The Prospect Profiler™ Interviews Sharon McRill

Sharon McRill is founder and president of The Betty Brigade, an expanding personal assistance and concierge company based in Ann Arbor.  The Betty Brigade helps busy professionals with moving, home staging, organizing, event planning, pet care, errands – virtually anything clients need done but have no time to do themselves.  

While growing the business Sharon maintains a focus that the company be a positive force in the community and has worked on joint projects with such groups as The Humane Society, Habitat for Humanity and The Salvation Army among many others.  The Betty Brigade is also a champion for the environment and takes an ecofriendly approach to every project, recycling and using whenever possible.   In fact nearly all furniture in the new office is gently-used second hand. 

Sharon has done scores of television and radio interviews and has been featured in many publications and websites, including The Detroit Free Press, The Detroit News, Ann Arbor News, Strut Magazine, Women’s Day, Crain’s Business Detroit, Forbes.com, MichiganInnovators.com, and Entrepenueur.com.  The Ann Arbor Business Review named The Betty Brigade one of the Ten Growing Companies to Watch.  Sharon has also won awards from The ATHENA Foundation and Women Business Owners of Southeast Michigan and The WBENC/Tuck Executive Program. 

Laid off from a corporate marketing job in 2003, McRill turned joblessness into an opportunity in the midst of an ailing economy.  As a busy professional herself, she’d fantasized about having a personal assistant.  Thus was born the business concept, which grew into “My Gal Friday,” later renamed “The Betty Brigade.”