Ultrawealthy Shoppers Pay Me $150,000 a 12 months to Handle Their Life-style

This is an as-told-to essay based mostly on a dialog with Erica Jackowitz, who runs the New York and Aspen-based way of life administration firm Roman & Erica alongside her husband, Roman Chiporukha. This story has been edited for size and readability.

As a life-style administration firm, we deal with all sides of our shoppers’ leisure, together with their travels, properties, yachts, planes, automobiles, and social occasions.

If it pertains to their leisure in any respect, we deal with it, whether or not it is touring for his or her children’ hockey match, throwing a cocktail party at house, or a trip to the Arctic.

We’re basically a private assistant to all issues leisure. Our shoppers pay upward of $150,000 a 12 months and have entry to Roman and me straight, 24/7. We signify about 10-12 households at a time. We should hold it tremendous unique and restricted so I can be certain I can reply a consumer’s name at 8 p.m. on a Saturday evening. Our ethos is at all times in order that shoppers really feel like they’re the one one.

We have actually deep connections with our shoppers and actually attempt to perceive who they’re and what their wants are. I do know what they need for his or her kids’s party, how they need to have dinner, and what they need to order. I do know who will ship the perfect flowers and how one can ship distinctive, personalized items to their family and friends, and how one can handle their miles.

Roman & Erica

What we provide is best allocation of sources. Instead of a consumer spending seven hours attempting to determine what they need to do and the place they need to eat in Paris, we do it for them. They’re operating main corporations, and so they’re busy folks. We additionally advocate for them. Unlike a conventional journey agent whose backside line relies on fee, we’re salary-based.

We are there to assist folks type their very own lives and make it seamless, so on the finish of the day, they’ll present as much as the lives they’ve constructed and never should spend the time planning.

Everyday is totally different

I’ll have a listing of all of the issues I would like to realize the following day, and by the point I open my eyes within the morning, that checklist is often not what transpires. That’s what I really like about what I do.

Right now, the Knicks have actually taken over our telephone, with folks calling to regulate their journey itineraries to be right here in New York for this second. Last week, a consumer had a four-hour delay at JFK, which meant he was going to overlook the non-public aircraft that was assembly him in Southeast Asia. Reallocating all these logistics saved me up all evening. This morning, I acquired a name from a consumer who needs me to plan a “Back to New York” get together in September for his or her family and friends when everybody returns from their summers away from the town.

One of essentially the most distinctive requests I acquired was final 12 months. I used to be at a celebration in Capri, and I acquired a telephone name from a consumer whose pals have been caught in the midst of the Mediterranean Sea on a yacht with a gaggle of individuals they weren’t snug with. The consumer referred to as and mentioned, “Save my friends. Get them off this boat.” We despatched a helicopter on the market and acquired them off the boat. It was bananas. We really discuss with it at this time with the consumer because the rescue mission.

A variety of requests are extra associated to day by day life, like a last-minute dinner reservation at a scorching restaurant in one other metropolis. I’ve rented full carnivals for shoppers only for “Sunday fun day,” with water slides, slip-and-slides, bouncy homes, in addition to pizza, taco, and sweet vans.

Roman & Erica

You must have the sources to make all that occur, and we do. Our shoppers are used to on-demand companies every time they need and nonetheless they need.

I really like fixing arduous issues

I’m really a lawyer by training, however as a baby I used to be a kind of those that if somebody advised me one thing was not possible, doing it was my adrenaline rush. It was my excessive. I’d be like, ‘Well, I’m going to make that occur.” If someone told me something was sold out, I would find a way to source it even if I didn’t need it.

What I do for a living is an extension of my own lifestyle and my passion for travel, restaurants, and good food. I don’t have a boundary between what is my lifestyle and what is my work because they blend with everything I do.

Friends and family say to me all the time, “Erica, you are by no means not working.” I say, “Well, that is my way of life, so there is no separation between my work and my precise life.” I was just smart enough to turn my passion in this lifetime into my career.

We spend the summer in Europe because that’s where the bulk of our clients spend their summers, so it’s easier for us to be onsite in the time zone. I just turn a hotel cabana into my office.

Ten years ago, I dreamed about that being the case, but in the past couple of years it’s been actualized. It’s incredible to be able to actually say, “I dwell in Europe over the summers, and that is a part of my job.”