Cross Town Concierge Blog

Cross Town Concierge Now Offers Event Assistant/Planning Services

2010-09-07T07:57:00.000-07:00

Planning and managing a party can be an event in itself. Let Cross Town Concierge assist you in your next event.

As an example of what we can do, let me explain to you how we helped one Lake Forest couple.

Last week I got a call from Lake Forest man who was looking to throw a party. This wasn't just any party, this was a bash complete with 6 live bands and lot's of food for about 40 guests. This was a large house complete with a pool and about 2 acres of land. He also had plans to make a huge bonfire in the middel of his sprawling back yard.

He hired one of our concierges to serve as a party assitant. We did everything he needed for the day. We helped set up the tables and equipment prior to the party. We helped in the food utnsil preparation and we even made a salad. During the party, we helped grill food and keep the drinks stocked.

Overall a successful event.

Planning a party, need help. Contact us for your next events assistance help.

www.crosstownconcierge.com

Cross Town Concierge Now Offers Pet Services to List of Services

2009-12-06T14:29:00.001-08:00

We added pet services to our list of services.

Whether you need pet sitting, dog walking, overnight pet sitting, or a pet taxi, we can meet your needs.

Cross Town Concierge will be soon listed in www.ThePetSitterDirectory.com

2009-12-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

Cross Town Concierge will be soon listed in www.ThePetSitterDirectory.com

We are now on ZooToo

2009-12-03T17:38:00.000-08:00

Cross Town Concierge pet sitting and pet walking services has been added to the ZooToo.com directory.

Helping out at an Auction

2009-12-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

We will be at the Arrowhead Golf Cub in Wheaton, IL this Sunday, December 6, 2009 to assist in the event set-up, event staff, and event breakdown for an auction.

Thanksgiving Special

2009-11-04T15:39:00.000-08:00

Checkout or 30% off Thanksgiving Special.

See our Yelp Page

Amazon deal falls through

2009-11-03T07:05:00.001-08:00

One business that is doing well is Amazon.com. Cross Town Concierge was working on a deal with Chicago Messenger Service to same day delivery for Amazon.com products in the North Shore. However, we could not come to terms on certain major points like payments. Therefore, we decided to call the deal off.

Cross Town Concierge to Promote 2009 MyTech Conference

2009-08-20T14:07:00.001-07:00

Cross Town Concierge has added a new event promotion: The 2009 MyTech Conference to be held at the Marriot Hotel (540 North Michigan Avenue; Chicago) this September 14-16, 2009.

Cross Town Concierge Adds Event Promotion to List of Services

2009-08-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge added event promotion to it's list of services that we provide to clients. Our first event that we will help promote is the 2009 Indy Waterballoon Fight. I know it is not in the Chicago area, but we have expanded our services beyond the Chicagoland area.

More info and to register for the 2009 Indy Waterballoon Fight.

Cross Town Concierge To Pick Up Equipment for Comcast

2009-08-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that CrossTownConcierge has worked out a deal to become Comcast Contractors to recover cable equipment. We will start out picking up cable equipment in certain area codes in the North Side of Chicago.

Don't use Twitter unless.....

2009-08-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

The other day, I had a potential client asking me if I new how to use Twitter, Blogs, Face Book, YouTube, and other social networking tools to help her grow her business. I asked her why does she want to use these tools. She told me that she felt that she has not been using these tools so she felt it was a good way to grow her business. In other words, she was looking at all the pretty opportunities out there and decided that she must add social networking as a tactic to grow her business.

Then, I asked her what her strategy is for her business. She couldn't give me an answer.

According to Seth Godin, "Building a permission asset so we can grow our influence with our best customers over time" is a strategy. Using email, twitter or RSS along with newsletters, contests and a human voice are all tactics. In my experience, people get obsessed about tactical detail before they embrace a strategy... and as a result, when a tactic fails, they begin to question the strategy that they never really embraced in the first place."

I recommended to her that before she spends time on the tactics, she will need to develop a viable business strategy. When something fails it is not the tool, it's usually the person using the tool. For example, some people use Twitter to successfully grow their business (following their business strategy), others use Twitter to harm their business. Twitter is not inherently good or bad, the best variable to success or not is the person using the tool.

