putting the answers out there for everyone, can stir up some emotions. It always throws me a bit to weigh whether I want kids when all I’m trying to do is update my Hinge profile.

Even more so when I then have to decide whether to share that answer with randos on an app.

Questions like these can feel a little existential for an app signup, but they serve a purpose. Apps rely on your profile details to recommend profiles and filter your matches. They also let other users see all your key information in one spot.

A matchmaker, on the other hand, shouldn’t just grill you on the basics from your dating app profile. Those basics certainly matter, but a great matchmaker will dig into the things about you that count in long-term, serious relationships.

Trea told us about the techniques she uses as a matchmaker.

A good matchmaker will make time to learn about you, your story, what you’ve been searching for in love, and what you need in order to succeed.

Besides working as a dating coach, Trea Tijmens is the founder and executive matchmaker of SuccessMatch, a Switzerland-based international practice for matchmaking and dating coaching.

She discussed her holistic method and her remarkable success rate with us, and she explained why picking the right matchmaker is among the biggest decisions you’ll make in the matchmaking process.

When Trea started out as a matchmaker, she found that traditional methods weren’t getting her clients the results she hoped for. So she shifted to a holistic approach, pairing matchmaking with coaching plus other resources to support clients.

The payoff: her clients were getting higher-quality dates and more second dates, and that wasn’t all. They were genuinely having fun with the process, too.

“I work in what I would call a holistic way,” Trea said. “My methodology is based on three things: being the right partner, finding the right partner, and choosing the right partner.”

SuccessMatch Works With Professionals Who Are Ready for Love

Trea was a headhunter before she became a matchmaker. “I always worked with highly educated, smart, interesting, successful, and very international people,” she said. “When I would interview them, I realized that, while they were successful in their lives, they weren’t in one important area.”

While networking with hundreds of executives, Trea saw that many of them lacked the romantic connections they wanted in their lives. Having spotted that need, she looked into the matchmaking market.

“Over 20 years ago, I looked to see what types of services there were for these kinds of people, and I found there wasn’t really a good offer for my specific target group,” Trea said. “I wanted to help people succeed in their personal lives and find a really great partner.”

Trea headhunted top corporate executives before turning to matchmaking.

Trea recognized that her headhunting skills lined up with a matchmaker’s and chose to switch careers. She founded SuccessMatch, but there were still a few steps to take before launch. She sat down with target groups and asked what they’d want from their ideal matchmaker.

Almost everyone in those groups, she told us, agreed on one point: they wanted a person who could track down great people and arrange great dates.

“They’re so busy with work and work all the time,” Trea said. “20 years ago, I thought that approach made a lot of sense. So, for many years, I took this traditional matchmaking approach.”

That straightforward kind of matchmaking may suit some people, and Trea arranged thousands of dates this way. But she saw that her success rate fell well short of where she wanted it. She wanted to offer clients a service that delivered what serious daters really want: committed relationships.

“Now, I work in a very different way, and our success rates are at 85%,” Trea said. “For all the clients, we start with you. You hold the key to everything in your life. We, the matchmakers, can’t do everything by ourselves. You have to work with us.” 

Matchmaking That Takes in the Whole Person

Trea’s holistic approach weaves elements of dating coaching into matchmaking. Whether clients are in the matchmaking program or the dating coaching program, she said, she’s helping them explore and go after what they want in a relationship.

Trea told us you should think about whether you’re ready for matchmaking and willing to see the process through. There are no guarantees, and like all dating, it can have highs and lows.

“If you really want to make structural or profound changes and actually implement different behavior, that takes some time,” Trea said. “So the minimum amount people can work with me for coaching is four months, but the yearlong program is the most successful.”

Matchmaking and coaching both take an investment of time and money. SuccessMatch turns them into transformative experiences worth every penny.

Trea helps clients make sense of their relationship histories, their needs, and their romantic desires.

“Now, it’s a really transformative process. You learn a lot about yourself. We talk about patterns in your relationships that aren’t conducive to you succeeding, and how we need to break from these,” Trea said.

With her clients, Trea reviews past relationships: the good parts, the bad ones, and the ugly ones too. For matchmaking or coaching to work, you have to trust your matchmaker or coach enough to share personal details and experiences, and those details run deeper than anything a dating app asks you to reveal.

“We look at emotional baggage,” Trea said. “People have things they need to let go of so they can be fully present in the now and move forward. One of the biggest problems I see is people want to find love and have a partner, but deep down, they have these beliefs that are limiting them.”

Maybe the belief is that you fall short, or that there’s no love out there for you; either way, Trea said, beliefs like that hold no truth. They must be acknowledged and swapped out before you can embrace the love waiting for you.

“I help my clients identify those blind spots and those limiting beliefs,” Trea said. “We need to identify them and then instill new beliefs that are positive, supportive, and empowering. We need beliefs that support their goal of finding a partner.”

Trea covers topics like these with her matchmaking clients. What she learns shapes and guides her as she makes introductions, supports you through dating, and collects feedback from you and the people you date.

One Introduction Could Transform Your Life

If matchmaking is on your mind, Trea said picking the right matchmaker will be one of the biggest decisions you make along the way. Choose one who works with people in your demographic, and don’t be shy about shopping around, Trea said.

“Depending on who you are, there are matchmakers that cover different niche groups, so you need to find somebody that you think has experience with singles like you,” Trea said. “Then it’s very much a matter of getting a personal feel for, and a connection with, a matchmaker because you need to know who you’re working with.”

A good matchmaker wants what’s best for you and wants you to succeed. As for worrying about how big a matchmaker’s database is, Trea said that’s not something to stress over too much.

SuccessMatch brings men and women together for long-term, committed relationships.

“I always say, don’t worry too much about the database,” Trea said. “Because the level of matchmaking that I do usually involves a search. So we look at people we already know and have interviewed, but often our clients are unique, so we need people who are equally unique. We have to look out of the database anyway.”

Another thing to look for: a matchmaker who makes clear that this is a process. Nobody can hand you a perfect partner on the spot. Instead, the two of you design and follow through on a dating plan that feels right to you, and the dates come out of that.

You and your matchmaker should click from the start, but they’ll still need time to learn everything about what you want in a partner. (No matchmaker can predict every aspect of chemistry.)

“I always say that you can’t see chemistry from a photo because chemistry draws on seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting,” Trea said. “Everything is involved.” 

As clients go on dates, Trea learns more about them, and they discover more about themselves. “I’ve had experiences where clients say they have a certain type,” Trea said. “But when I send them on a date with a different type, they tell me they’re so happy I encouraged them to do so. Sometimes, people are perfect on paper, and they aren’t in real life.”

What Trea loves most about matchmaking is learning who her clients are. No two people are alike, and that’s especially clear when it comes to romance.

“Each client is unique,” Trea said. “What some people need more of, other people need less of. And that, for me, is the exciting thing about my work. It’s getting to know my clients, getting a good understanding of who they are, how they feel, and how they function.”