She runs a three-person team. She places 7 to 12 people a month. She charges 18% of annual salary — right in line with the market. And somehow she's the preferred childcare provider for the LA Rams, the LA Chargers, and a meaningful slice of the Forbes 400.
There's no SDR. There are no paid ads. She's not on LinkedIn. Every deal is referred or inbound. After 20 years.
Rebecca Stewart is the founder of VIP Nannies. What she's built in high-end household staffing is the relationship-driven, niche-locked business most agency owners say they want and almost none actually build. This episode is how she got there — and what she'd tell a recruiter sitting in the wrong niche, or no niche at all.
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Rebecca didn't plan this. Small California town, college basketball, Cal State Fullerton, then three months in the Peace Corps in Paraguay because her friends were getting master's degrees. She came home needing a job. A friend told her about a Bel Air nanny role. She interviewed. She was hired before she got home.
She worked Friday through Monday for a year, then walked away because she wanted her weekends back. Inside a few weeks she'd researched every LA nanny agency, called her hometown bank for a loan, and started VIP Nannies at 23. The first family she met tried to hire her as their nanny. She declined and never sat down with a family again.
Early on she chased anyone who could afford a nanny. Then she pulled up to a Beverly Hills Hotel event in her Honda Accord and realized she was at the wrong altitude. She read a marketing book, rewrote her pitch, raised her fees, and rebuilt the website. It took seven years for the pivot to fully show up.
Today the business runs on relationships that compound for decades. The LA Rams reached out about childcare ten years ago after she sent a single congratulations message on LinkedIn — the only time she's used the platform. The Chargers came later. Most placements come from nannies calling her when a job ends.
The episode pulls apart how — the fee structure that filters wrong clients, the $450 registration fee LA agencies wouldn't charge until she did, the six-month replacement guarantee, the nanny socials she runs to fight isolation. And the deeper thesis: there's a niche for everything. Find the one you'd run toward if nobody paid you, then learn to charge for it.
If you're a recruiter stuck in a niche you fell into, this is the conversation that argues you can change that.
What you'll learn:
- How a three-person team places 7 to 12 people a month with zero outbound
- The Honda Accord moment that triggered Rebecca's seven-year pivot upmarket
- Why a $450 registration fee filters better than any qualifying call
- The single LinkedIn message that won the LA Rams account ten years ago
- How to turn "do what you love" into a real business model in a recruiting niche
- The 12-minutes-for-12-days exercise Rebecca uses to find clarity on direction
🎯 Connect with Rebecca Stewart Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vipnanniesla/ Website: https://www.vipnannyagency.com/
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