IN the summer of 2006, Kezia Noble was having a drink in a London bar when she was approached by a man she didn’t know.
As she was working as a part-time model, this wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence for the then-25-year-old.
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But rather than trying to bag her phone number, this mysterious stranger had a proposal for Kezia - would she be interested in earning some extra cash by giving single guys feedback on their chat-up lines?
“This man worked for a company which ran bootcamps for men to improve their confidence with women,” Kezia, now 41, exclusively told Fabulous. “Every weekend, they’d get four women in their twenties to be the ‘Hot Babes’ these men practised on.
“I was a total sceptic. I remember thinking, it just wasn’t going to work. At the time, I thought attraction is all based on chemistry between two people - it wasn’t something you could practice.”
However, Kezia was interested in learning more - plus, the gig paid £150 for just two hours of her time.
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She continued: “I was really interested in the psychological side of it so I went along to see what it was about.
“Going in, I thought the group was going to be made up of real geeks but some of the guys were seriously good looking.
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“I didn’t think they’d have any problems talking to women… and then they opened their mouths.”
As well as not having any flirty banter, Kezia said most of her exchanges with the unlucky-in-love singletons would be littered with awkward silences and a total lack of eye contact.
And while Kezia had no issue telling the guys where they were going wrong, she said the other women on the bootcamps were more preoccupied with “trying to be nice”.
She recalled: “I was kind of brutal but my comments went down really well with the male coaches running the event.
“I went back every weekend and within a few weeks, they were giving me private clients to work with.”
After leaving school at 15 without any qualifications, Kezia did the odd bit of modelling and had a series of wealthy boyfriends who paid for her living costs.
Going in, I thought the group was going to be made up of real geeks but some of the guys were seriously good looking. I didn’t think they’d have any problems talking to women… and then they opened their mouths
Kezia Noble
She said: “I’d be waking up 12 in the afternoon and spent my evenings going to clubs and bars. I just can’t believe how unambitious I was.”
However when Kezia got involved in the dating coaching industry, it gave her a goal to start working towards - and it didn’t take long before she decided she wanted to go out on her own.
According to the International Coaching Federation, the personal development coaching industry is worth an eye-watering $13bn every year.
She explained: “Within a year, I realised there was definitely something missing in this market - there wasn’t a woman giving a brutally honest insight into the female mind.”
To begin with, Kezia thought she’d dip her toe in by launching a YouTube channel where she could share some of the mistakes she was seeing men make time and time again.
“This was the really early days of YouTube and I did not expect it to grow so quickly,” she said. “I uploaded a video called ‘How To Make Her Want You’ and I couldn’t believe my eyes as the views kept skyrocketing.
“I thought it would stop at the one million mark. It’s now got eight times that amount. In the past 12 years, my videos have racked up 85m views.”
Needless to say, it wasn’t long before Kezia’s videos caught the attention of a publisher who asked if she wanted to write a book of dating advice - which didn’t go down all that well with her employer.
In 2010, Kezia was being so famous online that she was being recognised by fans in LA and London.
Aware that she was looking to launch her own dating coach business, Kezia’s employer offered her £25,000 to stay and release a product with them - which she ultimately turned down.
She said: “It was a big risk walking away from that offer. But I just knew that if I released a DVD, it would make more £25,000.
“When I left, the guy who approached me in the bar told me I’d never make it, that I’d fail and then go back to them and be £25,000 short.
“But you know what - I actually prefer it when people underestimate me. It triggers me into action.”
How YOU can Boss It like Kezia and launch your business:
- Don’t overthink every aspect of your business. You’re not an artist. Not everything has to look perfect straight away.
- You can learn on the job. Don’t wait for your dream mentor to come along - it’ll only drag you in different directions
- Don’t get too lost on social media - it’s easy to get fixated on Instagram but it’s not necessarily the most profitable. I’ve found it easier to convert YouTube views into sales. A blue tick doesn’t mean they’re making all that much.