We are now on Yelp

2009-08-06T21:11:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge is now located on the Yelp business directory.

Meeting with Conagra Foods

2009-08-05T04:13:00.000-07:00

George Novak, General Manager of Cross Town Concierge met with two Human Resources representatives from ConAgra Foods in Naperville, IL. ConAgra is seeking to resurrect its personal concierge benefit option program for it's 1800 employees in Naperville. Hopefully, we can be the vendor that supplies it's concierge services for it's employees. We have nto delved much into the corporate concierge world, but apparently there is a need for it.

Cross Town Concierge is developing an affiliation with Garden Fresh Northbrook

2009-08-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge is developing a relationship/affiliation with Garden Fresh Market in Northbrook. Garden Fresh has 8 full service grocery stores in the Chicagoland Market. The Northbrook location has a full catering service - including a strong offering of Kosher Foods. Garden fresh Northbrook caters to Ravinia.

Contact us for any of your catering needs.

Cross Town Concierge Billboard

2009-08-01T06:53:00.000-07:00

Great marketing news for Cross Town Concierge. In an agreement between Lauren Oleskiewicz of OfficeMax (that's right that Office Max) and Cross Town Concierge, I am pleased to announce that we will have our Cross Town Concierge Business Card displayed in a bill board along one of the major expressways in Chicagoland. These expressways are some of the most traveled highways in the area and will give plenty of exposure to Cross Town Concierge.

According to Lauren:

"Your business card will be displayed 7/20 – 7/26/09 on one of the following electronic billboards:

I-294 S Tri State Tollway 25 feet north of 79^th Street (east side of street)
I-55 Stevenson Expressway 1.2 miles east of Harlem Avenue (north side of street)
I-80 Expressway 25 feet east of Ashland Ave (south side of street)."

Introducing.... the new Cross Town Concierge flyer

2009-07-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

Here is the brand new Cross Town Concierge marketing flyer . It can also be found on our Home Page.

Cross Town Concierge is now listed on BizHwy.com

2009-07-27T19:39:00.001-07:00

We are now listed on BizHwy.com - free business listings and broker services.

Cross Town Concierge is now listed at FreeIndex.com

2009-07-27T04:15:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge is now listed at FreeIndex.com - an online business directory.

CourierBoardDriver.com

2009-07-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

I just discovered another great site called CourierboardDriver.com. This site allows you to post an ad to say that you are an available courier driver in your area. It also allows you to search for Courier opportunities. This site is just another potential marketing avenue for your courier part of your concierge business.

New Courier Page

2009-07-25T05:10:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge roots started in the errand running service. Even to this a bug bulk of our business is in errands and courier services. To demonstrate our process and expertise in courier services I have added a new Courier Services page to our website (see new home page link and link in the service list page). We seem to be developing more and a regular client base asking us to deliver documents. We have regular clients asking us to deliver items either downtown or the Gold Coast. Our Bolingbrook location has several attorney clients and medical offices asking us to deliver items on a regular basis.

Cross Town Concierge Now Listed on Local.com Business Directory

2009-07-24T12:21:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge (Winnetka, IL) location is now listed on the Local.com Business Directory. Local.com has been added to our Links Page.

Cross Town Concierge is now part of the US City Network

2009-07-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge is now a member of the US City Network. This has been added to our Links Page.

Marketing Your Concierge Website Through Directories

2009-07-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

Almost all concierge companies nowadays have a website. After all, a website is a must have for almost any service orientated business. Plus your website could be a great way to market your business. The thinking goes is to put up a website, put your web address on your companies basic marketing pieces like your business card, company stationary, invoices, and advertisement.

