Entrepreneur Kathy Custer chants, "Red light, green light," whenever she encounters hurdles to remind herself that nothing stays the same and that moving forward takes perseverance.
Lately, however, it’s been mostly green lights for the 28-year-old businesswoman who is launching her second Waikiki business, Concierge Relationship Services. The service, which came out of her own needs as the small-business owner of the Aloha Sitters nanny agency, helps other companies promote their goods and services to 65 Waikiki hotels where concierges are the gatekeepers for bookings.
"Over the last two years, I have been hiring my own nanny staff to go and promote my agency," Custer said. "It’s a challenging job in that it takes three to four full days to visit every hotel."
Custer said she developed CRS after realizing that many small and medium-size companies had needs similar to hers and most likely had inadequate resources to visit the hotel concierge and activity desks.
"Typically when you are the owner of a small or medium-sized company, visiting the concierge desk stays on your to-do list but rarely gets done," Custer said. "CRS frees up the owner and managers so that they can work on bigger strategic marketing plans."
Custer said CRS services range from an introductory rate of $199 a month for a yearlong contract to keep companies top of mind with local concierges to $749 for a one-time visit to 65 hotels. Each visit includes a gift for the concierge and a detailed follow-up report for the client. Her staff is also available for investigative work, she said.
"We’ll send someone dressed as a tourist to ask in-depth investigative questions such as why they recommend other companies over yours or any other feedback that you might like to receive," Custer said, adding that investigative work starts at $39 per hotel with a four-visit minimum.
Since registering the business in June, she’s already created four jobs with the goal of adding about 40 more within the next years. She’s also attracted some heavy-hitting visitor industry clients, including Bishop Museum, Big City Diner, Pacific Skydiving, H20 Water Sports and Discover Hawaii Tours.
Lane Muraoka, the owner and president of Big City Diner, said he jumped at the chance to support Custer’s newest endeavor and increase the company’s visitor opportunities.
"I first met Kathy when she was about 22. She was advertising her baby-sitting services in our menu," Muraoka said. "She’s a real go-getter."
Custer had originally envisioned building her fortune in real estate; however, her loan to buy an investment duplex fell out of escrow, and she lost her job in 2007 in the midst of the last housing downturn. Desperate for work, Custer turned to an old standby, baby-sitting. However, she quickly realized that the community, which includes a high portion of transient tourists and military personnel, needed a better way to find safe, quality sitters for their children, pets, elders and houses.
"Initially I was my company’s only sitter. I ran ads on Craigslist, and I would stand on the street corner and wave banners to try and get attention. I didn’t know my market and it was really hard," Custer said. "Then I took a chance. I put $30,000 on two 0 percent interest credit cards and created keikisitters.com, an online subscription portal."
About two years after starting keikisitters.com, Custer realized that finding sitters was even more difficult for tourists or military people who might be new to the community. She expanded her business model by adding a nanny agency called Aloha Sitters to her online portal. Today she has 495 sitters enrolled on her site and 48 independent contractors, who work for visitors and groups under her Aloha Sitters brand, which provides child care to guests at the Hale Koa and Kahala Hotel & Resort and is marketed at Expedia desks at 26 hotels and at Pleasant Holidays desks at about nine hotels.
"She’s really bright, and she looks for a niche in the market and services it," Muraoka said. "I’m an entrepreneur so I admire that. She’s willing to roll the dice, so if I can help her out, I will. In this case I think she’s really on to something here. I’ve never heard of anyone doing anything like this in the concierge market."
While Big City Diner’s market is mostly locals, Muraoka said he hopes working with CRS will increase the company’s share of visitors at its four Oahu locations.
"Waikiki is really pumping. The accounts are up at restaurants, and the hotels are doing really well," he said. "We want to get more visitors to go where the locals come to dine."
Bishop Museum, which lost most of its sales team in a round of layoffs after losing federal grants, needed similar services, said Brooke Wilson, the museum’s public relations and marketing manager.
"We are a museum in one of the most competitive tourism markets, but quite frankly, we haven’t been able to have the presence that we would have liked to have in Waikiki for the past few years," Wilson said. "CRS will let people know that Bishop Museum is completely renovated and our TripAdvisor ratings are high."
Stacey Ryan, who has worked as a Waikiki concierge for 12 years, said CRS also educates activity planners so that they can make more visitor sales.
"Having people come by and see us more is really good because they bring us new information, and that makes us better sellers," Ryan said. "Things change over time, so it’s really good to be informed."
While preferred vendor relationships and commission structures influence recommendations, Ryan said familiarity also leads to referrals.
"I always say, out of sight out of mind. If I don’t see a company, I tend to forget them," she said. "For example, there are eight to 10 companies that deal with Pearl Harbor. We see reps from some of them more than others. Visits make a difference."
