Latest / The Scene Projects / Dana Wohlwend on Right At Home: Exploring Professional Household Assistant Services

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Dana Wohlwend on Right At Home: Exploring Professional Household Assistant Services · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Well, welcome into another exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:04
  I'm your host, Bubba Starts.
• 0:06
  And back on the show with me today is my good friend, Dana Wolwyn.
• 0:10
  Dana, welcome back.
• 0:12
  Hi.
• 0:12
  Thanks.
• 0:13
  Well, we've had a couple repeat guests, but I don't know if we've ever had anyone this fast
• 0:17
  and in a completely different capacity than they were on the show.
• 0:21
  So congratulations to you.
• 0:23
  I know that you just sold Sioux Falls Food Tours.
• 0:27
  Congratulations on the, evolution of that business through, everything we talked about on
• 0:33
  the last show and now to, being someone else's baby.
• 0:37
  So, a great great job to you in building a business that's viable of being sold.
• 0:43
  I think that's a pretty a pretty great accomplishment.
• 0:46
  I was excited.
• 0:48
  The gentleman who bought it was a tour guide for me.
• 0:51
  Him and his wife had both been tour guides, and they wanted to take over the business.
• 0:54
  And my husband wanted more time with me, which is a blessing, so I guess I'm okay that he
• 0:59
  wants to spend more time with me.
• 1:00
  So we would let go of that and, moved on.
• 1:04
  Well, that's amazing.
• 1:05
  I just wanted to kinda get that out of the way early and, to to give you your flowers there.
• 1:10
  And a big congratulations to your former employee and now owner of Sioux Falls Food
• 1:15
  Tours.
• 1:16
  What's their names?
• 1:18
  Brandon McCormick.
• 1:20
  Okay.
• 1:20
  And everything else is the same?
• 1:23
  He's actually gonna keep everything that is going on, and, he is the manager at the
• 1:29
  Ironwood, steakhouse in the new Steel District in Sioux Falls.
• 1:34
  And so he's going to add a route right just for the Steel District.
• 1:39
  Awesome.
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  Beautiful area down there as well.
• 1:41
  So, yeah, wanted to kinda get that out of the way because we have a lot to discuss because
• 1:45
  you've stepped into a new role in a completely different industry, and, it's called right at
• 1:52
  home, and you are professional household assistant now.
• 1:56
  Why don't you kinda start by giving us a little overview of the company and then we'll talk a
• 2:00
  little more details about what you do.
• 2:03
  Okay.
• 2:03
  Right At Home's been around for quite a while.
• 2:05
  They do home health care.
• 2:07
  So that's the general that has been the general focus of their business.
• 2:12
  It's, like, coming in and helping, in those times where you wanna keep your parents or the
• 2:18
  elderly, you know, they wanna stay in their homes.
• 2:20
  And so providing that help helps them do that.
• 2:23
  They're now launching with my help, this brand new branch, which is called professional
• 2:28
  household assistant.
• 2:30
  And so not addressing elder care because we already have that covered.
• 2:35
  This is helping busy families get things done.
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  And so in that role, I you can, contract my time, and I can come do what you never get done
• 2:46
  or what takes up all your time so you don't you're like, oh my gosh.
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  I spent my whole Saturday, you know, switching out the sheets on the bed and getting to the
• 2:54
  grocery store and getting things prepped for the week.
• 2:57
  And I didn't get any time with my kids.
• 2:59
  I didn't get any time to do what I wanna do.
• 3:02
  I'll come in and do that so you don't have to.
• 3:06
  So a not a live in position, obviously.
• 3:10
  This is for a a local base, but serving a lot of the functions that someone with, you know, a
• 3:15
  a a maid or a live in nanny or or something of that nature covering some of those kind of
• 3:21
  duties.
• 3:22
  Right.
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  So along the lines of that, tidying, you know, maybe some dusting, not like the deep cleaning
• 3:28
  because there are plenty of cleaning companies out there.
• 3:32
  So just the other types of tasks that just seem to sit there all the time that, know, oh gosh.
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  I wish my kid's toy room was organized, but it's always a mess, and I don't have time to
• 3:43
  organize it.
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  Or or even to, you know, rearrange some things that you've been thinking about doing.
