David Chilton

Date: May 19, 2015

Name: Wealthy & Wise 2015

Presenters: Arlene Dickinson and David Chilton

The journey of being a successful entrepreneur can be difficult. Moreover, many entrepreneurs are looking for ways to be inspired, informed and poised. BCBusiness invites two dragons from CBC’s Dragon’s Den, Arlene Dickinson and David Chilton, to share their success stories and experiences to help entrepreneurs. The moderator, Peter Legge, the CEO of Canada Wide Media Limited, will discuss with Dickinson and Chilton their ways to invest in the current market environment. This presentation will help entrepreneurs to look deep inside of their life of entrepreneurship.

Wisdom from Peter Legge

Peter Legge is the CEO of Canada Wide Media Limited. As a community leader, he involved many community organizations and elected as the past chair of the Vancouver Board of Trade. Legge is also a professional motivational speaker, and a professional author. Furthermore, his contributions to the community have won many awards and help many people to be more positive.

Legge wants entrepreneurs to think about the question of what they can do with their time and their talent. From the time entrepreneurs are born until now, they are considered to be the history. Since entrepreneurs cannot change the history, entrepreneurs should focus on the time from now to the future.

Legge believes the secret of being successful is to think successful all the time. By adding successful people into their lives can help entrepreneurs to be more productive. Legge mentions day is shorter by a day, and entrepreneurs must change the way they think and their thoughts.

“You become what exactly you think about most of the time”

Journey of Arlene Dickinson

Arlene Dickinson is the CEO of Venture Communications and the CEO of YouInc.com. Dickinson has helped many entrepreneurs to balance their lifestyle. As the author of two bestselling books, her leadership skill and experience have inspired many entrepreneurs. Moreover, Dickinson is recognized as Canada’s Most Powerful Women Top 100.

Arlene Dickinson shares she was born in South Africa and her family sold everything to immigrate to Canada. During her childhood, she moved from Montreal to Edmonton. Nevertheless, her family lived below the poverty line. During the move to Calgary, she learned the meaning of sacrifice when she witnessed her family trade in her mother’s engagement ring for a vehicle to continue their Calgary journey. This impacted her life.

Dickinson witnessed her parents’ arguments and understood the importance of listening. Dickinson believes listening connects with engagement, which can trigger emotional language. Therefore, listening skill leads to become effective leader.

Dickenson was surrounded by family with teachers. However, she did not want to attend university. Her life goal was to become a full time mom. She got married at had 4 children during the age of 27. Since she was struggle with finances, she needed to do everything by herself. When her husband decided to go back to university, Dickenson created a home-based business of helping business to collect bills from their outstanding clients. During that business, she learned there are two kinds of people in the world, the one has the attention to not pay the bill, and the one has the attention not to pay the bill.

Her home business helped her understand the goal of financial freedom. She defined financial freedom to be a way to take care of her family. Her marriage ended with a divorce and forced to find a stable job to get custody of her kids. At age 35, she finally burned out and crumbled. Her dad gave Dickenson the most important life lesson. The lesson was that it was her choice to be in this situation, not anybody else and it was her responsibility to figure out a way out. Luckily, she landed a sale’s job to learn the necessary sale experience. Later she managed to join Venture Communications to maintain her job for her kids’ custody. Dickenson worked hard and had the opportunity to buy off her partner and manage to sustain cash flow. CBC approached her for the role of Dragon’s Den.

“Luck starts when you start something”

Dickenson explained her audition will never happen if it was not for her kids. Her kids motivated her to take the audition opportunity. In fact, during the role, she learned from many entrepreneurs’ stories and experiences.

The show changed Dickenson’s journey. She managed to think different and look different. She is grateful to work with many different entrepreneurs across the country.

Dickenson mentions her experience of speaking in front of the troops at the army base in Canada. She was inspired with the general’s speech. The speech inspired many soldiers and helped soldiers understand that their contribution to Canada matters.

Dickenson is very grateful that her parents decided to move to Canada. Dickenson believes there is no reason that entrepreneurs cannot succeed. Dickenson wants entrepreneurs to love themselves and believe everything is possible.

