Errand Runner

Do you know that being an errand runner is a gig that is always available. You do the simple task of people that simply don’t have time for.

Think of it as being someone’s personal assistant, but you’re a lot of people’s personal assistant.

Majority of errands involves outdoor work, so you get to move around instead of being strapped to your seat, working on the phone and such

The demand for these kinds of services are high, because it’s low cost, and people value time for than money.

Why People Would Pay For Something They Can Do

The value of time can be measured by money. People that makes a certain of amount of money, will start to deem certain task not worth their time.

For example, if a person that makes $100 dollars an hour, would they 2 hours groceries shopping, or should they pay someone $40 dollars to do that for them, saving $160 dollars.

People are baffled by the idea of having a errand runner, because these simple easy tasks can be performed by anyone, but it’s basic financial management, and very rare anyone gets to manage large amount of money, that’s why they think this is weird.

What Do You Do

Any errands, groceries, pick up package, or wait, pick up kids, pet sitting, food delivery, and if you develop a better relationship with your clients you may be handling their paperwork and deal with their health insurance, etc.

Almost any basic simple task that is consuming a lot of time, you will be the one in charge.

Even when I was poor I contemplate hiring someone to help me cancel my Comcast internet service, because it’s mentally exhausting to bounce back and forth from sales rep to disaster response team, trying to reel you back into their service.

I remember when I was on a call to cancel a internet service, it took 2 and half hours, and the disaster guy is still trying to offer me junk service, I lost patience and just hang up, the service is so ridiculous south park even made an episode about it.

Boundaries

boundaries are variable, some people won’t lift more than 15 lbs, for obvious reasons. There are also boundaries for not dealing with paperwork because the individual may not be competent in administrative work.

Imagine filing taxes for your client, and you add an extra digit to their income bracket.

honestly that is majority the clients fault, but you should make clear boundaries that you are a errand runner, and not their accountant/butt wiper.

Where Can I Market

honestly, flyers are back in. snail mails are working as well, since all these people want to be digital marketers. Online marketing is drown out by all the noise, it’s a shouting competition.

You can print posters with the thing to rip off at the bottom, I knew a pet sitter that did just that, and she is getting consistent clients.

You ideally want to look for more affluent or rich folks, they are the only ones willing to pay for this kind of service.

They are also the one’s that need errand runners the most, I knew a banker that makes half a million dollars a year, and it’s more time/money efficient for him to do Ubereats, than spend a hour of his day cooking.

So, you can just go to your city’s richest neighborhood, and find your clients to get started.

Word of mouth

This is probably the best method, I know cleaning businesses that got their biggest clients from word of mouth.

My father got 90% of his business through word of mouth, despite being a hermit, people will look for him because they heard a guy told him, how good he was and wants his service.

Can I Scale It

This type of business is actually kind of hard to scale, it’s very time-specific for the tasks involved. It takes a lot of management, to get things organized.

Imagine if you have so many clients that needed something done, at the same time. You will have employees with gaps in time, and not enough employees to do all the task at the same time slot.

The closest example of this business model of going high scale is Task Rabbit, it is a app to run errands.

It’s based on demand and user working for the app. It’s just too much to have humans administrate the duties assigned to workers, it had to be automated through software.

I Would Do This

The demand is high, whether the economy is average or troughed, rich people just exists by default. It is relatively flexible, it’s a good option if you got a car and you’re unemployed.

The pay although not high, you can make quick money in the time of a pinch.

Now if you were unemployed and partial on rent, and this idea saved you? Feel free to help other people that may need it more than you and share the article.

Don’t keep it to yourself as helping others and turn around and end up helping yourself.