Sad to hear it's not working for you. I have been performing phase one alone for a long time now and in my experience it works close to 90% of the times. In mentalism sometimes you have to take risks and you have to believe 100% in what you are doing, if you doubt spectators will doubt too, they will feel it. I created phase two as an out to phase one in case phase one does not work and if they both work you have two strong climaxes at the end. Also just think about the basic concept: two predictions given to the spectator to hold from the beginning of the experiment. About the technique used in phase two, that is my take on a very classic move used in mentalism and I believe that particular one is way more natural than others. Watch the explanation video again and try it over and over, I am positive you will get it down and if you have any questions you can always contact me on Facebook. Here is a video of me performing phase one. Ciao from Italy and thank you for your support. Jay Di Biase.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tTIIZQM5aI