Like many other people standing in the Humboldt Scotiabank branch last Tuesday, the closest I had ever gotten to Arlene Dickinson was a TV screen.
We all waited anxiously; I could feel the excitement building every time a new person walked through the door. Then suddenly, she walked in with little fanfare and a smile on her face.
She stopped for a moment just as she stepped through the doors and saw all the people waiting and staring at her. She held the smile, but you could see her surprise.
"Hi everyone," she said, "I didn't expect there to be so many people waiting here for me."
As a 57-year-old multi-millionaire, Arlene is a giant in the business world. She owns her own marketing company, Venture Communications, stars in her own TV show called The Big Decision, and is a savvy dragon on the CBC series, Dragons Den.
She is also the official Scotiabank Small Business champion. Following an internal company contest, the Humboldt Scotiabank branch was the only branch in Canada privileged to such an appearance. Thus, it was on the cold, clear afternoon of Oct. 22 that Arlene walked into the branch.
She paused for only a few moments before she laughed a little and then did something I didn't expect: she went around the lobby and shook hands with everybody. She said hello to everyone from the ladies standing behind the counters to Bruce, the security guard standing quietly in the back.
"Uh oh, am I in trouble?" she asked jokingly. "Are you here to arrest me?"
Although raised in Canada, Arlene was actually born in Germiston, South Africa. As she herself stated, she's a prairie girl, having studied in Calgary. She also earned honorary degrees from Mount Saint Vincent University, Saint Mary's University and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Married at age 19 and divorced by 31, she currently has four kids and three grandkids. During her divorce, the family court judge told her she would lose custody of her kids unless she proved she could support them. It was because of them that she joined Venture Communications in 1988 and eventually took over the company in 1998.
"I would rather live with failure than regret," she said. "I have failed often and I'm not afraid to fail. I have no regrets. I've made lots of mistakes, but I have no regrets. Big difference."
It was because of her failures that Arlene is able to give advice and guidance to new entrepreneurs. Her speech in Humboldt later that evening was focused on strengthening and inspiring the "entrepreneurial spirit."
"I think the economies of great nations are built on the strength of its citizens," she said. "When you have great people who have the courage to try and work, to put their hands and their hearts and their heads together to make businesses happen in a- not just a capitalistic way, but in a compassionate capitalistic way, I think that makes countries great."
According to her, knowing your priorities is important and so it's always important to know what direction you want your company to go. By setting up her own priorities and guidelines, she had never been conflicted over decisions she's had to make.
"Every decision you have to think about, whether it's crossing any lines for you, but the only way to do that is if you set lines for yourself to begin with," she said. "So I'm pretty clear about what I will and won't do. It's very much about making sure I've thought about it and put it up against my own yard stick and made a decision on it."
Nevertheless, Arlene has had her share of difficulties. After her divorce and struggle to retain custody of her kids, she was then faced with the challenges of being an inexperienced woman in the big, bad, male-dominated atmosphere of the business world.
"I think maintaining your feminism is a challenge sometimes, so you want to stay true to who you are. I always tell other women, you're a human in business," she said. "Holding onto who you are and not trying to act like a man or be like a man or be like that other woman, that's one of the challenges."
Obviously, it was a challenge Arlene was able to rise above. She is well known for her not-so-mercenary business ideals, especially when watching her on television.
For anyone who's ever seen her on an episode of Dragon's Den, they would know two things: Arlene believes very strongly in a triple bottom line and she hardly ever gets along with Kevin O'Leary.
While Kevin might be all about the money, Arlene has repeatedly said and acted on her belief that people in business have a responsibility.
"Nothing happens in business unless it's making money," she said. "People and planet matter a lot, but if you're not making money, you can't help people and planet. So you've got to be profitable and then you can do good work and make sure the environment is taken care of."
Obviously, those ideals don't sit well with every dragon. While some might think her friction with Kevin is staged for the show, according to Arlene, he really is like that.
"I wouldn't make that up. That's as real as reality TV can get," she said. "It's genuine reactions; it's genuine difference of opinion. Sometimes he says things and I walk off the stage because I'm so upset or he'll get mad and say really mean things. It's a love-hate thing."
It was a sentiment she repeated during her speech in Jubilee Hall at the Uniplex later that evening. She spoke frankly to everyone about her belief in what it means to be an entrepreneur and she spoke even more frankly about herself. She earned many chuckles with her blatant admission of her age and insecurities.
The hall was quiet after her speech; it took a few moments before anyone was willing to stand up and ask her questions. Nevertheless, she didn't shy away from answering, even when it came to revealing her biggest business mistakes. She responded by first telling a story from many years ago.
She was in Whistler with some friends for a promotional downhill skiing event. One day, as she was about to go up the ski lift, a man got onto it with her with a snowboard. At the time, she didn't know what the snowboard was as they were still new. They spoke for a while, he asked her what she did and she told him marketing. He told her they were looking to do some marketing and gave her his card.
By this point, it felt like everyone in the hall was holding their breath to hear the end of the story.
"So, I go down the hill and come to my friends and ask them what they think about snowboards," she said. "They said, 'Oh my god, that's such a fad, it'll never last.' So I looked at the card one last time -- at the name Burton -- ripped it up and skied away. Dumb."
There was shocked laughter around the hall. Many had heard of the internationally famous brand, Burton, which was a leading manufacturer of snowboards and snow sportswear.
Luckily, those big mistakes never brought her down. Arlene is famous in her own right and has won many awards for her efforts. She was recognized as one of Canada's Most Powerful Women and inducted into the Top 100 Hall of Fame. She was awarded the Calgary Business Owner of the Year Award and recognized as PROFIT and Chatelaine magazine's TOP 100 Women Business Owners. In 2011, she received the Women in Film and Television Showcase Lifetime Achievement Award. Despite all this, she doesn't see herself as all that great.
"I don't think of myself as successful, I think I've got a long way to go. I continually want to keep pushing myself. I've achieved and accomplished some things, but success feels like a long way away and I'm okay with that," she said. "I think success is never final and failure is never forever."
