What Name Will You Choose For Your Business?
Richard Whiting has been living and working in France for over 20 years. He has dealt with a variety of recent and established businesses and their proprietors, promoting his companies' business-to-business services and selling residential property.
WHAT NAME WILL YOU CHOOSE FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
What name you choose for your business or company and also the brand name (marque) for the product or service are also key prior questions. The former will either be the corporate name (raison sociale) or sole trader, i.e. your own name (dénomination sociale) depending on the type of legal form chosen for the business. Check with an INPI office or online at www.inpi.fr that the trading name is not already used in your département or any adjacent ones. When you register your business the trading name will become yours. There is, however, nothing to stop it being used as a brand name by another company if you don’t use it as a brand name, although ‘John Smith’, for example, is unlikely to go down well on a national scale.
Choose a short, memorable brand name that encapsulates what the product is or does, having checked on the INPI website that the complete name does not already exist. Then register it at an INPI office. This costs just 215€ (based on 2005 prices) and gives national coverage for the first 10 years. Think in terms of a name that will be readily understood by both Anglophones and Francophones. ‘DISCOUNT’, ‘QUICK’, ‘SPEEDY’, ‘EXPRESS’, etc. are often used as part of business names to indicate the type of product or service offered. For the purely English-speaking market ‘FRENCH NEWS’ is a complete business name which describes exactly what the newspaper contains. ‘BELLIS-SIMMO’ is a clever, patented Franco-Italian complete trademark, which most European nationalities will quickly understand and remember making it an ideal name for publicising a small estate agency chain (agences immobilières).
WHERE SHOULD YOU SET UP YOUR BUSINESS?
Location is vital if your business relies on passing and local trade. Also, assuming you don’t want a long journey to work every day or want to be on the spot in case of out-of-hours emergencies, where you live, or plan to live, will have an important bearing upon the location of your business.
If you live in the country not far from two large towns don’t make the mistake of setting up shop in an isolated spot equidistant from each town, in the hope of catching trade from both of them. Far better to opt for a good position in one of the towns or in a well-established shopping centre (centre commercial) which may be just out of town. The motorway and main roads network are excellent and most people are within 30 minutes’ drive of a centre commercial.
Just off a town’s high street near major shops is fine for specialist shops such as those selling fishing tackle (a huge market in France), pet food and equipment (there are almost as many pets as people in France) or ironmongery, ordinary kitchen/tableware and practical novelties (these are very popular as the French are very house-proud). Rents will be cheaper and the premises won’t have to be beautifully fitted out.
Tourist businesses traditionally come and go depending upon the seasonal trade and long-term projects should aim for all-year round business. A winter and summer activity such as selling skiing and then hiking equipment in a popular town in the Alps or Pyrenees makes sense. Attractive beach sites are fine when the weather performs, and can produce enough revenue for the whole year, but can be disastrous if there is a bad summer. And many of these sites are subject to annually-awarded municipal permits which are not necessarily renewed for the following year.
Major towns and cities such as Bordeaux, Lyon, Nice, Paris, Strasbourg (with the European Parliament as a tourist attraction) and Toulouse are always full of visiting tourists. Annecy, in Savoy, is one of France’s leading tourist towns and Saint Tropez (if you can stand the traffic jams) is a notable exception to the seasonal trade rule as it is always crowded from late spring onwards and throughout the summer months, regardless of the weather.
Look out for trading and industrial estate developments in urban or rural areas if it would be beneficial to your business to be located in one. These estates may be subject (up to the end of 2008 for new businesses) to total or partial tax exemptions on profits, and exemptions from the local business tax (taxe profes-sionnelle) – see Chapter 3 – and property tax (taxe foncière) – at least for an initial period.
Working from your home may also be a possibility. Regulations and restrictions which apply to working from home and renting, sharing or buying business premises are covered in Chapter 7.
Wherever you are, broadband Internet connection (Internet haut-débit) is becoming as important for a variety of businesses as having main utility services laid on. Although France is preeminent in broadband expansion check with the local France Telecom office that your computer system can be coupled with the telephone network in the area to give high-speed Internet connection.
WHEN SHOULD YOU START YOUR BUSINESS?
When not to start a business is the real question. Just before and during the grandes vacances summer holiday month of August is not a good time regardless of whether your business is going to be local or national. Customers will not be around and if they are, many suppliers – food wholesalers excepted – will be closed and unable to deliver follow-up orders if you get off to a flying start. If other businesses are your main customers, monthly credit terms which coincide with the holiday month of August will automatically extend their credit for another month. The month of May is generally not a good time either as there are usually three or four week-day holidays so you should check the calendar.
Mid-September is a particularly good time, however, when everybody’s back to work and thinking of business. Another good time is the start of the New Year after the two-week Christmas break.
UNDERSTANDING EVERYTHING AND BEING UNDERSTOOD
Soul-searching and keeping one’s eyes open are sufficient to provide satisfactory answers to the preceding basic questions. Proceeding to detailed market research, and then entering the worlds of administrative procedures and assistance before launching and running the business will, of course, require a sound command of French.
Even if 95 per cent of future customers are British or Anglophone, or previous employment experience is in the English-language dominated worlds of shipping, motor boat or sailing craft services, official business documents and contracts, and correspondence with public authorities (l‘administration) must be in immaculate French. Publicity material, such as display posters, which everyone can see, must show the French translation if the verbal message is in English or any other language. Sales letters or publicity leaflet drops to a defined English-speaking market can of course be in English without any translation.
