Choose a niche before you choose a name
Luxury concierge is a broad label. It covers firms that run whole households for a few families, firms that serve hundreds of members with dining and travel requests, and specialists in areas such as private aviation, yachting or relocation. Trying to be all of these at once makes you hard to recommend, because nobody can describe you in a sentence.
Start from what you already know and who already trusts you. A former hotel concierge has restaurant and hotel relationships. A former executive assistant knows how principals and family offices work. A former travel advisor knows suppliers and booking rules. Your niche should sit where your existing network meets a group of clients who can pay for ongoing help.
- By geography: one city where you can genuinely get the table, the driver and the tradesperson.
- By client: founders and executives, families with several homes, relocating professionals, or members of a club you partner with.
- By request type: travel and events, household and estate support, or gifting and occasions.
Define your services and membership tiers
Write down exactly what you will and won’t do. Most lifestyle concierge firms group their work into dining, travel, events and tickets, gifting, household and vendor coordination, and errands. List what is out of scope too: anything illegal or unsafe, medical or financial advice, and anything that needs a licence you don’t hold.
Then decide how clients will buy. Many firms sell an ongoing membership with two or three tiers, separated by how much they include (requests per month, response hours, household scope) rather than by access to different vendors. A simple structure is easier to explain and easier to deliver. Our guide to lifestyle concierge pricing walks through tiers, retainers and fees in detail.
Set up the business properly
The details depend on where you operate, so treat this as a checklist of questions to take to a local lawyer and accountant, not as advice. In the United States, the Small Business Administration’s guides to choosing a business structure and getting insurance are a sensible starting point.
Concierge work involves handling other people’s money, homes and documents, so the protective pieces matter more than they would in many service businesses. Spend on them early.
- Business structure: sole proprietorship, partnership, LLC or corporation, chosen with your accountant for liability and tax reasons.
- Registrations: business name, tax registration and any local business licence your city or county requires.
- Travel rules: some places regulate anyone who sells travel. California, for example, requires sellers of travel to register with the Attorney General. Check before you book flights or packages for clients.
- Insurance: ask a broker about general liability and professional liability, plus workers’ compensation once you have employees.
- Client agreement: scope, fees, how vendor costs and commissions are handled, card authorization, confidentiality and liability for third-party vendors.
- Separate bank account and card, so client pass-through costs never mix with your own money.
Choose a pricing model you can sustain
Lifestyle concierge firms usually charge some mix of a monthly or annual membership, hourly or per-request fees, commissions or markups on vendor bookings, and surcharges for rush or after-hours work. A membership gives you predictable income and gives clients a reason to bring you everything. Hourly and per-request fees suit occasional clients and work that is hard to scope.
Price from your costs, not from a competitor’s website. Work out what a lifestyle manager costs you fully loaded, how many clients one person can look after well, and what margin you need. Then decide openly how you handle vendor commissions and disclose it in your agreement. Clients at this level notice when a bill doesn’t match what they were told.
Build your vendor network
A concierge business is only as good as the people who answer when you call. Build a short list of trusted vendors in each category before you need them: restaurants and private dining rooms, florists, chauffeurs and car services, private aviation brokers, villa and yacht agents, ticketing contacts, housekeeping and tradespeople, and security.
For each vendor, record the contact who actually helps you, your negotiated rate or commission, payment terms, whether you hold their insurance certificate and an NDA, and a backup for when they’re fully booked. Review the list every quarter. A vendor who lets one client down once is a note on their record; twice is a reason to drop them.
Win your first clients
Almost every luxury concierge business grows by referral. Your first clients are likely to come from people who already know your work: former employers, colleagues, and the partners you met in hotels, private banks, clubs, estate agencies and family offices. Tell them specifically who you help and what you take off a client’s plate.
Make the first month memorable. Run a proper intake conversation, write down every preference you hear, and use it on the next request without being reminded. A client who never has to repeat their allergy, their seat preference or their partner’s birthday becomes the person who introduces you to their friends. Partnerships with businesses that serve the same clients, such as private banks, wealth managers and residential developers, can bring steady introductions once you have a track record.
Your tools at each stage
You don’t need software on day one. A spreadsheet, a shared document per client and your phone are fine while you have a handful of clients and do the work yourself. The problems arrive when a second person joins: preferences live in your head, conversations live on your phone, and vendor costs are reconciled by hand at month end.
The table below is a practical guide to when each kind of tool starts to pay for itself. The numbers of clients are rough signals, not rules.
| Stage | What works | Signs you’ve outgrown it |
|---|---|---|
| Solo, a handful of clients | A spreadsheet of clients and vendors, a document per client, your phone and inbox, simple invoicing software | You’re searching old messages for preferences, or chasing who paid for what |
| Two or three people | A shared system of record for clients, requests and vendors, with conversations kept on the client record | Requests fall between people, or a client gets two different answers |
| A growing team | A concierge CRM with request ownership, billing for dues and pass-through costs, a secure place for passports and IDs, and reporting | You can’t see workload, response times or which vendors you rely on |
Hiring your first lifestyle manager
Hire when the evidence says so: you’re turning down requests, response times are slipping, or you can’t take a day off without a client noticing. Look for people from hotel concierge desks, private aviation, luxury travel, executive assistance and household management. Judgement and discretion matter more than any single skill.
Before they start, write down how you work: your intake process, how requests are logged, which vendors to use first, spending limits that need approval, and how sensitive documents are handled. Give them access only to what their role needs. The goal is that every client’s history belongs to the business, so a holiday or a resignation never leaves a client with nobody who knows them.