How ‘One Step at a Time’ Led to Joy Solutions
“Joy Solutions’ vision is simple but profound – to transform small businesses in France into smooth-running operations that make data-informed business decisions. We help small business owners operate more efficiently, profitably, and sustainably by identifying and implementing systems and processes that align with their vision.”
One of the first lessons we learned in France was that we needed to change our definition of what daily success looks like. Daily success in France, I’ve found, oftentimes is accomplishing one meaningful thing per day. If you do this before noon you may be tempted to try for two. Don’t give in to the temptation; instead, take the remainder of the day marveling over and savoring your success. It doesn’t happen often.
Your one thing could involve navigating your first conversation entirely in French with a technician regarding your broken coffee maker. Or it could be successfully finding all the items on your grocery list after visiting four different stores. Or, in the case of our first day together in Paris way back in 2016, the goal was to get an unlimited week-long transit pass called the Navigo Decouverte with zero knowledge of all things France.
At the time, the Navigo Decouverte represented a stellar deal; enabling unlimited travel for a week through the main Parisian zones for roughly 20 US dollars a week. I had a premonition that this would not be an easy task, so I scratched out the information on the image below. I was quite certain our small (but building) French vocabulary would not be able to pull this off without this visual assistant.
I know we were in for difficulty when I read online that some French transit workers dissuaded foreigners from purchasing this pass by telling them that it’s only for French citizens. Also, the directions included such difficult tasks as taking a photo in a photo booth and convincing an attendant to allow you to borrow scissors (not a popular transit-related item these days) whilst you paste your photo into your pass to officially make it valid.
Sure enough, it was a challenge. Here is the blow-the-blow account:
Step 1: We go to the nearest Metro station and, good news, somehow manage to buy the pass (+ 4 individual tickets since another rule is that the pass can only start on the following Monday). Bad news: there is no photo booth, so the attendant sends us to another Metro station called La Place des Fetes.
Step 2: We walk to La Place des Fetes and go down a million stairs. Good news – we find a photo booth! Bad news – we need two five-euro bills (and we have none), and the attendant said that we must go back out to a store, get change, and come back.
Step 3: Good news: We find an escalator back up and go to the nearest store to make a small purchase to get our two five-euro bills. Bad news: The attendant refuses to break our 10 euros into two five-euro bills while laughing incessantly either because she wanted to make our lives hard or (more likely) she thought I was asking her to give us extra five euro bills out of the kindness of her heart. Further good news: We walked next door and they changed our 10 euro into two five-euro bills without having to make an additional purchase.
Step 4: Back to the photo booth in La Place des Fettes. Good news: Terra went in and successfully got her pictures, then went to the attendant and convinced her to let us borrow the scissors to attach her photo to the pass we had previously purchased. Bad news: Despite multiple attempts I was never actually able to get an image that the machine deemed ‘acceptable’. It kept telling me to close my mouth, stop smiling, or move my head into the correct range. By the last one I had a seriously depressing and I thought convincing face going, but it still got rejected. It was like the machine knew that I wanted to smile.
At the end of the day, we just went on our merry way with my rejected image and hope no one looked too closely. This leads to a second lesson I learned much later in my French experience – the French love to have rules for everything but very reasonable about how and when they hold you to the letter of the law. As long as you give it a good solid effort you should be just fine most of the time.
Before we knew what hit us it was 5pm and time to go celebrate with an apero drink.
Little did we know that 10 years later we would have accomplished 1,056 little things (or somewhere close to that) that has ultimately led to us living and owning a small business in France. It’s amazing what a strong desire to do something mixed with a healthy dose of fortitude can do.
That’s right – we started a business in France! That is no small task, I can assure you. But what is Joy Solutions all about?
Joy Solutions’ vision is simple but profound – to transform small businesses in France into smooth-running operations that make data-informed business decisions. We help small business owners operate more efficiently, profitably, and sustainably by identifying and implementing systems and processes that align with their vision.
How do we accomplish this? We focus on five pillars:
Leverage financial reports and metrics to help clients make the best decisions
Analyze business processes, recommend future state improvements, and manage projects to completion when needed
Create technology ecosystems that enable our clients to operate efficiently
Discover and solve problems that allow clients to maximize their profitability
Educate our clients to promote deeper understanding of what leads to business success
What blend of experiences and skills made us feel qualified to help other businesses France? Joy Solutions is a culmination of 20 years of experience that each of us has, and this includes over 10 years of successful small business ownership in the US. It’s the combination of the resulting skills that enable us to be able to help small businesses be successful – in the US, France, or anywhere else.
So whether you already own a small business in France or you’re just starting to dream about it, think about what your one step should be today. And most definitely consider making that one step by giving Joy Solutions a call or filling out our contact form. That step will go a long way towards helping you achieve small business success!