Business Spotlight: Ms. Errands

Owner: Larissa Erven

Founded: June 2006

Address: 1144 E. Darby Place, Springfield, MO 65810

Phone: (417) 224-2050

Fax: (417) 891-9802

Web site: www.mserrands.com

E-mail: larissa@mserrands.com

Services: Full concierge, residential care and catering services

Employees: 1

Don’t be surprised to run into Larissa Erven around town at the dry cleaner, grocery store or post office. That’s where she spends most of her workdays on behalf of clients.

Erven is also known as Ms. Errands, a personal concierge service she started in June 2006.

Erven’s car is her office, fully emblazoned with the name of her mobile business. She’s been spotted in clients’ homes caring for pets, watering plants and cleaning. She’s also been known to throw on a corporate hat and plan events, make bank deposits and deliver staff lunches. Then, there’s the wedding and vacation coordinating, catering and personal chef services and holiday decorating and gift-wrapping.

“I get bored very easily,” Erven says. “I took that weakness and turned it into my strength. With Ms. Errands, I was trying to find something I could do that would be rewarding and challenging.”

Diverse work

Ervin’s background is diverse – a plus for a concierge who has to be able to do a bit of anything when called on.

“I have done just about everything you can imagine,” says Erven, a salesperson for Marine Fasteners Inc. before starting Ms. Errands, “everything from real estate to working for the (Christian County) sheriff’s department.”

Erven also spent nine years in the restaurant industry, including three years with McGuffey’s.

According to friend and client Aaron Buerge, president of First National Bank, Erven is a go-to gal.

Buerge uses Ms. Errands for scheduling conflicts and low-grade crises.

“Usually, she’s my Plan-B, crisis-management girl,” Buerge says. “I usually try to get everything done myself, but when I can’t, she always bails me out.”

From the moment she told him about it, Buerge saw the value in a personal concierge.

“I thought there was definitely a market for something like this, especially coming from me, a single young professional who doesn’t have a significant other to help with issues that come up from time to time – like picking up dry cleaning or running to the grocery store,” he says. “You know, after work I’m going to be with business clients entertaining people at Hammons Field at ball games or at (Missouri State University) basketball games. I’m always with clients. I’m always developing business for the bank.”

It all boils down to a simple equation.

“She’s very affordable compared to the value of my time,” Buerge says.

Erven charges around $20 an hour, a rate that personal concierge consultant Katharine Giovanni suggests is undervalue. Giovanni is president and co-founder of Wake Forest, N.C.-based Triangle Concierge, one of the earliest personal concierge services. She says the relatively young business model is a moneymaking calculation for a growing number of professionals.

“When I started Triangle Concierge back in 1998, if there had been 20 independent concierges around the United States, that number would have been high,” Giovanni says. “Today, there are thousands.”

Simple startup

As small or home businesses go, a concierge business is inexpensive to start, with a large potential market.

“The startup costs are low,” Giovanni says. “Don’t get me wrong, you can get an office and a staff, hit up the corporations and go after business in a big way. There are so many different markets and demographics you can go after, you can make a start of it wherever you are.”

Erven says startup costs depend on the equipment on hand, and she recommends having two years of salary saved up before launching.

“It’s not an overnight business,” she says, noting that there were a few months early on where she only worked a couple hours. “Seventeen months later, I’m just now getting to feel comfortable.”

Among Erven’s roughly 50 clients, for which she typically spends between 20 and 40 hours a week working, are former Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Winn, Murney Associates Realtor Letty Van Kleeck and author/freelance writer Heather Dismore.

Giovanni says busy lives are the root cause of the demand for concierge services.

“I think people are trying to squeeze 36 hours into a 24-hour day,” she says. “It doesn’t work. People get sick and things breakdown. A personal concierge is coming in and saying, ‘Let me do the things that have to get done, so you can be doing the things you want to be doing.’”

That was the case for Janeen Carter, accountant controller for Bertsch Heating and Air in Springfield. Carter enlisted Ms. Errands to help her stage her home.

“She had time,” Carter says. “She could go out to Lowe’s. I changed all the hardware on my cabinets. Silver is hot right now. She went out and found it all at a good price. She had time to do that. She found all my ceiling fans. She’s the one who came up with how they should look. She did my shopping for me.”

On the move

Word-of-mouth is the main force driving customers to Erven – and Ms. Errands has been on the move.

“I expected the first two years to be slow, as with any new business, but now I find it keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Erven says.

Buerge says he continues to recommend her services.

“I asked her to go down to Commercial Street and pick out a 1970s-style outfit for me to wear to a theme party,” Buerge says.

“That costume rocks. I told everyone I had nothing to do with it. I said Ms. Errands took care of it and gave out her card.”

For Carter, Erven’s services were life changing. After Erven’s staging, she won’t be moving.

“It looks so fantastic,” Carter says, “I’ve decided to stay.”