Concierge service caters
to the time-starved

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

“Buy yourself time” — that’s the motto of a personal concierge service called my people, and it’s one that co-founder Liz Loomis can fully appreciate.

Snohomish County Business Journal /KIMBERLY HILDEN From shopping and tree trimming to walking the family dog, Liz Loomis (left) and A.J. Chase are providing an extra set of hands for clients around Puget Sound through their Internet-based personal concierge service, my people.

Loomis is no stranger to time crunches. For eight years, she was a member of the Snohomish City Council while working full time at her own business, Liz Loomis Public Affairs. Long hours fulfilling her civic and professional responsibilities meant little time for preparing a decent meal or plugging in the vacuum cleaner at home.

“I wasn’t eating right, and my house looked like it had been bombed,” said Loomis, whose professional experience has included time on Capitol Hill as an aide to U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli.

The solution, she decided, was to delegate, and before long, she had hired someone to prepare homemade freezer meals for her, someone else to clean her house a couple times a month and yet another person to perform yard work monthly. She also had a housesitter to take care of her cats when she had to travel.

Loomis’ friends began to joke about how she had developed a network of service providers to take care of her life, a network of “her people” to smoothen out the rough edges of a hectic lifestyle.

Then came November 2005, when Loomis lost her City Council re-election bid.

“I thought, ‘What am I going to do?’” she said. “... I’m not good with a lot of time on my hands. I could watch ‘Will & Grace’ reruns and eat Doritos ’til the cows come home.”

Instead, she decided to start a second business. In December 2005, she and business colleague A.J. Chase began market research for personal concierge services, surveying both men and women of varying socioeconomic status in the Puget Sound region. In May, they launched my people online at mypeople.net.

Operating from Bellingham to Tacoma, the Internet-based company works with a network of vendors as well as in-house staff to provide a range of services, from picking up someone at the airport or carpooling the kids to shopping for groceries or cleaning the house.

“All of our vendors are licensed and insured,” said Loomis, adding that background checks are performed on all subcontractors.

my people Phone: 425-647-4594 E-mail: reachus@mypeople.net Web site: www.mypeople.net

Prices for services vary, with a 60-minute in-home massage costing $80, and house cleaning for a 2,000-square-foot home averaging $150 per cleaning, Loomis said. Basic errand-running service costs $30 per hour if purchased in an eight-hour package.

Reviewing recent receipts, Loomis said the top-requested service for the fall and winter is the $50-per-week “Snowbird Special,” in which my people provides twice-weekly house checks, watering plants, turning lights on and off as well as getting the house ready for the residents’ return.

During the busy holiday season, my people provided an extra set of hands for harried clients — gift shopping, gift wrapping and even storing hard-to-hide gifts.

“We’re storing a new Lexus for a man giving the gift to his wife,” Loomis said in early December.

Since its launch, my people has turned a profit and now employs four part time as well as Loomis and Chase.

As for the company’s market demographic, there isn’t one in particular, Loomis said. “There are two-career families, single guys, single women.”

One client is a single man who recently moved into a condominium and wanted my people to find an interior decorator to make the house feel like home, she said.

Another client, Pamm Jardine, and her family moved into a new neighborhood about a year ago and have been using my people regularly to find local contractors and service providers.

“They help me just find overall services that I might need,” said Jardine, a senior vice president at insurance brokerage firm Kibble & Prentice.

As for the fledgling company’s future, the goal is to grow smart and not overextend its capabilities or sacrifice quality for quantity, Loomis said.

“There’s a need for this type of service,” she said. “We’re talking to two law firms about having a concierge on staff. ... It’s definitely a growing trend.”