- You don’t need lots of investment to set it up. Start adding what you can and build it up along the way.
When setting up her own rival business, Kezia invested just £2,000 - which was spent on the website design, branding and filming and producing her DVDs to sell.
Fast forward 12 years and Kezia now employs 25 members of staff, offers multiple different types of dating workshops and has made £1m from her products alone.
She said: “Since I went out on my own, my books, DVDs and video downloads have made me £1m.
“I also offer private coaching with clients where I charge £300-an-hour. They’re usually about two hours long and I have some clients who have been seeing me for a couple of years.
“For me, there’s no such thing as a typical client. I’ve got men on my waiting list who aren’t 18 yet and their dads have bought the course as an 18th birthday present. The oldest I’ve had is 73.
“But the average is mid-30s where they’ve come out of a relationship and they thought that was going to be The One and it didn’t work out.
“They’re at that weird age where their friends aren’t there or they don’t really want to go clubbing as much and want to meet someone special.
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“I’ve even had some people from soap operas like EastEnders and they’re not so famous anymore.
“They turn up at the bootcamp and people just keep staring at them.
“They were so used to their fame and getting women that now they don’t know what to do. It’s very difficult for them and they need the confidence boost I can provide.”
As well as her one-on-one coaching, Kezia offers an acceleration programme for £2,700 which offers men 60 online hours with a member of her coaching team.
What’s more, her full-immersion programme costs £4,500 and allows clients to have one-on-one coaching for a full week.
Most recently, Kezia has started offering her own course to help other people become dating coaches too.
With almost 17 years in the industry, Kezia has had her fair share of weird requests from clients - who often try their luck with her.
She said: “I’ve had men ask me to meet them somewhere and flirt with them and pretend to be their date.
“They often set it up so a girl they like is going to be there and it’ll make them jealous. And I’m like, ‘no I don’t do that - that’s what Hitch does!’ I don’t manipulate events, I teach guys how to improve themselves.
I’ve had men ask me to meet them somewhere and flirt with them and pretend to be their date. They often set it up so a girl they like is going to be there and it’ll make them jealous. And I’m like, ‘no I don’t do that - that’s what Hitch does!’ I don’t manipulate events, I teach guys how to improve themselves
Kezia
“I have had guys pretending that they’ve needed help and they didn’t. They just wanted to have dinner with me. They’d offer to take me to dinner and I’d naively think ‘oh I don’t mind.’ So that’s when I realise they’re not interested in coaching at all and they just want to talk about themselves.”
As for her own love life, Kezia is currently single and co-parents her six-year-old son Morgan with her ex-husband.
Although the past two years have been an undeniably challenging time for businesses, Kezia’s company has continued to flourish in Covid - as singletons had to focus their search for love online.
She explained: “My business is pandemic-proof. We put all our courses online as an alternative to meeting up in London. People were asking why we hadn’t done it sooner!
“I thought no one would be interested in learning how to chat to women during Covid but I was so wrong. We got thousands of new sign-ups during the pandemic as dating in person got more complicated and men wanted to know how to stand out online.
“Women are going to have the heard the same thing a thousand times before on dating apps - we teach guys how to come up with something dynamic to say, honing in on their interests without just stating the obvious.”
“The thing is, men are always going to want to learn how to speak to women.”
But the most satisfying thing of all? The man who was responsible for getting Kezia into the industry in the first place - and also told her that her business would fail - now works for her.
She added: “Four years into running my own company, he emailed me and asked for a job. He’s my Head of Sales now. I love it when people underestimate me.”
For more inspiring stories, we spoke to Natalie Chapple who founded Glisten Cosmetics when she could barely afford childcare - now it makes her £34k teaching salary every three WEEKS.
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And Jemma Solomon revealed her sister sister Stacey caught the labelling bug from her - she set up her company with £300 & now Lord Sugar has invested.
Plus Tropic Skincare's Susie Ma set up her £51m business when she was 15 – Lord Sugar fired her on The Apprentice but STILL invested £200k.
