After scrubbing one career, they're cleaning up

Rhoda Mehl spent more than 10 years trying to make a career as a dancer and actress, including six years off and on with the Margolis-Brown Theater Company.

Alas, she spent a whole lot more time waiting on tables at Bar Abilene in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood than waiting in the wings to go onstage.

Given Mehl's ensuing shift in creative focus from the theater to entrepreneurship, there are more than a few folks who are applauding that failure.

They are clients of a housecleaning and concierge service that Mehl, 33, started in 2002 with Clare Riordan, 34, another discouraged acting hopeful. They met when they worked at Bar Abilene.

"After years of cleaning houses during the day and waiting on tables at night, you just get exhausted," Mehl said of her struggle.

Three years later, they've grown Nook & Cranny Concierge Services Inc. into a business that grossed $450,000 in 2005 and is on track to reach $600,000 this year.

What's the attraction?

"It's very basic," said Nook & Cranny client Liz Hare-Roth, a busy mother and office manager for an Eden Prairie land development company. "You tell them once what you want, and they do it. I've had other services, and I found myself having to repeat myself over and over to get it done right."

That fits with Mehl's business credo: "We show up on time, listen to the client and do exactly what we say we'll do," she said. "And if there's a problem, we fix it -- immediately!"

All of which helps explain why one of the company's first clients recommended it for inclusion on Angie's List, the online referral website whose members rate local service providers. It also explains how kudos from Nook & Cranny clients quickly elevated the company to a Super Service Award on the website, a top rating that has been a key to its rapid growth.

It didn't hurt that City Pages added Nook & Cranny to its "Best of the Twin Cities" list in 2003, Mehl said. Mainly, however, their 250 clients "keep us busy with referrals," she said.

Their strategy is simple: They start with the dust bunnies, using their cleaning service to get them through the front door, then start looking for other services their busy clients might need.

Is there clutter that needs organizing? By the time Nook & Cranny got through organizing her home, Hare-Roth said, the company had removed "an entire dumpster of junk" -- a chore for which she had nowhere near the time.

Getting your home ready for sale? Kirsten Ragatz raves about how Mehl tapped her so-called "Service Circle" of affiliated businesses to find contractors to redo the closets, change the locks, install insulation and do general handyman work. While the family was at work, Mehl supervised the painting and air-conditioning contractors Ragatz hired.

The list keeps growing: Nook & Cranny will do the laundry and make the beds. It will serve as house- and pet-sitter while you're on vacation. It will hire caterers, help with the invitations and otherwise ease the burden of planning a wedding, and even plan, decorate and supply food for your home or office party.

"Our aim is to go from house cleaners to home managers," said Mehl, admitting that the objective remains elusive: Noncleaning concierge services accounted for just 10 percent of 2005 revenue, but the partners are laboring to hoist that number to 20 percent this year.

The company charges $35 to $50 an hour, depending on a client's distance from corporate headquarters on the edge of downtown Minneapolis. Regular clients pay an average of about $110 a week, Mehl said.

Success has not come easily, given their underfunded beginning. Mehl likes to say they started with "$10 and a bottle of vinegar," but Riordan conceded that they also had "a couple of Oreck vacuum cleaners" -- hardly enough assets for the bankers they contacted about backing them.

Worse, they found themselves working too hard cleaning houses to keep track of the cash flowing through the business. That, and a break-in that cost them their computers and all their records, produced losses in their first two years that ran well into five figures.

Thus, Mehl and Riordan were forced to forgo salaries for two years. They worked in their limited time off as waitresses, got help from their families and ran up impressive numbers on their credit cards.

But they survived, and even have begun to thrive. The business turned profitable in mid-2005, and the partners have begun paying themselves a salary, albeit a small one.

All of which left just one question: Considering the frustrations of shaping a career in the theater, what took Mehl so long to shift gears?

"Passion has no reason," she said in her best stage voice, "only bold intent."

Dick Youngblood • 612-673-4439 • yblood@startribune.com