Business letters to a wider market, in French, will require secretarial assistance from a French national – truly bilingual people are extremely rare – and marketing material may require a French specialist to get the message across effectively. This does not mean that your French assistants will have carte blanche. It is relatively easy to suggest improvements or spot errors despite the fact that you cannot express yourself as you would wish. Think of artists or draughtsmen drawing up a face or plan for identification with guidance from someone who knows what they want or what they have seen.
Understanding 100 per cent of everything that is said or written is the goal. Everything you say must also be completely understood, even if grammatical errors are always present. Getting the tenses right for verbs is, however, essential. There is not much use in saying you want something to happen if your interlocutor is led to understand that it has already happened.
Form as well as substance is important in French. Never use the familiar form of vous tu when you are writing to someone in their official capacity, such as the bank manager or the mayor, especially if you’re seeking something advantageous, even if you are on first-name terms with them and ‘tutoie’ them socially. As a general rule all business letters start with ‘Monsieur’ or ‘Madame’ and end formally with ‘Je vous prie de croire, Monsieur.../Madame...à l’assurance de mes salutations distin-guées’. With this rule, you can’t go wrong, although there are other formal letter endings.
The Alliance Française (the French equivalent of the British Council) promotes the French language and culture through written and spoken teaching courses and the organisation of inter-cultural functions. The website www.alliancefr.org has details in English and there are about 30 Alliance centres spread throughout France. Ideally, look for qualified teachers in any French-language teaching organisation or university who are ex-business people. If you are in South-East France, Britanny or Normandy the English website www.angloinfo.com has information on language schools in these areas. Visit also www.language-learning.net for details in English – consult French certificate courses – of various business-French courses. The British Embassy (Paris) or the Consulate offices in Amiens, Biarritz, Bordeaux, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Calais, Dinard, Dunkerque, Le Havre, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nante and Nice may also suggest websites to consult for information, although they cannot as a government organisation send out addresses for individual schools or give recommendations: www.britishembassy.gov.uk/france. Think of the cost as a business investment. It may also be possible to claim the cost, initially, as a justifiable business expense against tax.
Registered unemployed people with a new business project may qualify for partially or completely subsidised French courses if they already have basic French. State school teachers may offer lessons on a one-to-one basis in their homes which will be cheaper than class lessons given by teachers in private language schools, but the former will not be able to provide invoices for business expense purposes and are unlikely to have a business or technical background.
Practise by yourself, as well. Watching and listening to TV news and weather forecasts provide good comprehension practice and reading the French sub-titles for English-language films on the Arte evening channel helps accelerate reading rates. Joining a local sports or recreational club with predominately French members also helps. Editions Lamy (www.lamy.fr) publish a pack, with explanatory notes, of 600 ready-made letters and contracts which is a real bible for inexperienced entrepreneurs and foreigners. Lamy also supply registration forms for different legal forms of businesses (see Chapter 3).
USEFUL ADDRESSES
Editions Lamy, 21–23, rue des Ardennes, 75935 Paris Cedex 19. Commercial, company, environmental, insurance, social, taxation and transport law.
Association française de recherches et d’études statistiques commerciales (AFRESCO), 46, rue de Clichy, 75009 Paris. AFRESCO supplies business information and statistics.
NATIONAL FEDERATIONS
Confédération générale de l’artisanat français, 30, rue des vinaigriers, 75010 Paris.
General federation for self-employed craftsmen/artisans in all types of trades
Confédération générale des petites et moyennes entreprises, 10, terrasse Bellini, 92806 Puteaux. The website, www.cgpme.gov, has information in English.
General federation of small and medium-sized businesses
Confédération de l’artisanat et des petites entreprises du bâtiment, 46, avenue d’lvry, 75625 Paris cedex 13.
Federation for small construction businesses and building craftsman
Confédération française du commerce de gros et du commerce international, 18, rue des Pyramides, 75001 Paris.
Federation for wholesalers and exporters
Conféderation nationale de l’artisanat, des métiers et des services, 8, impasse Daunay, 75011 Paris.
National federation for craftsman/artisans, service businesses and other trades
Office national interprofessionnel des vins, 232, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris.
Professional, national wine-growers’ federation
Syndicat des sociétés françaises de conseil et d’assistance au développement international.
SYCADI, 31, avenue Pierreler de Serbie, 75016 Paris.
Export trade consultant’s union
Union professionnelle artisanale, 79, avenue de Villiers, 75017 Paris.
Professional artisans/craftsmens’ association
USEFUL WEBSITES
L’association française de normalisation. The French standards association site in English. Links to local offices which can provide full details of regulations and standards for all activities.
Association for industrial development and promotion (association pour la promotion et le développement industriel).
The international specialist assuring overseas payment risks. Click on ‘nos autres sites’, then scroll down and click on United Kingdom for general information in English about Coface. Click on ‘Coface en France’ and then on ‘Implantations en France’ for Coface offices in France.
National federation of estate agents and where their member agents are.
All the official facts and figures on France’s society and economy.
www.ubifrance.fr or www.cfce.fr
International development for businesses (I’agence française pour le développement international des entreprises). Sources for information on export markets, etc.
