Holiday Home Rentals For Families - Meet Wendy Shand

By sandy.naidu | Category: Recent Interviews, Service Based

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

	My guest today is Wendy Shand of ‘TotsToFrance’. Tots to France was set up by Wendy Shand, mum of two, in April 2006 as a holiday home rentals agency with a range of family friendly properties throughout France. She has now expanded into Italy….All her holiday home listings are child friendly - enclosed pools, locks on low windows, cleaning chemicals locked away etc etc…Wendy takes out all the worry of finding a good accommodation for families with kids. Her agency personally supervises each of the properties and only lists the best ones - Most of the properties are beautiful period properties - NOT padded cells.
Wendy’s business has been expanding rapidly - She won the Mother@work Best Mumpreneur Award 2007, the Enterprise nation Home Business of the Year Award 2007 and the BT Essence of the Entrepreneur Award 2007. Read and Be Inspired….
Tell us a bit about your business and how did you get the idea for your business?

	Tots to Travel is the parent company of Tots to France (www.totstofrance.co.uk) and Tots to Italy (www.totstoitaly.co.uk).The company specialises in providing accommodation to meet the very specific needs of families with babies and young children.The concept proved enormously successful, with the company now offering over 50 French properties. Building on this success, the award-winning formula has been replicated in Italy with the launch of Tots to Italy. Roll outs for other countries like the UK, Spain, Australia and South Africa are currently being planned.


What were some of the hurdles you faced in the initial days?

When we started the business in North Wales where there is quite a lot of support for new business and we had been promised 40% of all our start up costs. This was great news and it meant that we were able to go ahead and buy things like a laptop, printer and camera for the business. My husband then got posted at very short notice (2 1/5 weeks!) and we were moved out of the area. This meant that we were no longer eligible for the funding yet had already made relatively large financial commitments. We found the money in the end but it was a shame!


What are the key ways in which you promote your company (both online and offline)?

The most significant cost that we incur is marketing and we have opted to spend the majority of our marketing budget on a PR agent. We also spend money on optimizing our website and on Adwords which works well for us.


What is the most enjoyable part of your day?

I enjoy almost every bit of the job but if I am to be pinned down to one thing, I like the marketing and strategic aspects the most.


How do you balance running an award winning business and raising a family (especially since your work involves so much travel)? Please share with us a couple of your tips?

We have converted a building in the garden for our office which means that I am never far from home so can balance the family and the business. We have moved recently and one of the major aspects of the move was to cut out all the wasted time in the day spent traveling. So the children go to pre-school and school in the village which are only a short walk away. I do my grocery shopping online and just have to be as organized as possible! I have also got used to working in short pockets of time which is not always easy! In terms of fitting in the travel, I generally try to go abroad when I know that he will be at home to look after the children but this is getting increasingly difficult to fit in and I think that this is our next big challenge!


I understand you are expanding into finding family friendly properties in Italy. So after Italy do you plan to expand to more countries?

Yes, we launch Italy next week which is very exciting as we have parents banging our door down to travel to different countries! In theory the model would work anywhere in the world that parents want to take their children so watch this space! We have just been offered a house in Barbados….my flight is already booked!


Finally, your five keys to success?

Start off believing that you can! Think outside the box, my most wild and wacky ideas are often my best! Work out what skills you have and what skills you don’t and find other people to fill in the gaps. Ask lots of questions, all the time! Work out what you really want from life and build your business to fit in. If it does not fulfill your requirements be brave enough to call it a day.


Sites Of Interest
http://www.totstofrance.co.uk/index.php



This interview was published on 8th August 2008

Visit Wendy’s website to get more information about her business….

To read more stories about women in service industry click Idea Home Based Service Business