Journey of David Chilton

David Chilton is a professional author and a professional investor. Chilton’s career begins after he published the book of “The Wealthy Barber”. The book inspired many entrepreneurs about his investment experience. Chilton accepted the cast of Dragon’s Den and begins to let the business world understand his awareness. Moreover, Chilton appears in many television shows, such as The Hour, Royal Canadian Air Farce, Arctic Air, and Murdoch Mysteries.

Chilton shares his career started in the age of 25. Chilton loves to read and continue to read at least 3 books per week. In addition, many people remember him as the character in his book.

Chilton mentions when his kid was in grade 1, he needs to figure what his dad does for living. Chilton defines if people are sick, doctor makes them feel better, and if people’s money is sick, he will cure it.

Chilton believes Dragon’s Den has high engagement with the community. He accepted the role after 6 years of making. CBC recommends him to be one of the casts, and Chilton does not know how big the show becomes until he got involved with the casts.

A funny moment on Dragon’s Den that Chilton mentions is the pitch of the baby seat on the exercise bike. Even though the idea was rejected, Chilton remembers the owner was the world’s best female arm wrestler. Chilton challenged her and dance on his victory. The show aired the dance and made him popular around the world.

Chilton believes the show stars to turn big after 3 years on television. Most of the investments on the show have negative return. Since the show tapes the whole day, sometimes the filming disconnects Chilton with the current business events. Chilton shares CBC will mix up the auditions, which sometimes on the show people will see them wearing the same clothes in some episodes.

Chilton feels lucky to be on Dragon’s Den. One of best pitches Chilton remembers is a couple that sells high end tea and cookies. The business has over 1.1 million dollar in revenue. The couple knows the margin and the detail. The couple has successfully pitched the business and with the help of the dragons, the business revenue has reached over 20 million dollars in revenue.

One of the fun pitches Chilton shares is 3 young engineers from Calgary quit their jobs and decide to become entrepreneurs of series of businesses. They decide to sell ugly Christmas sweater. Chilton believes the idea sounds weird and dumb, but they did their analysis. Chilton decides to invest for royalty and receive return in next 2 weeks.

Vancouver has many goo successful pitches and companies. Chilton mentions their ideas are simple and elegant. The important idea for business is to solve other people’s problems.

Chilton believes the best product requires due diligent. If the market believes in the product, they will request for more. A memorable pitch from Dragon’s Den is Mary’s greeting card business from Victoria. Dragons usually do not invest in greeting cards and board games, but Mary’s pitch is different. Mary has her bird as her assistant to help make the greeting card. Chilton decides to invest, but Mary has no due diligence to show. After working along with the CEO Hallmark for the distribution channel, Chilton receives great return and become close friend with Mary.

Chilton always have positive view. However, he realizes Canada’s national pastime activity is to complaint on everything. Comparing with other countries, Canada is a wonderful place. When everything is getting better in life, people still find things to complaint. Many people are taking things for grant. Chilton wants all entrepreneurs to understand that they should appreciate what they have right now and do not choose to argue the small irrelevant things over the big goal. Life cannot get better than this.

Questions and Answers

Their advice for young entrepreneurs is to not afraid of failure and keep trying until the end. It is important to read books to acquire other people’s experience. Dickinson believes when entrepreneurs are at their lowest, it will be difficult; however, if they keep trying, their minds will find a way out.

One of the biggest mistakes they made is balance. When they are busy on the show, they lost focus on their current business, which result of poor judgement. They suggest entrepreneurs to leave the past where it is and continue to charge forward.

Many people have the misconception of sacrifice happiness for financial freedom. Chilton believes many people are caught up with consumption. It is important not to be materialistic. Instead, find ways to contribute back to society.

“Do not just save 10%, give 10%”

They believe everyone has something to learn from. Their business experience can improve other people’s areas. Mentors can be in different field.

“The best mentors are the one sitting next to you”

They define the definition of success as to become the happiest person in life. Success is never about money and entrepreneurs should always be comfortable of who they really are.

“Liking the person in the mirror; I am who I want to be”