Frédérique Cintrat is CEO of Axielles.com, an app that facilitates professional networking, and Assurancielles, an insurance broker for active women. She is also the author of Comment vient l’ambition ? (“How does ambition come about?”) – Published by Eyrolles. We asked her about what led her to organise professional networking events and how her organisation used Weezevent.
Hello Frédérique, what brought you to create your professional networking events?
My company, Axielles.com, is first and foremost a digital app that facilitates professional networking. There is a free service to share “women in business” events, and a paying service for companies and structures taking out a subscription on the platform in order to federate an ecosystem – whether their employees, customers, employees. Then, as a recent entrepreneur, I realised that I had little opportunity to meet entrepreneurs who struggled, who may or may not have succeeded. And I figured I wasn’t the only one. So I decided to create professional events where an entrepreneur answered my questions “without filter”, while encouraging networking among participants, in the spirit of Axielles.com.
What makes your events different from other professional events?
Our intention is not to organise a show or an intervention. Participants are involved in the conversation, in small groups to encourage interactions. If we don’t foster these meetings, if we don’t invite people to introduce themselves, they won’t necessarily do so – except for the very extroverted, but not the others. And since I come from the world of big business, I also sell events to companies to acculturate them to start-ups, but not in zoo mode as we often see it; that is to say the organisers who bring a little start-upper wearing sneakers and say “hey kid, do your thing – that’s it, you saw a start-up”. It must be constructive on both sides, we must discover the other side of the coin and everyone must find their interest.
How do you choose your speakers?
I bring in people I have met, people I know, so that the conversation is richer and the participants can have an experience. They have created companies, start-ups, and have acquired a little experience in their entrepreneurial adventure – 3 or 4 years. They had time to experiment, to grow, maybe raise money and hire people. They tell us how things are behind the scenes, without filter. I have conversations entrepreneur to entrepreneur. People come to see something other than a sales presentation, namely an exchange about the real story. That’s why I launched the ACI Axial – Ambition Connexion Innovation. It is a way to create openness, to find ideas, and especially to meet in very small groups – 15 people maximum.
Why did you choose Weezevent as your online ticketing solution?
We chose your solution because it was the most practical to implement for my employee. That was done quite naturally. It was the easiest and simplest to connect to our WordPress site. She also set up the payment methods quite easily. All this without the need for a developer.
Did you customise some of the settings for your event?
Yes, for example, we created discount codes and free tickets. It was pretty easy to set up. And then for the forms we only asked the basics: surname, first name, e-mail address, job title and company. These are the things we need for this type of event, as well as the confirmation of purchase for participants.
Which feature makes the difference when using the platform?
The payment system is simple and clear for transfers between us and Weezevent. For my role, the accounting part is very useful. It’s also easy to reprint invoices. At the same time, I sometimes created an event myself, and not being a big “geek” I found it quite user-friendly. I didn’t have to ask myself too many questions to make it work.
Any last words for our readers?
I work professionally in networking development and I have built my expertise on networking through meetings, so it seems essential to me to go to professional events. And when we organise them, we are very happy to have user-friendly tools like Weezevent, which allow us to simplify management and focus on the event itself.
Thank you Frédérique!
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