Lack of Time and the Rise of Personal Services

We've long been fascinated by the growing number of small personal services firms.  These are firms that provide life support services to increasingly harried, time-constrained and often affluent consumers.

Basically, these folks are paid to do things that in the past we used to do on our own, or did without.

This category includes traditional personal services like gardening, house cleaning and pool cleaning.  

It also includes a growing number of newer professions like career coaches, college admission counselors, retirement counselors, massage therapists and dog walkers.  

There are also a surprising number of kid-oriented small businesses that teach sports, music, arts, theater, and academics.

The chart on the right is from the Wall Street Journal's Why Hair Dressers are Secure: Their Jobs Can't Be Exported.  The chart nicely illustrates the growth in personal services jobs.  

According to the article the main reason the number of personal services jobs are growing relatively rapidly is they can't easily be automated or outsourced abroad. 

While this is true, we think it only partially explains the growth of personal services.  Other drivers include a growing number of affluent consumers and increasing amounts of time spent working.

As we point out in our article The Rise of High-End Personal Services, despite the Great Recession and tepid recovery the number of affluent Americans continues to increase.  And unlike prior generations, today's affluent tend to work, and work long hours.

This means less time for personal tasks and a greater willingness to pay others to do them.  Even high end travel agents are making a comeback as affluent consumers don't want to spend time on trip planning but also want to make sure they get the most out of their limited vacation time.  

The affluent are also concerned about staying competitive and are worried their kids will not be as successful as they are.  Because of this, they are willing to pay professional service providers like tutors and coaches to help. 

We expect the personal services boom to continue.  The affluent will continue to lack time and aging baby boomers will increase their use of outsourced personal services to help them age in place.

Comments

[Personal Services For Quick Money]

I'm thinking with such growing demand in personal services, the likelihood increases that there is quick money to be made doing "dirty jobs" nobody seems to have ever wanted to do any way, and that people today would much less do, as more personal services continue to get outsourced.

But it seems becoming highly localized in focus is the key ingredient to a lasting venture and concentrating on enhancing the service offering with alliances to other local service providers to present more comprehensive packages to your clients that no one outside the geographic area can match.

[Andrew]

I offer several personal services in my business and these are welcomed by my customers. I try to add the personal touch and will often get the same person / team to revisit a previous customer as it adds a touch of familiarity and puts the customer at ease.