After taking a break from running a restored Gite with her husband, Wendy put her skills as an experienced librarian in to good use, tracking down information She is now the owner of Facilitutors.com which provides details of courses in France.
Can you briefly describe yourself, some background and your business?
I am a former chartered librarian who moved to France in 1993 with my husband Chris. We restored a small fermette to make gîtes which we ran successfully for ten years. We sold the gîtes in 2006 and after an extended break, I had the idea of Facilitutors – the education destination, which offers very reasonably priced advertising to tutors and course providers and is a one stop shop for anyone looking for a course in France. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, I will do my best to find it for you, for free. Take a look at www.facilitutors.com, it’s jam-packed with lovely courses – holiday courses, distance learning, local classes, one to one – art and craft, language and literacy, food and wine, outdoorsy and well-being. Oooh and don’t forget to click the “Like” button while you’re there!
What promoted you to start a business here in France? Did any skills or qualifications gained elsewhere help?
After we sold the gîtes and had a bit of a break we booked a holiday in Italy. I decided to learn some Italian, tried to find a tutor, no luck… and it occurred to me that other people might be searching for courses and tutors. So I started by trying to organise courses locally, but it was impractical but I’d built a website to publicise the courses, so I decided to stick with that because it seemed to be popular and everyone said what a good idea it was. Then I decided to get a professionally designed website and that’s how Facilitutors.com began.
My qualifications and experience in libraries have helped, I spent years finding info for people, providing a service, being accurate and rapid and running the gîtes taught me a bit about running a small business, pricing, advertising and being quick to deal with enquiries.
Do you think as a woman it is harder or easier to be in business?
Never having been a man, I can’t really say! But I think it’s probably just different, perhaps women have more pressure when working from home to make sure all the household chores are done. As Barabara Castle once said “What I need is a wife”, I am lucky that my husband likes cooking and is happy to do a lot of the shopping but he’s strangely reluctant to learn how to do the ironing, in spite of repeated offers to give him a crash course.
Are you able to work you business around your family life?
I need to be a bit stricter about taking time to be with my husband, to not work too late and take the occasional complete day off.
Were your business plans part of your move to France or something you became interested in afterwards?
No, the gîtes were our first business here.
Do you find the various French agencies, such as your local CCI, helpful and willing to assist?
I haven’t had much contact with any of them, I find the APCE newsletters useful for keeping up to date with changes in the Autoentrepreneur régime.
Are men that you have to deal with in your business life understanding or treating you differently?
Well, I don’t know how they would treat me if I was a man, but I’ve had no problems so far. I think French men are a bit surprised by the idea of a woman in business and I do get a bit annoyed when they phone up and ask to speak to my husband even when it’s things that concern both of us, like phone contracts.
What is your own personal view of social media such as Facebook and twitter? Good for business?
Love Facebook, made a lot of good contacts there and a good way of keeping in touch with advertisers and potential clients for advertisers, ditto Survive France Network. I’m just getting to grips with Linked In but I find Twitter a bit of a waste of time, but I will persist.
Do you have any thing to say to other women who want to start a business?
As Nike say “Just do it”!
Thank-you so much for publishing this Bob!