Making a website is a good start to market your business, but it is just a start. So what is the next step someone after the concierge website is put up? I think the best way to answer this question is to look at a concept introduced in basic Marketing 101, that is a concept called Target Marketing. To best demonstrate Target Marketing, I'll share with you a story often said by Dan Kennedy, author of the classic direct marketing book called The Ultimate Marketing Plan. In the book, Kennedy talks about a client who owns a carpet cleaning business. This client was frustrated because all of the direct marketing pieces he sent out resulted in dismal response rates. So the first question that Kennedy asked him was who are you mailing to? The client said that he just sent out direct marketing pieces to everyone in the surrounding neighborhood of his business. Then, Kennedy asked him how he decided to mail to that demographic.

"I don't know, I just picked the areas closest to my office," said the client.

Kennedy then asked him if he had you ever drove around the areas closest to the office? The client said that he hadn't. So they drove around the neighborhoods surrounding the office. It was an area filled with mainly apartments and condos - probably about 75% of the neighborhood in his market were tenants who rented. Plus after the quick drive, they both noticed that outside exteriors of houses needed painting and lots of yards needed maintenance. How could a area filled with this kind of demographic, need carpet cleaning services when they could hardly maintain their exteriors? The client agreed. So he changed his direct marketing efforts to better looking neighborhoods. The results were amazing. His direct marketing responses increased from 1/4 of 1% response rate from his old market area to a 2.25% response rate after he changed his target market to a different neighborhood. All of it just by changing the target market.

Likewise, when a concierge business puts up a website. All she is doing is putting up her website up in a web of 100 million other websites, targeting nobody, and maybe wishing somebody finds her website on a search engine.

There are lots of ways to get more hits on your website and to go completely into that is beyond the scope of this article. But one great start is to target your market. Remember, before the web, people picked up the Yellow Pages to find a listing they were looking for. Well, nowadays, people search the web to find what they are looking for. So what you want to do is put your website in a position so if a customer in your area is looking for a personal assistant or concierge, you want your business to pop up in their search.

A lot of people look for concierge company through a directory. What is a directory? A directory is just like the Yellow Pages print edition of the past, except now it's on the web. There is no one standard directory that everybody uses for concierge. So the plan is to put your concierge business in all the likely directories people use. Many of the directories are free and some of them have a small feel. I would probably start by posting your website in the free directories, see how that goes and then think about expanding to some of the directories that charge a fee.

Here is list of some free directories:

Concierge Directory (www.conciergedirectory.org)
Merchant Circle (www.MerchantCircle.com)
Yellow Page (www.YellowPages.com)
HotFrog.com (www.HotFrog.com)

A quick google search, will enable you to find more. Good luck in marketing your business.

About the Author: Neil Hernandez is the General Manager of www. CrossTownConcierge.com, a personal assistant and concierge company based out of Winnetka, IL. He can be reached at HernandezNeil@gmail.com.

Great Personal Assistant Blog

2009-07-15T15:26:00.000-07:00

I know that I am supposed to be promoting my own blog but sometimes, I stumble upon material that is so good that it is worth mentioning. In this case I found some great material from another blog called Personal Assistant Resources.

A couple blog posts of note:

How to find clients for your personal assistant business.
- The low cost way to find clients, who doesn't want to generate more business.

Build your personal assistant network of resources
- Every successful business needs to develop a team. This post shows you how.

35 ways to market your concierge business
More low cost but effective ways to market your business

What appeals to me above all the above articles is that they all advocate a low cost, effective, yet very meaningful way to market your business. Not one way will strike gold, but a combination of all of them - done right - will eventually pay off.

Cross Town Concierge now listed on Hot Frog.com

2009-07-13T04:51:00.000-07:00

Cross Town Concierge is now listed on HotFrog.com one of the USA's largest online business directories. See our listing at : http://www.hotfrog.com/Companies/Cross-Town-Concierge

Welcome

2009-07-12T07:28:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the official Blog of Cross Town Concierge. Cross Town Concierge is a personal assistant and concierge company.

We specialize in serving the southwest suburbs and north shore of Chicago because we have offices in Bolingbrook, IL and Winnetka, IL. Check out our website at www.crosstownconcierge.com.

Keep an eye out on this blog for the lastest news and information on Cross Town Concierge. We also plan on writing regular blog posts Concierge related topics.
Enjoy!

- Neil Hernandez
Winnetka, IL
July 12, 2009