The Beatles may have been right when they sang, "Money can't buy me love." But these days, a wallet full of cash can get you the next best thing: a matchmaker poised to put the tools of capitalism to work in the name of romance.

The worlds of business and pleasure appear to be colliding in the approaches to dating being promoted by a Toronto-based program that uses executive-recruitment techniques to make matches, and a soon-to-be-released book by a Harvard MBA grad who offers Ivy League marketing tips to single women in search of a man.

Rachel Greenwald, author of Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned at Harvard Business School, outlines 15 steps to nabbing a "wonderful husband," drawing on business principles that include niche and mass marketing, investing (serious contenders should reportedly spend up to 20 per cent of their annual income in their search for a mate) and branding. "A product without a brand is like designer jeans without a label," the former marketing consultant told the Denver Post in a recent interview.

Copies of the book aren't available until next week, but on her Web site, Ms. Greenwald promises to help women "use advertising to get more fix-ups from friends"; "Audit your efforts and conduct exit interviews"; and "Use best practice dating rules for retaining the men you want."

Gloria MacDonald, a former marketing executive with AOL, uses a similar strategy at Perfect Partners, also aimed at women over 35.

When a corporate executive is looking for a new advertising manager, headhunters are called to do the search: They scan résumés, check references and put forward only the suitable few who are qualified for the job. Likewise, Ms. MacDonald does all the background work before setting up clients.

The key is in the research, she says. She attends networking events like those hosted by the Toronto Board of Trade, WXN (Women's Executive Network) and the Canadian Association of Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, trolling for likely candidates for a match, and calls her contacts in the business world. Then, she calls the ones with the most promise, "just like a headhunter would."

Clients and potential matches go through a lengthy personal interview with Ms. MacDonald -- sometimes up to two hours -- so that she can get a sense of them, their goals and ideal match. When she thinks she may have found a match, she asks both people for permission to give out their phone numbers and then tells the man he has to call.

"I guess I'm a little old-fashioned," she says.

Gwendolyn Richards is a Vancouver-based freelance writer.