Catering to the don’t-do-it-yourselfers

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Jack Fries considers Valerie Ashley his new best friend.

Almost monthly, he makes a list of shopping trips and errands for her to do, from picking out new neckties to taking his car in to be repaired. She’s helped decorate a bedroom in his home and shopped for a diamond for his wife.

“There are small things in life that I don’t always take time to give them the level of importance they need,” said Fries, director of business planning for Financial Partners Group. “So I usually find myself scrambling to do something.”

In walks Ashley, founder of Shoppers Hotline, a business concept still fairly new and misunderstood in Greater Des Moines. Under the “personal assistant” umbrella, she does errands, shopping, organizing and room makeovers for the dozens of clients she works with from week to week.

“You tell me what your problem is and just consider it done,” she said. “I am a hotline. Consider me 911. If you’re bleeding, call the other one. If you’re not, call me.”

Ashley and others in Greater Des Moines who provide personalized, delivered-to-your-door services are thriving because of few competitors and a growing number of people who, because of busy careers and family lives, have adopted a don’t-do-it-yourself philosophy. Without ever leaving the comfort of their homes and offices, convenience-seekers can have their grocery shopping done, get the oil in their car changed, buy a new fall wardrobe, return Christmas gifts and get their dog in to see the veterinarian.

“I’m at the point now where, if somebody offers a simplified service, they’re in,” Fries said.

NO SWEAT

Ashley thought little of it when an acquaintance requested her help in shopping for a specific item for his wife. But she soon realized there had to be more people out there, particularly single men with busy professional careers, who either didn’t have time to go shopping and run errands or just didn’t want to.

She left her job two years ago to establish Shopper’s Hotline, which has grown rapidly in recent months. September’s sales were triple those from August.

On any given day Ashley could be buying groceries, organizing a closet, preparing for a move into a new home, shopping for neckties or making hard-to-get restaurant reservations.

“I knew there was going to be some mundane stuff,” she said. “A lot of people think that my job is glamorous, and it’s not. About 90 percent of is sweat. It’s an impossible task and it needs to be done by 5 o’clock. I have those moments a lot, and then I have the glamorous part, which of course is the jewelry shopping or event planning.”

But Ashley never lets her clients see her sweat.

“My clients have no idea what I go through,” she said. And that is a key component of her business. She wants their problems to become her problems.

She’s found herself gluing plastic utensils onto picture frames at 10 p.m. or begging to be let into a store just as it’s closing for the night. She does, however, have after-hours access to some stores. You never know when a client might call at 9 p.m. in need of a new suit first thing in the morning.

“I never want to say ‘Shopper’s Hotline doesn’t do that,’ or have someone say ‘She’s too busy,’” Ashley said.

Though she has stuck to her four main “departments” – shopping, errands, organizing and room makeovers – she has expanded within those to include a plethora of services, from trips to the bank or post office to planning a baby shower. Even then, there really are no limitations. She continues to add to that list as clients demand it.

“I have yet to tell somebody, ‘No,’” said Ashley, whose busy schedule is eased through the help of four part-time employees.

She charges $50 an hour to businesses and for event planning, and $35 an hour to individuals. That might seem a little steep to some, but Ashley said many people in a bind are willing to foot the bill. She receives most of her assignments at the last minute. And with a certain level of creativity required of her, she said clients “aren’t just buying my time, they’re buying my brain.”

Each of her clients is unique – men and women, young and old, single and married, business professionals and stay-at-home moms – all from a variety of income levels.

“I like being the hero,” Ashley said. “I like somebody calling me in an absolute panic.”

ON CALL

When Janet Freel shows up at McLellan Marketing Group every Thursday morning, the staff knows help is on the way. She’s at their beck and call to stop at the dry cleaners, get their car washed, take their dog to the veterinarian, pick up a prescription or get them to the airport. The company picks up the tab for her services and writes it off as an employee benefit, and the employees simply provide her with a list of things that need to get done.

“That’s a wonderful benefit to the employees who are busy,” said Freel, owner of Legs on Lease. “This way, they can focus on work and don’t have to worry about the things they have to do when they get off at 5 o’clock.”

McLellan is one of several businesses in Greater Des Moines that provide Freel’s services as an employee benefit. Some employers limit the number of hours their employees can utilize; others hire her for an entire day.

That niche is just one segment of Legs on Lease, which Freel founded 10 years ago after realizing just how much time people devote to tasks outside work that end up taking time away from their families.

Going into it, she assumed she would spend the majority of her time shopping and running errands. But like Ashley, her list of services has taken on a life of its own.

“We do most anything legal,” she now says.

Though many of Ashley’s clients’ requests are made at the last minute, Freel said almost everything she does is scheduled ahead of time. On a recent Monday, her entire week was already full, with a list of other tasks to be handed off to her part-time, four-person staff. The list of strange requests could be the subject of an entire book, she said, such as when a man called to ask if she could shop for a dress and lingerie… for his personal use. That was job she had to refuse.

Freel works with dozens of busy professionals, but about 60 percent of her clients are elderly. She often accompanies them on a daily walk, takes them to lunch or transports them to and from doctor appointments. Many busy adults can’t take hours out of their day on a regular basis to care for their aging parents.

“More and more people are working, and if you have kids with so many activities, it’s hard to get those responsibilities taken care of,” Freel said. “They trust you and know you do a good job.”

