Interview with personal concierge, Kara McKeage
As a personal concierge, Kara McKeage is rather impressive. She founded Pepper’s Personal Assistants in 2012, and since then, she has grown to employ over 20 staff, working with extremely satisfied clients in Seattle.
Recently, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kara, and I’m thrilled to share that interview with you. Below are just some of the questions Kara answered for me. To read the full interview, members can head into The Concierge Secret Society to read it. Simply click here and follow the buttons to join. You’ll get immediate access to this and all the other amazing interviews, templates, videos and resources inside.
Kara McKeage founded Pepper’s Personal Assistants in 2012. Her business “is anchored in the mission (and joy!) of helping discerning Seattle professionals recapture their personal time”.
Pepper’s Personal Assistants founder Kara McKeage remembers the joy that she experienced as a 9-year old child passing out fliers to the staff at her mother’s office. Her services at the time? Stapling and collating.
Times have changed a bit since then, but her love of helping others has not. Pepper’s Personal Assistants formed organically after working for over two decades as an administrative assistant, sales support team member and mother. Kara is honored to serve Seattle’s professional community with her organizational talents gleaned from these experiences and her sustained passion for making people’s lives easier.
“Having a big impact on people’s lives is why I love doing what I do.”
Below I’ve asked questions of Kara to find out how she started her business, and how she has grown it have currently 20 staff. She is certainly an inspirational personal concierge, and I hope you gain a lot of insight and inspiration.
Don’t forget to head into The Concierge Secret Society members only facebook group and ask Kara any questions you may have – she is obviously quite busy, but I know she will do her best to answer as soon as she can.
If you had your own personal concierge and could ask them to do absolutely anything, what would you get them to do?
I actually practice what I preach and have a personal assistant come 4 hours a week to grocery shop, cut up produce, make a meal, tidy up, do laundry, and run errands. It’s amazing!!
When did you decided to start Pepper’s Personal Assistants and why?
I was a stay at home mom for 8 years and wanted something that would allow me to keep my stay at home mom status so I could be present for my boys. I found that being a personal assistant used all my talents and I found it very rewarding.
In this growth, what types of clients have you targeted? Corporate, residential building, personal, or other?
There has been some trial and error over the years but I’ve found that we best serve executive home owners that need someone to manage their household.
We’ve found residential building tenants just aren’t busy enough to need the help in general.
Someday we may look at doing corporate but for now we haven’t even begun tapping into the Seattle market of individual executives.
What have been the most popular requests with the clients?
A popular one is dealing with vendors for repairs or installs. Clients love that we do all the research, vetting, interviewing, scheduling and supervising. It’s a huge time and stress saver.
If you were starting your business again, what would you do differently?
I wouldn’t have worried so much about #allthethings. I wasted a lot of time and money on things that I thought I was “suppose” to have to be a “real” business. You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on software when a free CRM or spreadsheet will do the trick for many years.
Want more? Here are the remaining questions Kara answers inside The Concierge Secret Society.
In a few sentences, how would you describe your ideal client?
Do you have a regular day or week? What are the types of things you are doing on a regular basis? What are your most popular requests?
I often get asked in interviews what my strangest requests have been. Do you have an answer for this?
I know that your business has grown rapidly over the last few years and I’d love to share that journey with our members. How long did it take you to really build some momentum in your business?
When things started to change, what happened and what do you believe drove that change?
How have you approached corporate/business and/or residential clients? What did you do differently?
What are your most successful marketing strategies, and have there been any real flops?
I know that you have quite a large number of staff in your business. What have been some of the challenges with this?
Do you engage your staff full time, part time or on a casual basis?
What has been the best method or onboarding or training your staff?
How do you handle when “things go wrong”?
Some new concierge business owners debate whether they should put their price on their website. I note you have prices listed on yours. What is your strategy around this?
Where do you see your business heading, and how do you see the future of the industry?
Head into The Concierge Secret Society now and get immediate access to the full interview with Kara!
Abbie Allen is the founder of The Concierge Society, as well as Lifestyle Elements and le Porter. She started Lifestyle Elements in 2004 at the age of 23 and now operates internationally from her head office in Adelaide, South Australia. She was the 2014 Institute of Concierge and Lifestyle Managers Association Golden Key Award winner, as well as a finalist in the South Australia Telstra Business Women’s Awards in 2012. She works with her husband Tim, and they have three daughters. If you handed Abbie a brand new book, a glass of red wine and some chocolate, plus the time to enjoy it, you would have made her day! Have you joined our free private community? Click here now!