I've spent 20 years as an elite matchmaker for the ultra-wealthy. Here's what playing cupid to millionaires is really like.

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Elite matchmaker Samantha Daniels.Courtesy of Samantha Daniels

I have been in the professional matchmaking business for almost 20 years, and I work exclusively with millionaires and high-profile people who like to date under-the-radar and want to find the one thing they don’t have: their perfect partner in life.

Over the years, I have learned that millionaires are a very exacting breed with many specific needs when it comes to matchmaking. I like to give my clients precise service, so I try to anticipate what I can do to make them happy and also find them the one.

Here’s what working as a matchmaker to millionaires is really like.

I have to dig out the gold-diggers.

Very wealthy men are very protective about who comes into their fold because they do not want to be taken for a ride. Unfortunately, a lot of millionaires have had a “gold-digger” situation or have had a friend who has, so they expect me to suss out the gold-diggers.

They expect me to find them very quality women who are interested in meeting them for who they are as a person, not because of their money. Over the years, I have developed gold-digger radar since my clients have always been high-profile and affluent. I can smell women from a mile away who only care about money.

Millionaires expect me to deliver 7-star service.

Wealthy men expect excellent service everywhere they go and with everything they do – and they are willing to pay for that excellence.

It’s the same with their matchmaker: They only want to work with me if they believe I can add value to their lives. This means honest and precise feedback, constructive criticism when appropriate, seamless and perfect dates, and even help smoothing things over for them if necessary.

I’m always on the hunt for women who have it all.

Most wealthy men can have a date every night of the week if they want one. However, they are busy and have no interest in settling for mediocrity. Millionaires are used to having the best in everything so they expect me to find them that A+ woman to be their wife.

The best woman is different for every man, but very wealthy men expect the woman they marry to have everything – to be beautiful and sexy, smart, family-oriented, fun, and supportive. They expect me to find that needle in the haystack for them.

I have to understand “millionaire speak.”

Millionaires are used to people who work for them knowing “their” language – what they mean by the things they say. It’s no different with their matchmaker. For example, when one of my clients says he wants to marry a “smart” woman, I need to understand if that means that he wants her to have gone to Harvard, if just any college will do, or even if he needs a college-educated woman at all as long as she is conversant in many topics. And on and on.

For me to be an effective matchmaker, I need to be able to understand how my client defines each and every adjective he uses to describe the woman he wants to marry.

And I need to know how to read between the lines.

Very wealthy men expect me to understand what they say to me when they are describing their future mate, but they also expect me to understand what they do not say.

I usually do that by learning about their life and lifestyle – seeing where they live, how they spend their time, who their friends are, and also hearing about who they have dated in the past and why it didn’t work. I also ask them what they learned about themselves from those past relationships so I can help them find a better and more compatible partner in the future.

Millionaires want me to optimise their dating life.

Very wealthy men are usually quite busy closing deals and jetting off here and there, so they look to me to send them on quality dates at times that are most convenient for them. This might mean that they reach out on a Tuesday to get set up on Thursday because a business trip just got cancelled and they find themselves in town.

Or, they ask for a date in Los Angeles when they live in New York because they find that they are going to be in LA for several months on a new deal. They expect me to be able to accommodate their schedule on the fly, to make certain I do not waste their time with sub-par dates, and to organise the whole date so all they have to do is show up and say, “Hello.”

I focus on accuracy and details.

Wealthy men tend to be detail-oriented. As a result, they expect their matchmaker to pay attention to details as well. Some matchmakers like to go on and on about how fabulous an upcoming match is. I think this is a mistake; I never want to over-promise because that just sets me up to under-deliver.

Instead, I give my millionaire men precise and specific descriptions of who they are going to meet; if they need to spend time on the date being annoyed that I didn’t provide accurate information about the woman, then they won’t have that time to spend getting to know the woman sitting across from them.

The owner of bicoastal matchmaking service, Samantha’s Table, Samantha Daniels has been a professional matchmaker and dating and relationship expert for nearly 20 years. She has appeared as a dating expert on screen and in print, from The Today Show and Good Morning America to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She was also a creator/producer for the NBC TV show, Miss Match, and is the author of the book, “Matchbook: The Diary of a Modern-Day Matchmaker.”