April Newsletter 2023
Small Business Week
Let us take this opportunity to remind you that the first week of May is National Small Business Week, which recognizes the critical contributions of America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners.
So, what defines a “small business”? Census.gov has its ideas here, but according to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), a small business has no more than 1,500 employees and less than $38.5 million in average annual revenue, depending on your industry.
As a point of reference, 90% of businesses have fewer than twenty employees and are far smaller than $40M.
Supporting local businesses keeps tax revenue in the state and city as well as providing jobs and support for the overall economy. While we love Amazon too, buying locally has tremendous benefits for the community you live in.
Thankfully, you can’t presently order a detailed, green housecleaning on Amazon.
Did you know that more than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and they create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year?
Also, as a small business in Denver, we want to express our gratitude for supporting us. We try to keep every penny that we earn in Denver and support many other small businesses as well, including featuring local companies in Partners We Love.
Without your support we don’t have a small business to write about, so from the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
Organization Tips
Organization tips, we love ’em!
As we often do, we are happy to share what we find as well.
The fine folks at 5280 Magazine published a great article this month entitled “18 Organizing Secrets for the Messiest Spaces in Your House” and we loved it, so we wanted to share it here.
One of our favorite tips was to “decant” your pastas, flours, and foodstuffs in your pantry.
From the article: “Decanting pastas, flours, and other foodstuffs into resealable containers looks much neater than a lineup of sundry boxes and bags.”
“It keeps your food fresh and allows you to see at a glance how much you have,” Sikora adds. Plus, decanting is easier on the environment: You can BYO bags and buy grocery essentials in bulk from stores like Sprouts and Natural Grocers and avoid wasteful packaging altogether. “
Lots of terrific tips, we also loved the factoid that people only wear 20% of their wardrobe. That’s a stunner, and makes us want to go through our closets today.
They even have tips on how to “smudge” your house and ways to change the energy, which appeals to our metaphysical side.
The complete article can be found here.
Partners We Love
It’s been a while since we featured one of our favorite vendors in our newsletter, so here we go.
In the spirit of Small Business Week, we wanted to feature another one that does excellent work across the Front Range.
Our friend Darrin Azar runs a great little company called Rocky Mountain Enterprises.
They do roofing, gutters, and windows, and they do it all very well. Even more impressive is their experience in working with insurance companies.
We have had numerous experiences with them and we were very impressed with how they worked with the adjuster and basically took the insurance company through the process.
Darrin is offering both free inspections and a special incentive for any client of Denver Concierge.
To learn more, please contact Darrin via email at [email protected] or at 720-663-7766.
Mention that you saw him in the Denver Concierge newsletter for your special offer.
We thank you for supporting our small business and the partners we love!
Denver’s Ongoing Exodus
People leaving Denver has been a recurring theme now for the recent past.
For years we grew and grew, then COVID hit, and many other factors that we aren’t smart enough to understand.
The net effect has not been good, and 2023 illustrates it further.
According to Redfin, Denver lost 4,200 people between January and March 2023.
This was good for 9th overall, with San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles leading the way with nearly 75,000 residents leaving those three places in the same time span.
Where are people going?
Miami, Phoenix, and Las Vegas topped the charts, with an influx of nearly 25,000 people.
One of the more interesting things we found in looking at this was the difference between generations.
We don’t know all the reasons for Denver’s declining population, but we sure hope it stops soon.
The photo above may be a clue.
The complete local piece from Fox News can be found here.
Safest Cities for Women
How sad is it that we have to write this, but with skyrocketing crime seemingly everywhere, we figured it might be time to figure out where it’s safe to go.
In the spirit of celebrating Women’s History Month each March, we enlisted the help of TripIt, one of our favorite apps to figure out the safest cities for female travelers.
They parsed the data into two groups, international and domestic U.S. travel.
The methodology involved TripIt partner GeoSure (who powers TripIt’s Neighborhood Safety Scores feature) to understand what the safest destinations are for women based on their analysis of metadata captured from hundreds of trusted sources.
The top five safest cities worldwide? Well, two of them are in Sweden, and two are in Switzerland, with Bregen, Austria rounding out the top 5. Basel and Geneva, Switzerland were rated the safest.
How about the U.S.? Close to home, Fort Collins came in fourth overall, a great recognition of one of our fine college towns. The top five:
5. Bellevue, WA (GeoSafeScore™: 73/100)
4. Fort Collins, CO (GeoSafeScore™: 73/100)
3. Thousand Oaks, CA (GeoSafeScore™: 73/100)
2. Roseville, CA (GeoSafeScore™: 73/100)
1. Cambridge, MA (GeoSafeScore™: 74/100)
Interesting data for sure.
We honor all the wonderful women in our lives and wish them safe and happy travels wherever they go.
The full article and list can be found here.
Monthly Award Winners
Our monthly award winners for March were Josefina Quinonez, Cecilia Reyes, Sandra Vidales, Aurora Dominguez, and Maria Zapata.
In the Team Leader ranks, it was Socorro Ibarra and Natalia Olivas.
We are so proud of our winners, and of all the folks that are in and out of your homes each week.
We are also very appreciative to be a part of your lives and your homes. You provide the platform for our teams to perform, and for that we are grateful.
Please join me in congratulating our best performers for the month of March.
Queen Bee Corner
by Angela
Over the years we have had a fair number of clients who moved houses but not neighborhoods. They called with a new address and we kept them on the same schedule at the new house down the street or around the corner.
Some clients moved out of state only to return to Denver like the Swallows to Capistrano.
Numerous studies around the globe have shown that social support is the most powerful protection against becoming overwhelmed by stress or trauma.
Reciprocity is the key. Not just being around people, but being truly heard and seen by those around us is fundamental to our well-being.
Who better to fill that role than neighbors we have known for years?
Of course, not all neighbors are good neighbors. Perhaps our clients just have a sixth sense when it comes to choosing the areas with the best neighbors.
I’d like to think that they also have a sixth sense when it comes to choosing the best cleaning company, but I may be biased.
Bee