Driving Miss Daisy making pitch to the Dragons

A corporate employee of Driving Miss Daisy can’t tell you if the company made a deal with the Dragons’ Den or not, because he doesn’t know the answer.

“I’m hoping they got a handshake deal,” Bob Doornenbal said Monday.

The director of franchise sales and marketing for Driving Miss Daisy doesn’t know the outcome because his colleagues were sworn to secrecy.

Bev Halisky, the company’s owner and founder, and Tara Armstrong, vice-president and director of operations, were told to keep mum after pitching the franchise business to the dragons.

Dragons’ Den is a CBC-TV show where aspiring entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas and products to a panel of Canadian business moguls, who then have the chance to back them.

After being approached by Dragons’ Den producers, Halisky and Armstrong were on the show in May.

Doornenbal played a part in it, too and used one of his wife’s cars on set.

Kathy Doornenbal recently sold her franchise, which operated in Peterborough and Lindsay, to Leslie McCaw. Kathy ran the business for nearly a decade.

The service offers accompaniment, companionship and transportation for seniors and people with disabilities.

For the Dragons’ Den taping, Bob removed the car battery, pushed it into an elevator and rode 12 floors to the new Dragons’ Den set at the CBC Toronto building.

Then he covered the car with a tarp for a big reveal and was a part of pre-pitch skit that showcased what Driving Miss Daisy is all about.

The pitch was in the hands of Halisky and Armstrong.

“They weren’t even allowed to tell me,” Bob said of the outcome.

So he’ll have to watch the Dragons’ Den — just like everyone else — on Thursday to find out what happened. It airs on CBC at 8 p.m.

As a fairly small company, the four head honchos at DMD corporate work from home rather than together at an office.

That’s how Bob believes the secret was kept so well.

“It’s not like we can look them in the eye and ask the question and see if they start to twitch.”