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Sarah Robinson

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The Business of Life

Corporate consultant turned upscale concierge, Sarah Robinson helps busy professionals make time for the things that matter most

Article by Javacia Harris Bowser

Photography by Mary Fehr

Originally published in Birmingham Lifestyle

Sarah Robinson understands that anxious feeling you may get when you return from vacation. You’re thinking about everything that didn’t get done while you were gone. Plus, everyone is hungry, and there’s no food in the fridge.

This is just one of the many problems Sarah’s company, HUM Concierge, can solve for its clients. HUM Concierge is a lifestyle management company that offers a wide range of personal services for individual and corporate clients.

“We create time for busy families and professionals to focus on what matters most to them,” Sarah explains. “They hand us the things that have to be done but don't have to be done by them.”

HUM can meet with the cable guy while you go to your kid’s softball game or get your rugs cleaned while you focus on a big project at work. While you’re on vacation, HUM can handle trash and recycling pickup, collect your mail, return library books, feed the fish, and stock your refrigerator and pantry when you return.

HUM also has a roster of corporate clients. Last year, a company hired HUM to wrap gifts for its employees during the holidays. HUM has also coordinated office holiday parties and helped companies with client gifting. 

Holiday decorating, polishing silver, addressing holiday cards and party invitations, and picking up pies for a holiday potluck are all within HUM’s wheelhouse.

“We won't do anything illegal, and we won't do Walmart returns,” Sarah says. “Other than that, everything's figure-out-able.”

Hiring HUM Concierge differs from getting your nanny or niece to run errands.

“Everybody on my team has experience,” Sarah says.  “I love college kids, but that's not who we hire.”

If you need a baby shower gift, you won’t get a deluge of texts from the HUM team asking you to choose between various options.

“We have been to enough baby showers that we know what to pick out,” Sarah says.

Sarah and her team are currently supervising a construction project for a client. They’ve met with subcontractors to get bids and put together a timeline for the work. They helped another client find a decorator.

“We do everything at the same professional level that our clients would…if they were free to do so,” Sarah says. “We show up professionally dressed and know how to handle ourselves in professional situations.”

Sarah’s life and professional experiences have helped her build HUM Concierge, which she launched in April of 2023.

“I spent 20 years as a corporate consultant in the C suite,” says the Evergreen, Alabama native. “So I was in those conversations with executives, listening particularly to the female executives because when we would be talking through a project, they had an extra layer of stress because they had to figure out how their kids were going to get picked up or how they were going to make it to the baseball game or the soccer game.”

As a consultant, Sarah helped corporations across the country with internal communications, strategic plans, talent retention, and more. Now, she uses her knack for problem-solving to help with the business of life.

Ashley Gootee, owner of Something You Couture, which offers custom designs and high-end alterations, hired HUM to oversee a lake house renovation project that she and her husband had been putting off for years because they were too busy with work and their toddler.

“Sarah has people for every single aspect of life,” Ashley says. “You need a plumber? She has a guy for that. You need a calligrapher? Here’s the best in town. You need a party planner? She’s like Mary Poppins for adults, just picking it out of her bag.”

Sarah pulls off this magic with a small team that ranges from two to six people, depending on the time of year. As the agency’s client list grows, the team will grow, too. But Sarah’s mission for the company and her wish for her clients will remain the same. She says, “I just want their lives to hum along.”

Learn more at HumConcierge.com. 

“We create time for busy families and professionals to focus on what matters most to them,” Sarah explains.

When a friend recommended she start a concierge service, Sarah scoffed at the idea. But soon, she realized she could create an upscale, life-changing service for busy people who felt they were missing out on what matters most.

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