As CEO of the world’s fastest growing and most successful lifestyle management group, Alex Cheatle is responsible for providing the ultimate in hospitality and client satisfaction. But in order to turn, what was literally, start-up pennies into multi-millions he had to learn on the job.
“In the beginning I really was hands-on. When the cleaner didn’t turn up I’d get down on my knees and scrub clients’ toilets. When it was needed, I picked-up cars from car pounds, I was a removal man, a car salesman and a painter decorator.”
Cheatle is in the business of concierge membership, which back in the 1990’s, existed more as a status symbol for the elite than the actual services it had to offer. But at the end of that decade its image and purpose went through a change. Cheatle, then a young Proctor and Gamble employee on a backpacking sabbatical was hit by an entrepreneurial vision – to turnaround the concierge concept into a global industry with the USP of being ‘an intelligent choice’ for the time-poor masses.
The Ten Group is now an impressive 12 years old and 300,000 members strong. But this is only the tip of the iceberg; 40-year-old Cheatle says having a personal Lifestyle Manager will soon become as ubiquitous as a owning a mobile phone.
“We think most people will have a concierge at some stage in the future. I compare it to having a mobile in the early 90’s. People looked at them thinking, ‘who is that guy trying to impress?’
“I think the concierge market was quite like that a few years ago. The perception that it was just for the idyll showy-offish rich was not very helpful.
“Now with mobiles we feel slightly odd if we don’t have one, it’s the way we get things done now. And a concierge service will genuinely organise people quicker, cheaper and better than even a PA or husband or wife could.”
ON CALL 24/7
So what does this essential service encompass? Ten is on-call 24/7, largely based in the UK but with offices in San Francisco and Hong Kong. Their patch covers Europe, Asia and the Americas and exists to ‘organise anything that our members don't have the time, inclination or expertise to organise themselves’, and they can deal with any kind of request as long as it’s legal and moral.
At present there are 280 full-time staff speaking seven languages, meeting the varied demands of the 30,000 calls per month. They are employed because they have 10-20 years of experience in that field, be it finding a cleaner, buying a client a car or booking a holiday. There’s some who are dedicated to the most mundane of chores.
“We have got a team of lifestyle managers who are trained on wrapping. Some of our members literally dump 20 presents in our offices saying please wrap these and I’ll be back at 4 and so we do.”
And sometimes they rise to the oddest challenges.
“We do have weird requests, once to put a game together between a guy and a grandmaster chess champion, another guy made some gin and needed us to find a gin maker to make it to that specific taste. We organised both those.
“The recent volcanic ash kept us busy. We had to get lots of people back and others out so we were getting luxury coaches all over the place. To make it special our members stopped off at a luxury chateau for wine and a Michelin starred meal.
EXTREMELY PRACTICAL
“We’re also extremely practical and can relocate a family moving back to the UK finding schools and a home.”
The price for access to such diversity is £300 a month unless you are a Coutts or Barclays Premiere customer. Then it is yours for free.
Under another and more specialized division is Ten Professional Support currently catering for head-teachers because Alex admits to ‘always being obsessed with education’.
“We realised there’s about 20,000 head teachers in the country all facing the same waves of government policy and legislation yet they all have the same customers; the kids, parents, governors and teachers.
“We’re well on the way to 3,000 schools using our service. We don’t help them with their restaurant table bookings, tickets for Madonna or holidays. We help them with, ‘How can I best recruit a Mandarin teacher?’, ‘What are the success stories behind schools that have launched the diploma?’ or ‘How do I go about writing a letter to parents explaining the risk on this school trip is worth taking? And of course it’s a fraction of the cost of getting a consultant in which they do and breaks my heart.”
Under this flip-side umbrella there is soon to be a GP service doing practical for the practices, followed one uniquely tailored to the demands of SME’s launched in association with an undisclosed bank at the tail end of this year.
“If you are an SME running a business that’s turning over £1 million plus but less than £20 million you’re unlikely to have a corporate infrastructure. So you can turn to us as outsourced people who can help organise everything from your business travel to your Christmas party to stationary deals.”
Cheatle credits the staff for being the force who have propelled him and his co-partner and COO, Andrew Long from bedroom start-up to the £11.5 million turnover they reap today - predicted to double by the end of 2010.
“The heroes in our business are the Lifestyle Managers which is why we need to recruit really, really good people then coach and train them giving them complete autonomy to do their job, whilst supporting them.”
“Our growth is driven by a very honest and basic driver; the better we get the bigger we get. If we don’t get good we don’t get bigger.”