The romantic futures of more than 1,000 men and women sit inside a computer in an upscale Buffalo Grove house. The dating database, and the house, belong to Ed Grossman, who, at age 34, is the unassuming king of the Chicago area’s personal-ad dating scene.
Grossman, who prefers to call himself “just a publisher,” is the founder of Single’s Choice and Connections magazines, free monthly publications that carry hundreds of personal ads and thousands of hopes.
Like No. 3788, a “vibrant, caring DWF (divorced white female), age 30, with hazel eyes and dark hair, who enjoys art, literature, languages, music, humor; children, animals okay. Seeks person with similar interests for friendship, LTR (long-term relationship) possible.”
Or No. 3556, a “sexy, successful business professional, SWM (single white male), 5’7″ with blond hair and blue eyes who enjoys swimming, boating and working out, seeking an attractive SWF, age 25-35.”
Unlike other Chicago area personal ad operations, which are part of the classified departments of newspapers or magazines, Grossman is the ultimate single practitioner. He works alone in a sleek home office, screening every personal ad “for insulting or derogatory language” before entering it into his computer database.
He also typesets every issue, labels and sends out written ad responses and maintains the voice-mail system that enables lovelorn singles to record messages to each other at $2 a minute. He used to distribute all 140,000 copies of Single’s Choice by himself as well, but recently hired a couple of assistants to deliver his newsprint booklets to hundreds of freestanding street boxes in the Loop and to the foyers of health clubs and singles bars in communities as far flung as Waukegan and Gary, Ind.
Yet in a field that has become crowded with singles publications, “Ed is one of the most successful singles publishers in the country, if not the most successful,” said Allen Kalik, president of Executive Exchange Inc., a telephone-answering service in Manchester, N.H., that provides a dating service via voice mail.
Evanston singles consultant Gail Prince, who lists 22 publications that carry personal ads in The Chicago Singles Guide, which she publishes, said Grossman’s publications stand out because “Ed’s professional conduct helps area singles feel there’s nothing wrong with placing such ads. It makes the whole thing more viable.”
When Grossman started Single’s Choice eight years ago, his goal was more pragmatic. “All I wanted was to work for myself, from our first little house in Buffalo Grove, and make $30,000 a year. As you can see, I’ve surpassed my wildest dreams.” he said while glancing at the banks of computers and fax equipment that line the spacious office in the large house he now shares with his wife, Melinda, and two small daughters.
Grossman won’t talk about just how successful he is, but during a visit, a $78 ad from a SWM–men advertise more, so female ads are generally free, to balance things out–arrived by fax; several letters, at a $3 forwarding fee each, were ready to go to the local post office; and lights that indicate action on the publications’ 900 numbers (900-FOR-LOVE and 900-367-8800) blinked frequently.
The success of Grossman’s business on the romance front is equally hard to quantify, although his Met Someone file includes about 30 exuberant letters and wedding photos from couples who found each other through Single’s Choice.
“I often get phone calls from singles asking me to cancel their ads or take them off my mailing list because they’ve met someone special,” he said, “and about once a month a woman will request a copy of her ad to give to her new fiance. But there’s still a stigma attached to running personal ads.”
A newly wedded Buffalo Grove couple agreed. Although the two CPAs admitted they never would have met if she had not placed an ad in the March 1994 Single’s Choice, the pair did not want their real names used in this article. “We usually tell people we met at a party,” said the groom.
Grossman, who grew up in Wilmette, met Melinda at a fraternity party while both were students at Indiana University in Bloomington.
After they graduated, he took a job with the New York Times Magazine Group, getting Family Circle, Golf Digest and other publications onto the sales racks of newsstands and supermarkets, first in Chicago and then in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
While working in Boston, Grossman spotted two personal-ad publications, The Dating Page and Singles Almanac, and started wondering if he could start a similar magazine in Chicago.
“Melinda really missed her friends and family in the Midwest,” Grossman said, “and I was anxious to strike out on my own, so in 1987 we moved back to Buffalo Grove.”
Melinda, who is a CPA, returned to her old job with a firm in Skokie, and Ed wrote letters to area dating services, offering to trade ads in his new singles magazine for their mailing lists. He spent a few hundred dollars to print the first issues of Single’s Choice and took a job putting tags on bottles of cough syrup at $7.50 an hour just to make ends meet.
