Columbus native Nikki Veneziano launched Columbus Personal Assistants in August of 2017. A year later, her company has grown to employing 11 assistants serving the central Ohio region.
Veneziano holds a BFA in Dance with an emphasis in Musical Theatre and is a certified personal trainer. She worked as a personal assistant in New York City while pursuing a career in musical theatre, but after a few years, she decided to return to Columbus. Here, she’s continued to work as a personal assistant while expanding her fitness career.
Her personal assistant client list grew quickly, and soon she could not keep up on her own. When she had to start turning people away, and was repeatedly asked if she knew of anyone who could take her place, a business idea began to form. Veneziano noticed that Columbus was home to several nanny agencies and house cleaning agencies, but there was a lack of companies offering personal assistant services. Veneziano realized there was a need for this in Columbus and launched Columbus Personal Assistants.
All of the assistants working for Columbus Personal Assistants undergo a background check, reference check, and interview process with Veneziano. Once hired, assistants are trained, insured, and bonded before being sent on an assignment. During the training process, Veneziano personally trains the assistants, sharing her own experiences and avoidable common mistakes, preparing the assistants for working with clients.
Most of the work done by the assistants is general household management type tasks, such as laundry, dishes, straightening up, running errands, pet care, calendar management, researching purchases, general decluttering, and organizational projects.
Once a client has specified their budget, needs, and schedule, Veneziano passes along a profile for an assistant that she believes would be a good fit. If the client agrees, a meeting is scheduled in a public setting between the client and assistant. If the client wishes to work with the assistant, Columbus Personal Assistants sets up a credit card on file, and the client is charged for accumulated hours every two weeks. The assistants are scheduled according to the client’s needs and agenda, and they work within the client’s timeline to meet goals.
Veneziano says her goal with Columbus Personal Assistants is to give people the freedom to enjoy the parts of life that actually matter; that by allowing assistants to tackle the necessary items in a client’s life, they can have the free time to engage in more enjoyable activities. She says an exercise she likes to ask clients to do is to imagine a Saturday’s to-do list, and then imagine giving that list to someone else to accomplish during the week. Once Saturday rolls around, all of the items have been completed, and the client is able to travel, volunteer, or spend time with loved ones.
Columbus Personal Assistants is currently serving clients in Worthington, Gahanna, New Albany, Upper Arlington, Hilliard, Dublin, Old Town East, and Delaware. For more information, visit www.cbus-pa.com.