WELL DRESSED

The next time you catch Iowa State University head football coach Dan McCarney on television in a suit and tie, consider where he got it. Not at a shopping mall, but rather from Mike Meline, a personal clothier who outfits clients from the comfort of their homes and offices, sparing them the time and agony of going to a shopping mall.

“With the way people are so busy in the world, time is money,” said Meline, who founded Mike Meline Clothiers four years ago. “So it’s one less thing for people to worry about.”

He has about 1,200 clients whom he sees in varying frequencies – sometimes monthly, sometimes seasonally – and works with about five to eight people daily. On occasion, he’ll spend an entire day in one office, shuffling 15 to 20 people into a conference room throughout the day to make their clothing selections. He files away information on each client, particularly their measurements to make for easy tailoring on future purchases.

Part of Meline’s work includes wardrobe analyses, in which he educates his clients about what clothing items they might need to complete their wardrobes. He carries several lines of business attire, business casual and formal wear from a number of designers. His clients can try on the clothing items, which he can then mark for alterations to provide a custom fit.

He determines the going rate for the clothing items he carries, which he said is less than what local clothing stores charge, particularly with in-home or in-office fittings, free tailoring and delivery. He believes his one-on-one service and lower costs make him an ideal solution for busy men.

“Men typically don’t like to shop,” Meline said. “On a Saturday, they don’t want to go shopping; they want to play golf.”

But even for some women, shopping for clothes is a task they either don’t have time for or would rather leave to a professional.

Carrie Hall has spent more than two decades catering to such women through her personal shopping service, Wardrobes Inc., which carries the Doncaster Collection of women’s clothing. She and her daughter, Elizabeth Hall-Mansfield, who joined the business five years ago, hold seasonal trunk shows and conduct one-on-one consultations with their clients, which now number about 200.

Hall and Hall-Mansfield initially do an intake interview to get a feel for their client’s figure type, personality, clothing preferences and what she already has in her closet. They determine what styles and colors look best on her to make for easy clothing selection in the future. Much of their work with clients, particularly high-profile businesswomen and politicians, involves image consultation.

“The goal is to save her time,” Hall-Mansfield said, adding that many of their clients can do all of their seasonal shopping in under an hour.

Though clients can’t order an outfit in time for tomorrow night’s dinner party, Hall and Hall-Mansfield occasionally take calls from clients who need help in finding an outfit to wear for an upcoming event. By simply pulling the client’s file, the women can determine what she already owns, and what would be suitable for the occasion.

Heather Boustead, owner of Vision of Beauty, works with dozens of women, primarily stay-at-home moms and over-50 business professionals.

She conducts one-on-one image consultations with her clients, covering wardrobe and skin care. She works with them, sometimes in their homes, other times in a clothing store, to simply determine what makeup and wardrobe looks are best for them.

“Some of my customers are busy moms who are working and they need some assistance in getting things taken care of to simplify their lives,” Boustead said.

SAVING YOU A TRIP

Many other Greater Des Moines businesses offer the level of personalized service that Shopper’s Hotline and Legs on Lease provide. But it’s not always available to the general public, rather to frequent customers who have built relationships with the business and its employees.

Joseph’s Jewelers has several employees who have been with the business for several years and have established relationships with certain select customers. They know their likes; they know their dislikes. So if one of those customers calls in a panic on a Friday afternoon because they don’t have a gift for a Saturday afternoon wedding, the employees are ready to handle the request. The customer might be able to pick it up in the morning, or, on some occasions, have it delivered to their office.

But co-owner Toby Joseph said the store tries to limit how many of those special orders they accept daily, so as to not detract from their in-store customers.

Hammer Pharmacy, however, makes deliveries a focus of its business and available to all customers. Pharmacy Manager Pamela Key said most of those deliveries are made to elderly customers, though few are made to downtown businesses “so they don’t have to do an extra errand after work.” All it requires is a phone call.

Grocery shopping can become a time-consuming and tedious task, particularly after a long day at the office. But Hy-Vee Inc. has taken nearly all of the sweat out of that chore with hyvee.com. Customers can simply log on to the Web site and make their selections. Hy-Vee charges $9.95 for home delivery and $4.95 to customers who choose to pick up their items at the store.

“The people who use it really like it and are really dedicated to it,” said Hy-Vee spokeswoman Ruth Comer. “Most people, rather than pay a fee to get their groceries, would still prefer to come in. But busy people who have small children or are disabled and can’t get to the store like it.”

YES, EVEN IN IOWA

But in Iowa, where people still prefer to do many things themselves, is there really a demand for these services? A few online grocery delivery businesses came into the Des Moines market several years ago, when online grocery shopping was popular nationwide, but they failed after a few months.

“If they’re trying to set up an infrastructure from scratch, nationwide that’s proven to be difficult,” Comer said.

But for people such as Ashley and Freel who provide a variety of services to their clients or for business such as Hy-Vee and Hammer Pharmacy that have incorporated delivery services into an already-thriving business, their models have proved successful. Most of them have a well-established client base and continue to bring in new business in the absence of advertising, usually through word-of-mouth recommendations.

Iowa, they stay, is still years behind other states, particularly on the coasts, where people have become accustomed to these personalized services.

“I have to teach Des Moines how to not do things themselves,” Ashley said.