• 3:50
  Or, I mean, really, what you could do, I don't wanna say that it's limitless, but there's a
• 3:56
  lot of things that aren't gonna be listed on a menu option that you would be able to do and
• 4:01
  provide for these families.
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  What it's really about, it seems like, is giving, you know, parents or busy professionals
• 4:08
  time back for their families or for hobbies or for anything else when, life at home has maybe
• 4:15
  gotten a little out of control.
• 4:18
  Exactly.
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  That's exactly what we are.
• 4:21
  I had a friend who worked with their marketing, and she was putting out the ad together for
• 4:26
  hiring.
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  And she's like, this just sounds like you.
• 4:30
  So all the things I love is keeping a home and, like, making meals for my family, keeping
• 4:37
  things in order, and just wanna come bless somebody else with that.
• 4:42
  Do you see a a large market for this, locally in the Sioux Falls area?
• 4:49
  I think there's a huge market for it.
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  One, the the biggest hurdle right now is getting people to understand what it is.
• 4:59
  Right?
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  But today, people want convenience.
• 5:04
  They'll DoorDash.
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  They'll, you know, they'll spend money to save time, and that's what this is.
• 5:13
  Get your time back because time is becoming more and more valuable.
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  We're just seeing such a busy, overwhelmed society that those things that matter are
• 5:22
  slipping away, like the time with the kids or just time to relax and sit back.
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  And when was the last time you just sat back and did nothing for an hour?
• 5:33
  We don't do it anymore.
• 5:35
  Yeah.
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  That's completely unheard of in my life, Dana.
• 5:38
  I'm sure in yours as well, which is why you're trying to do other people's stuff now too.
• 5:43
  You know, it's I've gone from three jobs to two.
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  So
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  Hey.
• 5:48
  You're cutting back.
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  I'm cutting back.
• 5:51
  Well, I I just love it.
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  And speaking from personal experience, we have three kids.
• 5:56
  They're all in baseball, softball right now.
• 5:59
  Yeah.
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  There's a lot of things around our house because I'm not willing to give up the time
• 6:03
  with the kids.
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  I'm not going to, take that time away from them to get some of these other things that need to
• 6:09
  be done in the house or in the garage.
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  The garage, here at my place is in dire need of some reorganization.
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  But as long as I can get to my computer, Dana, I'm usually pretty good, and I can get my work
• 6:21
  done.
• 6:22
  Right?
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  So so you're helping, people just like me who have a busy lifestyle, who are already working
• 6:29
  sixteen, eighteen hour days grinding on their own businesses, raising families, and you help
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  them to come in and do the stuff that maybe sometimes would never get done without someone
• 6:40
  else having the time to come in because it just gets buried in the list of things to do.
• 6:46
  It does.
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  That's exactly what happens.
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  I have five children myself.
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  My youngest just graduated from high school, so I'm past that busy having to run everywhere
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  with all the kids and all the stuff, but it piles up.
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  The laundry piles up.
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  You might get it washed and dried, but it's gonna sit there on the couch and never get
• 7:05
  folded and put away.
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  Stay out of my house, Dana.
• 7:09
  You know, I say that, and so many people are like, you're talking about me.
• 7:13
  Yeah.
• 7:15
  But yeah.
• 7:16
  I mean, how wonderful would it be that you're running with all your baseball and you got all
• 7:21
  those things to do, that you come home, there's already something prepared in the refrigerator
• 7:26
  for you to grab and take to the game to eat so you don't have to go through drive through.
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  You have everything prepped.
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  The house is clean.
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  You just have to keep the kids alive.
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  That that's my main mission as a parent, Dana.
• 7:41
  So thank you.
• 7:42
  Thank you.
• 7:43
  We keep it simple here.
• 7:44
  Are they breathing?
• 7:46
  So, yeah, what I'm hearing, I love it all.
• 7:49
  And I think that you're exactly right that there's a huge market for this for the services
• 7:55
  definitely in there.
• 7:57
  What is the you know, without getting into the whole, you know, you know, pricing scheme, but
• 8:03
  how is it on the affordability scale?
• 8:05
  Are middle, you know, middle income families, are they going to be able to afford services
• 8:11
  like this to gain a little bit of that time back?
• 8:15
  Well, our best economic package, the the less dollars per hour would be if you bought a four
• 8:22
  hour package, and that's a $200 cost.
