Gofer it: Running errands takes off as a new business.

• Author: Brown, Kathryn
• Position: Brief Article

You'll find The Southern Hospitality Co. in the Raleigh Yellow Pages under "errands" -- right next to "escorts," for which company owners Hap White and Carol Van Wyck White get a fair amount of calls. They aren't in that sort of business, but they'll do just about anything else. "As long as it's legal, we'll do it," he says.

With 35 beeper- and cell-phone-laden employees zipping around the Triangle, Southern Hospitality tackles the mundane tasks of life that time-starved -- or lazy -- people will gladly pay others to perform. That includes taking Fido to the vet and picking up prescriptions or the dry cleaning. They will have your oil changed, get your Christmas photos developed, stand in line to buy Backstreet Boys tickets for your kid and select a birthday present for your wife -- all while you're cranking out spreadsheets or making sales calls. No request is too odd: A traveling computer-software engineer once paid to have the sports section read to his cat.

"We're in the time-saving, time-sensitive, convenience business," Hap White says. A 1998 study by the New York-based Families and Work Institute indicates that Americans are working an average of 44 hours a week. Cashing in on the time crunch are concierge companies such as Southern Hospitality, which have made personal servants, once the luxury of the rich, available to the masses. It's a young profession, started in 1987 by a former hotel concierge who opened Capitol Concierge in Washington, D.C., to cater to the whims of busy executives. Concierge desks quickly became staples in office buildings there and in other big cities, as landlords contracted with vendors to provide tenants help with everything from having lunch delivered to planning a wedding.

Concierge companies are now among America's hottest enterprises. Last year, Entrepreneur magazine ranked them No. 1 on its list of 12 top new business ventures. North Carolina has about eight, including two that opened last year in Charlotte and one in Winston-Salem in January. Though there's no official tally (the Chicago-based National Concierge Association was formed in 1998), dozens have opened around the country in the last decade to earn a buck from working people, particularly working parents, who pay between $10 and $25 an hour to have concierges run their errands while they earn a living.

"People are working 50- to 60-hour weeks, and most have spouses who work," says Katharine Giovanni, owner and president of Triangle...