If the personal-ad industry had continued to depend on singles writing letters to each other, Grossman might still be attaching those tags. But while he was leaving piles of his new magazine at singles bars in Chicago and the suburbs, Allen Kalik was experimenting with voice-mail personals in New Hampshire.
Kalik recalled, “We’d been using voice mail (in conjunction with newspaper ads) to sell cars and appliances. Then one day a woman in her mid-50s called to complain that the personal ad she’d been running in a local newspaper had not attracted a single letter. I gave her a free voice mail box, and she recorded a message inviting interested `silver foxes’ to meet her in person. In just two days she had calls from 99 different men. A light bulb went off, and I knew this could be huge.”
Grossman met Kalik at a meeting of the Singles Press Association and became one of the first publishers in the country to link singles through lucrative 900 number services. Now about 90 percent of the singles who place written ads in Single’s Choice or Connections also record voice mail greetings, which anyone can access by dialing one of Grossman’s 900 numbers and punching in the ad’s code on a touch-tone phone.
Voice-mail love may be easier than writing letters, but it isn’t cheap. By the time a caller has listened to a greeting and recorded a response, he or she has spent about $8 in phone charges. Grossman’s equipment cannot track the number of calls each ad generates–Ameritech simply sends him a monthly check–but one woman in his Met Someone file claims her ad reaped more than 200 calls, including one from the man with whom she now has a long-term relationship.
The formula has been so successful that Grossman’s brother Bob has started a Single’s Choice-Milwaukee, a cousin publishes one in Miami, and a family friend operates a similar venture in Kansas City, Mo.
Grossman’s own 900-number revenue has dropped since other Chicago-area publications set up their own voice-mail date lines, but he has branched out into selling display ads for dating services and other singles matching operations.
Because some of the Single’s Choice display ads are on the racy side–Island Treasures International promises “beautiful, educated loyal Oriental ladies” and a company called California Girls invites men to “talk live with hot & sexy” Valley girls–Grossman recently started the more conservative Connections. It is for distribution in suburban supermarkets and doesn’t contain any of the racy ads. (If you can’t find a copy of either publication, phone Grossman at 847-634-7700, and he’ll mail you one.)
Melinda, 34, said she is not surprised at her husband’s success, but she is surprised by its source.
“No one in our family ever used a personal ad. When I tell people what he does, their first reaction is, `What about all those single women he’s meeting?’ Of course, he’s meeting them only over the phone,” she said with a laugh.
Grossman said he enjoys talking to potential advertisers of both sexes, “but I won’t play counselor and I won’t edit their ads. I wouldn’t know how. The ads I think are poorly written often bring the most responses.”
He looked at his computer and smiled, “I have learned one thing in eight years: There’s somebody out there for everyone. All I do is provide a way to get them together.”
HOW TO AVOID STRIKING OUT
Although voice-mail personals generate the most income, Single’s Choice and Connections publisher Ed Grossman thinks a handwritten letter on nice stationery, with a photo included, is the best way to answer a personal ad. If you still want the convenience of a voice-mail meeting, he and singles consultant Gail Prince offer the following tips:
When writing your ad, be specific about what you’re looking for, even if it means getting fewer responses. “Everybody enjoys travel and going out for dinner,” Prince said. “If you’re looking for a non-smoker who likes classical music and reading `The Road Less Traveled,’ say so. It’s a lot of work sorting through messages from 200 inappropriate people.”
Keep your voice-mail greeting upbeat. Grossman screens greetings for sound quality only, “but when I hear a woman complaining about the weather and the jerks she’s meeting in bars, I know she won’t be getting many calls,” he said. Ask questions, so the person answering has something to talk about.
When answering a voice-mail greeting, tell what you liked about the person’s ad, describe yourself in a truthful but positive way and leave your phone number and a time the advertiser can reach you there. Always talk to someone at length before getting together. The newlyweds who met through Single’s Choice had three long phone conversations before their first date.
Arrange that first in-person meeting at a public place for a short period of time. That way, if you don’t like each other, you haven’t wasted an entire day or evening.