• 8:26
  So you might be able to, you know, justify that $200 in a month, have me come in once a month
• 8:31
  to do those things that never get done.
• 8:35
  Maybe it's not once a month for you.
• 8:36
  Maybe once every other month.
• 8:39
  But to start, we have a special going on that's 40% off.
• 8:44
  So for the month.
• 8:47
  So a $120, that's $30 an hour.
• 8:51
  Your time is worth more than $30 an hour to have me come in and do all those things.
• 8:55
  And if you do meet if you reschedule twice in the month, they're both a $120 instead of the
• 9:01
  200.
• 9:01
  You can go hourly if you need to, but, generally, you know, those that's our our best
• 9:08
  package.
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  Other things I can do is, like, you have a birthday party coming up and you want all the
• 9:13
  cute things and you want it all set up and you you know, who's gonna do all that running
• 9:16
  because that's an extra thing in your your schedule.
• 9:19
  Right?
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  I can get that all set up.
• 9:22
  Let's say you're gonna have the baseball team over for your kid's birthday party on Friday
• 9:27
  night, and you wanna walk in the door and have it just you know, it's already done.
• 9:33
  You are a personal household assistant for the professional people or professional homemakers
• 9:40
  even who just run out of time.
• 9:42
  Right.
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  Right?
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  And that's what we're trying you know, it's like have being the CEO and having a personal
• 9:47
  assistant to take care of the task, I don't wanna say menial, but things that are just at
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  the bottom of the priority list.
• 9:53
  Right?
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  Things that are farther down the list than what you need to be physically present for, but that
• 9:59
  still need to get done.
• 10:01
  And that I feel like at the essence is what you are offering with this professional household
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  assistant role and these services here.
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  I think it's wonderful.
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  I love that you're offering a a deal right off the bat here and helping people to kinda get in
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  the door and and to start solving this problem for them right away.
• 10:21
  And, really, I mean, $50 an hour is not cost prohibitive when you consider all the things
• 10:28
  that could get done in an hour that, you know and I know for me with with my kids, I work
• 10:34
  from home.
• 10:35
  Now that the kids are home from summer, it's a much different situation now.
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  Right?
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  Where when everyone went to school, my wife works at the school as well.
• 10:43
  She's she's a teacher, special education teacher now at our elementary school here, that
• 10:49
  they're all gone.
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  Dad can grind for nine hours straight and just working and, you know, I'm I'm drinking my
• 10:56
  coffee and my form energy drinks, and and I'm just going to town.
• 11:01
  Where when everybody else is home, you know, the wife included, it's much harder.
• 11:06
  Right?
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  She wants to walk.
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  She wants a little bit of my time.
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  The kids need to be fed now at home instead of getting their meals at the school.
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  And it all becomes a time where I realize, you know, before I was working twelve, fourteen,
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  sixteen hours a day, now I barely have, like, six hours a day, and that's if I wake up as
• 11:24
  early as possible to get in the office and to start working.
• 11:27
  So from a personal standpoint, I can already see the immense amount of value that I would
• 11:32
  gain from having some of these services provided.
• 11:36
  Well, that's awesome.
• 11:37
  I'm glad you're catching the vision of what it is.
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  We just need to get out and let other people know.
• 11:43
  I thank you for, having me on the podcast because that's what we wanna do is we would
• 11:47
  just wanna make your life a little easier.
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  Take something off the plate that you don't need to worry about, and just free up more of
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  you.
• 11:57
  That's a great spot, I think, to end it.
• 12:00
  That's a great tagline for the business.
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  I can't wait to see where this all goes, Dana.
• 12:05
  I just am so thrilled to know you, to know someone as motivated and as, entrepreneurial
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  minded as you are to just say, hey.
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  I see a need, and I'm going to go fill it.
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  And whether that is starting your own business, selling your own business to jump in with
• 12:23
  another company that's providing, you know, impeccable service to the citizens of Sioux
• 12:28
  Falls.
• 12:29
  It's just incredible, and I'm happy to call you a friend.
• 12:32
  Well, I really appreciate you having me, Bubba.
• 12:34
  I'm happy to call you a friend as well.
• 12:37
  Well, again, thank you for coming on the show today, and thanks for continuing to be part of
• 12:42
  the scene.
• 12:43
  Thanks.
• 12:44
  Have a great day.
• 12:45
  You too.