PROJECT manager Tracy Cox and I teamed up to open our business around seven months ago.

We had both worked in the building game for quite a few years — I was a site agent secretary for building and civil engineering company Costain and Tracy worked in sales for Wickes.

I came up with the idea of a property maintenance shop when I was trying to find a way to safeguard the public against cowboys because I knew an old lady who was ripped off by a rogue trader who did a terrible job of some decorating work.

Over the last year I have built up a directory of about 45 locally sourced tradesmen, including builders, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and various other contractors, all of whom have been carefully checked out. I have all their qualifications and references on file and most of our tradesmen are master craftsmen and hold certificates of NVQ level 3 and above.

At first they weren't too sure about working for us, because we phone them up to make sure they are on site on time and that they clean up after themselves. They didn't like a woman telling them what to do, but they all seem to have realised that it works and we are able to keep a lot of our tradesmen in full time work, so they are happy now to have a little bit of nagging.

The way we work here, the customer comes into our shop in Crediton High Street or makes an enquiry and then we ask the tradesman to go out and price up the job. The contractor then comes back to us and we deal with the customer, making sure the job is project managed from start to finish, so the customer only deals with us.

Being women in a male-dominated industry, we find a lot of customers are more comfortable dealing with us because they don't like dealing with tradesmen directly. Older people particularly seem to like dealing with a woman — they perhaps see us as having a bit of a softer approach.

We are thinking of starting a women's networking group here in Crediton because there are so many women who have started businesses here. It's a very close community and we hope to encourage more women to come into business if they see others who are doing well.

We treat all our tradesmen how we would like to be treated and that's created a really nice, friendly atmosphere.

Since we have been running the business I don't have much spare time, but it's just so much more interesting working for yourself.