Why should he care, indeed?

Strangely enough, my friend Helen blogged about Dragon’s Den the other day, as a great way to hone business acumen.  I could not agree with her more.  Last night, my family and I faithfully watched a new episode of Dragon’s Den and one pitcher from Fixin’ Vixens’ asked for cash to set up a training school for her all-female handygal business venture, I nearly fell off my chair.   Kevin O’Leary (fondly known by the other Dragon’s as “Mr. Wonderful”) asked her “why do I care as an investor about training people, because there is no guarantee that they’ll stay with Fixin’ Vixens after I’ve spent my money training them?” You can hear this just after the 28 minute mark.  She answers (take note HR) that they are creating a culture where people are going to want to stay. 

And…..she loses them entirely.  They had just asked her if she had any special qualifications, to which she replied “no”.  She had an opportunity to talk about increasing market share, reducing liability, improving quality, etc.  But, she blew it.  If you are going to ask for money for training, you’d better talk about the RETURN!