Everybody’s little helper: You don’t have to make things to make money. Just help people get things done and rake in the bucks! - Biz 101 - service-themed businesses - Brief Article
August 23rd, 2007 by moniesThe key to a successful service business is to offer something that’s desperately needed–and often that’s something you’d never think could be a business. Jayne Anne Harris and her sisters, Eloise and Mary Lou, discovered just how necessary the coat-check business is. As aspiring actors and singers, the Harris sisters worked the coat room at the famed Studio 54 in New York City The company that provided the club’s security also worked other events, and it soon asked the Harrises to run coat-check rooms at other soirees. “At first, it was a side job to pay our rent,” says Jayne Anne, 46. “We tried a few, and it accidentally turned into a full-fledged business.”
The trio officially started Goat Check Inc. in 1993. “There was a demand for it,” says Mary Lou, 40. “There was a lot of work out there.” These days, the sisters are busy year-round running coat checks at glamorous events-from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Ball to galas hosted by The New Yorker and Vogue–and annual sales are fast approaching $230,000. And while training their staffers to properly handle thousands of coats in one evening is no easy task, the mavens of Coat Check know it’s all part of providing good service. “We keep it hospital corners all the way around,” says Eloise, 42.
That kind of devotion to customers is integral to any good service business–whether it’s caring for socialites’ coats or something a bit more, shall we say, down-to-earth. Cara Brown, 28, and Erin Erman, 29, combined a desire to provide excellent service with a passion for dogs when they launched Dirty Work, a pooper-scooper service, in 1998.
The pair publicized their Atlanta business through fliers and ads in the local paper, but Erman notes that the cheapest and easiest marketing tool was their Web site (www.dirtywork.net). “It was one of the smartest choices we could have made,” says Erman. “People want to investigate you first, get a feel for your business and [determine] if they like what they see before they commit to talking to you–and feel like they’re being pitched for a sale.”
Getting the word out to people was the biggest challenge, says Erman. “[In our area], people had never heard that you could hire someone to scoop your yard,” she says. Because Dirty Work is dependable and inexpensive, customers quickly grew to love their service. Erman and Brown recouped their $1,500 start-up costs in about six months, and sales have continued to grow.
Be it hobnobbing with the rich and famous or keeping pet owners’ yards clean and fresh, serving can be the best way to receive–a profit, that is.
Need a Hand?
SURE, EMPLOYEES WOULD BE NICE. BUT WHAT KIND AND WHAT FOR?
YOU’RE TERRIBLY BUSY YOU’RE MAILING the wrong stuff to the wrong people, and you can’t remember where you put your contract proposals. To say you need help is an understatement; but before you hire your first employee, make sure you have the basics down.
“Don’t start hiring too soon,” says Leonard Homer, an adjunct professor at the KenanFlagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and founder of small-business operational-support company Essential Business Solutions. “Don’t do any hiring until you sit down and figure out your milestones and your staffing plan.”
Assess the local employment market, and be sure to check out PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “Salary Survey” and other salary publications for compensation information as well as hiring and layoff trends in your industry and community. The Society for Human Resource Management is another good starting place–the organization can answer any questions you might have about the legal and technical issues involved in employing workers for the first time.
Even if you need help right away, remember that a full-time 9-to-5er isn’t the only route you can take. Explore the benefits of temporary help, contract workers, freelancers, part-timers or work-at-home employees.
However you decide to build your staff, abide by Homer’s golden rule: “Have open communication with your employees from the start. As long as you practice what you preach, it works.”
RELATED ARTICLE: SERVE ‘EM HOT!
Just as the errand-running services of a few years ago turned into concierge services–one of today’s hottest business ideas-the following service business concepts could also be poised for some serious growth:
* Bathroom attendant: Provide service to high-end restaurants and nightclubs.
* Dog walker: A variant of the pooper-scooper service.
* Handyman: Provide the little fix-it services people need; could eventually turn into an entire fleet of handymen.
* Apartment hunter: Take the relocating stress off clients–they’ll love you.
Author: Nichole L. Torres
Posted in Uncategorized |