If you like gossip or enjoying dishing about celebrities, Craig Himmelman is the wrong person to talk with.
He has probably met and worked with more film stars, rock stars and A-listers than most Hollywood producers. But the most revealing thing he will say about his clientele is that “some of the stars are nowhere near as tall as they appear on camera.” Wow, what a scoop. Somehow it’s hard to imagine the editors at the supermarket tabs yelling: “Stop the presses! Move the Bat Boy story to page 3…we’re going with this. It’s hot!”
Himmelman and his sister, JoAnn, run Washington Limousine Inc., which provides limos and drivers to a lot of people whose names and faces we would recognize. And, as he says, “Our one claim to fame is discretion and confidentiality.” So, rule one is that you don’t dish gossip about what the handsome actor did or said last month when he was here with his stunningly beautiful co-star.
The market economics of the high-end limousine business does create an interesting paradox, though. How do you achieve market visibility for a business when discretion and confidentiality – in effect, invisibility – is a key quality of the service?
One thing is certain, it takes time. “A good portion of our business, certainly the celebrity services, depends on word of mouth, and our real advantage has been longevity and the long-term relationships we have developed,” Himmelman says. The company has experimented with the traditional marketing tools of print and radio advertising, but the results were generally unimpressive.
The celebrity community, and the top-level business executive community like it, is remarkably dependent on its internal opinions and recommendations. Both tend to value the opinions of people they trust, and the ones they trust the most are those in similar positions in their same business and situation.
It is not at all surprising that a film star would ask another film star what kind of jet airplane to charter, or what limousine service to use in Seattle. Information is the sustaining force of all markets, but for markets to operate efficiently, the decision-maker has to trust the source. And one thing that celebrities and top level CEOs have in common is a difficulty in finding information sources to trust. They are usually surrounded by people with personal agendas bursting out of their briefcases. So they tend to value the opinions the judgments of those in the same boat – other stars and other CEOs.
Once some celebrities know your name, others will find out about you and over time your market will expand – providing that you continue to deliver the service they want. And, oddly enough, although the entertainment world is driven mercilessly by fads and fickle audiences, celebrities can be fantastically loyal to people and businesses they have come to trust.
But building a business on this kind of long-term relationship requires a business plan compatible with that slow pace of growth.
Washington Limousine was started many years ago by Craig and JoAnn’s parents. And although they always had in mind the high-end limo business, at that time Seattle was pretty much off the map as far as celebrities went. (For years, the city was the preferred destination for soap opera characters that, willingly or unwillingly, needed to disappear.)
The business began, then, as a funeral escort service, providing cars and arranging police motorcycle riders for memorial and burial ceremonies. The motorcycle escorts, in fact, provided a legacy of their own: a long-term relationship with police officers because of their experience dealing with ceremonies, crowds and the public in general.
Not all of Washington Limousine’s drivers are retired police officers, of course, but a considerable number are. And there are quite a few ex-firefighters, too, along with some schoolteachers and a sprinkling of retired professors and former Secret Service officers. Himmelman says, “What we look for first in our drivers is common sense. And we like to hire people who are experienced in dealing with the public.”
If you are interested in driving celebrities and business executives around, those qualities, plus a good working knowledge of the streets and geography of Pierce, King, and Snohomish counties, might get you a job doing just that. But it wouldn’t hurt if limo driving weren’t your only source of income. As part of its business strategy, Washington Limousine believes that it can best serve its customers with a larger driver pool, which means that for any individual, it is probably going to be part-time work.
A business that is totally dependent on repeat customers often has an atmosphere that can make the work especially rewarding. And the freedom from gossip is its own reward.
James McCusker is a Bothell economist, educator and consultant. He also writes “Business 101,” which appears monthly in The Snohomish County Business Journal.
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