Concierges Do All the Little Things

It’s 6:05 p.m. and you didn’t quite make it to the dry cleaners, which closed at 6 p.m.

Rushing and sweating, you made it just in time to the post office, but you still need to pick up a Valentine’s Day gift for your sweetie.

You’ve thought of cloning yourself, but that’s too controversial. A full-time butler? Too expensive.

Lucky for you, there’s a growing cadre of entrepreneurs who’ll be happy to handle some, or all, of those tedious tasks--for a fee.

Within the last few years, concierge (or errand) services have sprouted in the San Fernando Valley like spring flowers, offering to take on everything from grocery and gift shopping to fence mending, literally.

Most such personal services firms in the Valley are small, family-run, usually home-based operations. A few, such as Chatsworth-based Errand Angels Premier Concierge and Errands & More in Canoga Park, have Web sites.

But many haven’t gotten that far.

Most of the requests, service operators say, are pretty pro forma: groceries picked up here, bills paid there. But that’s not always the case.

Since its inception nearly two years ago, Burbank-based It’s No Problem Inc. (https://www.itsnoproblem.com) has been asked to do everything from administer an enema to weld an entertainment executive’s front gate and install rain gutters.

The company has a staff of four full-time workers and 40 project-specific team members, many of them Hollywood hunks who take on projects between acting gigs.

“Between all of those people, we can usually find someone who knows how to do whatever it is,” said Renee Howard, who founded the company in April 1999 with Barbara Carratala Bonds, a former television producer.

Fees range from $20 an hour for clerical work and simple errands to about $50 for computer help. There is a half-hour minimum.

The company gets about a third of its business from individuals purchasing the service for themselves or as a gift. The bulk of sales come from businesses, large and small, that offer the service to their employees as a perk.

The company boasts that a live person is available to answer the phone 24 hours a day, and there is no additional fee for “rush” orders.

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Elaine Brown launched Canoga Park-based Errands & More about five years ago--ancient history in this field.

It’s a business, she said, in which companies “seem not to last too long.”

“For errand services, it’s pretty difficult to rely on the day-to-day calls,” said Brown, whose service (https://www.errandsandmore.com) is one of the few we found that offers to pick up children after school. “Unless you see your clients on a regular basis, it’s very difficult to wait for someone to call you to do grocery shopping once a month.”

Susan and Kaarel Hamersky, co-owners of Woodland Hills-based California Concierge, which was launched in July 1999, have seen business pick up in the last few months.

But the first year for their service (https://www.choresnmore.com) was an eye-opener, they recalled.

“I expected more,” said Kaarel Hamersky, who hopes to give up his day job in banking eventually. “When you first go into this, you’re naively thinking people will just be running to you. We’ve learned an awful lot about how difficult it is.”

Brown said Errands & More gained business last year after she received some marketing tips through an entrepreneurship program run by the Valley Economic Development Center.

Now, she said, she’s thinking of adding to her staff of one part-time worker.

Michelle O’Halloran, president of 3-year-old Errand Angels (https://www.errand-angels.com), said she cleared about $30,000 last year, after accounting for expenses, up from $10,000 in 1999.

“This year is going to be much better,” she said, noting that her company is beginning to attract more corporate clients. “But it’s still not enough to make a living.”

Susan Hamersky, who said her firm is not yet profitable, said she’d like to attract more corporate business. She and her husband have their eye on some of the growing tech-related firms along the Ventura Freeway corridor.

“That’s definitely one of the things we would like to do,” she said, noting that all of their business comes from individuals.

The company charges $35 per hour with a one-hour minimum for calls to the West Valley, two hours for the East Valley and a three-hour minimum for calls “over the hill.”

At It’s No Problem, business is growing among “middle- and upper-middle-income people, singles and couples where both people work,” Howard said. It’s also catching on among members of the gay community, she added.

Overall, she said, sales climbed from about $40,000 in 1999 to more than $200,000 last year. And Bryan P. Carpender, vice president and director of operations, said he fields more than 30 calls a day from clients and potential clients.

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Howard said she hopes to open a branch this year in Orange County and would like to expand next year into the Silicon Valley.

With services such as Homegrocer.com and Kozmo.com available to shop for groceries or pick up a video, why would anyone pay $30 or more for a concierge service?

“The Internet is not going to take your animals to the vet or do your resume overnight,” Howard said.

“Most of our customers are repeat--every day, every other day. Once they get in with us, they find that their lives are so much easier.”

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Valley@Work runs each Tuesday. Karen Robinson-Jacobs can be reached at Karen.Robinson@latimes.com.