Save the Date: You Lost Him at Hello

May 12, 9:40 PMDallas Dating ExaminerLeah Shafer

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“Just be yourself” is terrible dating advice.

At least, that’s what Jess McCann says. This saleswoman and entrepreneur wants women to “use their heads more” and treat their dates as sales calls, bringing them either closer to a relationship, or closer to moving on.

“Women cannot be themselves—when they really like someone they overanalyze everything and let their emotions dictate their judgment,” she said, predicting disaster in that scenario. “Using sales techniques will remedy this problem.”

 Author Jess McCann

Her new no-nonsense book, You Lost Him at Hello: A Saleswoman’s Secrets to Closing the Deal with Any Guy You Want (HCI Books, $14.95), outlines a proactive strategy based on her years as a saleswoman. But the product she’s most interested in is you.

We reached McCann at home in Virginia and asked her to explain her approach, the secrets of a good first date and why The Rules don’t work anymore.

For years, women were told to let the men do the chasing. You advise women to get more active. Why?
There used to be the book, The Rules and everything was a “don’t.” Don’t call him, ask him to dance, approach him. It had you doing nothing.

Sales people don’t do that—if I stood around and asked customers to call me, I would never make deals. Women have to learn to do the same thing.

What’s one way to get more dates?
The SEE factor: smile, eye-contact and energy. You use that to get a guy to approach you.

When sales people learn how to cold-call on businesses, they use the SEE factor because it puts the owner at ease. That translates to dating when, for example, you’re at a party. A lot of women tend to shy away from eye contact. My reaction used to be to be aloof. But if you smile, you put out positive energy.

You warn against getting too close on a first or second date. Why?
Women sometimes get really excited and we are talkers—we can have “verbal vomit” and tell our dates way too much. The only way to learn about somebody is by asking questions.

In the book, I talk about holding back your “bullets” to keep him intrigued, from the first kiss to sex. Bullets are strong points—I don’t want to tell him all the strong points [up front], so I reserve some so I can tell him something new later and he gets excited.

Your bullets are connected to sex, too, and you don’t want to throw all those out on the first or second date.

Equating dating to sales seems kind of fake—why can’t just we be ourselves?
I’m not teaching women to be something they are not, I’m teaching them just how to sell their most important product: themselves.

When some women start dating, all logic goes out the window and they star making emotional decisions. Sales is a logical plan about how to win someone over. If you have a strategy to get what you want, then you are more likely to get it.