October 2009 - In the Dragon's Den
The first AWIBC meeting of the new membership year was held at the Hampshire Golf Club. As always at this venue, we were greeted with rain but it certainly didn’t dampen the spirit in any way – registration was extremely busy as members renewed their membership for the coming year. Eventually, over the buzz of conversation and socialising, the food orders were confirmed and an excellent meal was enjoyed.
After the Chairman’s introduction, the meeting was addressed by Larraine from Bliss who invited members to join a charity evening at the Cricketers at Tangley. Gill Thompson from Breathtakers also invited members to a charity disco and Emma Wilders-Pratt from Parker Bullen solicitors, advised that her father was now available for key board lessons for the new term. Larch Gauld who runs the club website reminded members about contributions to the AWIBC website and the “links” facility that we have.
Finally, the highlight of the evening was a very entertaining dialogue by Lesley Ann Simmonds, who described the “most petrifying experience of her life” when she appeared on Dragons Den and pitched for £100,000 for her company, Shoes Galore.
After a long and complicated selection process, Lesley Anne met the five dragons who she recognised immediately as the “five most brilliant business minds ever”. Although her appearance on the show was relatively short, the day was incredibly long. Arriving at 4 a.m., hair and make up was scheduled for 6 a.m. At 2 p.m. Lesley Ann was called to make her pitch, and with the help of some very deep breathing, endured a gruelling two hour interrogation of her business.
During this, Lesley Anne debated the importance of SKUs (stock keeping units to you and me) with Theo Paphitis, and learned things about her business which hadn’t been so obvious beforehand, i.e. she was overtrading.
Despite not being successful in her bid, Lesley Anne gained invaluable insight and used the advice given most wisely, and would recommend that all businesses make a periodic “sanity check”. After driving the business forward successfully to gain 29 franchisees, Lesley Anne made the decision to sell her business. The icing on the cake was that subsequently Peter Jones has become her mentor!
Lesley Anne has now started a new business in event management and we wish her every success with this. Larraine gave a vote of thanks to Lesley for a fantastic talk, and closed a thoroughly enjoyable meeting.
Angela Thorn
Next Meetings
| Date | |
|---|---|
| 07/09/2010 | AWIBC AGM |
| 05/10/2010 | Finding Florence - The story of Florence Nightingale, how it was researched, written and staged |
| 02/11/2010 | Network Meeting |
| 07/12/2010 | AWIBC Christmas Party |
