How to makee a Dragon Drag cry
GROWN men have been reduced to tears and hard-nosed businesswomen have trembled in their heels.
Standing in the Dragons’ Den in front of five of the country’s shrewdest, richest, toughest business brains can reduce the most confident individuals to quivering wrecks.
It’s exactly 10 years since Deborah Meaden first slipped into that comfy leather chair and fixed her eagle eye on a hopeful entrepreneur.
Over the past decade she’s made some dreams come true and dashed many more with a frosty “I’m out”. Testy exchanges, with Dragons and backingseekers alike, have made her one of the feistiest characters on telly.
It’s not so much a case of not suffering fools gladly as simply not suffering them at all.
So, it’s a little disconcerting – although pleasantly welcome – to hear her laugh heartily down the line from her Somerset home as she apologises for a phone hiccup at her end.
“Really? Is it 10 Years?” says Deborah, 57. “You know better than me!
“If you’d told me 10 years ago I’d still be doing Dragons’ Den I’d have been amazed. Or indeed that Dragons’ Den would still be going.
“It’s a testimony to the show that the audiences keep on growing.
“I’d had opportunities to be on television before and I’d always stayed away. I had a very nice life and I never wanted to be famous.
“So taking it on did worry me. But it’s a nice kind of profile because it’s people wanting to talk to me about business, which I love, not running over shouting ‘Deborah’ just for the hell of it.”
Ask Deborah how many investments she’s made over a decade in the Den and she doesn’t have those figures immediately to hand – but insists she darn well would have done her research if she needed to.
( She reckons it’s more than 40 businesses and upwards of £3 million, by the way).
And pitchers not knowing their figures is – to viewers’ great entertainment – one of the things that continues to drive Deborah mad.
“When you are in business you don’t need to know many numbers, but there are three you must have.
“Turnover, gross margin and net profit. If you come in and look surprised when you get asked for those, well, really, have you never seen Dragons’ Den?”
Deborah knew her figures from the earliest of ages. By seven she was running a flower stall from home and when she sold the family holiday parks business Weststar she did so for £33 million. She’s now worth a reported £40 million.
Deborah’s mum divorced when she was young and her outlook was shaped by growing up in a single parent family. “I had this example from my mum of someone who had to make a better life for us. She worked blinking hard at it.
“It gave me a confidence and a resilience, because it made me believe I could do it. Giving confidence is an incredible gift to your children. “I just expected to make myself a good life, it was going to happen.
“I’m sure I had dark Deborah with husband Paul. moments but I don’t remember them. You’ve got to get on with life.”
What changed the ice dragon percep-perception for many waswas her appearance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2013.
“Since I did Strictly, people realise I don’t actually bite people’s heads off,” she says with a smile. “They saw I was a lot more approachable.”
She was paired with pro dancer Robin Windsor and they lasted until week five, when they Viennese Waltzed their way off.
Deborah admits she initially expected to be booted offf right at the start. But she didn’t get to the top in business by meekly accepting her lot.
“Once I started to get into it and work hard, I felt my golden globe would be Blackpool. I’d haveave loved that and actu-actually I think I could have done it. I certainly was never going to win but I could have made Blackpool.”
While eliminated celebs frequently stain their fake tan with real tears, I’m guessing there was never any likelihood of that with Deborah.
“’Fraid not,” shehe says crisply, dismissing the prospect as unthinkable. “These things happen andnd tears don’t change it.
“It’s not that I don’t get upset about things, I just have a different way of showing emotion.
“Cruelty really upsets me and because I travel with charities I see quite a bit of
Since doing Strictly, people realise I don’t bite people’s heads off