Sara Davies - We Can All Make It: The star of Dragons Den shares her secrets of success

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First published in Great Britain in 2022 by Bantam Press

Copyright Sara Davies 2022

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover design by Beci Kelly/TW
Cover Photography Nicky Johnston

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ISBN: 978-1-529-19388-6

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For Simon, who has always encouraged and empowered me to be the very best version of myself

The cameras were ready, and so was I. But that didnt mean my heart wasnt pounding. Even my lucky shoes werent calming me down. The shiny red-soled high heels I had finally bought myself after years of longing for them but being too stingy to fork out. Finally I was a Dragon, about to film my first ever series of Dragons Den. I had made it far enough in business to become an investor, and now this was my opportunity to do it on the national stage, on one of the countrys most beloved TV shows. A show I had watched since I was a kid. The dreams of future entrepreneurs were now in my hands. This was my chance to inspire the next generation of business leaders and have a whole lot of fun doing it. Take a deep breath, Sara. This is it.

When I was setting out in business, my battered old copy of Duncan Bannatynes memoir, Anyone Can Do It, held pride of place on my shelf. That I might get the chance to write one of my own seemed almost a dream too far back then. Almost. And now I was sitting on the same panel that had brought him to the publics attention and about to start work on my own book.

Am I really here? I wondered as I waited to see the first entrepreneur. It seemed unbelievable that I was ticking off such a huge life-goal already. It felt like only yesterday that I was behind the till at my parents wallpaper and paint shop, helping out on a Saturday and dreaming of having a business of my own. But I was. And now, I want to show you how I got there and beyond.

When I give talks and seminars, when Im interviewed or even just out and about chatting, most people assume that there was some secret, some in, some leg-up in industry only they dont know about yet. Yes, I was lucky enough to have a supportive family who believed in me and my dreams, but what people dont seem to believe is that, beyond that, there is no magical secret behind my success.

For the whole of this journey, I have never thought of myself as anything but totally normal. I havent had any opportunities that were out of the ordinary. I went to an ordinary school, I grew up in an ordinary village and I had an ordinary childhood. When I first started being asked to talk about my path to success, I worried that it would be boring for people. Shouldnt I jazz it up a bit? Add some peril? Or a rich auntie along the way? Then I realized that wasnt the point. The point was that if I could do it, so can you.

People started to tell me that they felt empowered, knowing that I hadnt had anything but an ordinary start. It made them see that some of the roadblocks we think are in our way might not be real but only imagined. That we can be our own worst enemies if we dont believe that the opportunities often lie not just ahead of or even behind us, but within us.

I was ambitious from a young age. I dont remember ever seeing the point of doing something if I didnt give it absolutely my all. And I had parents who encouraged me from day one to be super-ambitious. They taught me that I could achieve anything if I put my mind to it. But what happened next was that I did put my mind to it.

Every chance I had, I worked really hard to take the little opportunities I saw and turn them into bigger ones in order to achieve my life goals. I spoke out when I wanted to try something. I never hesitated to learn more. And I asked for help when I needed it. But beyond that, my success is relatively simple: it comes from a lifetime of having big ambitions and setting my mind to achieving them.

I would love to say that there were some special secrets to my success. I could make a mint promising to tell them to you! But the reality is more inspiring and, hopefully, once you have read my story, youll agree. Because what it boils down to is that if I can do it, so can you.

Perhaps it is not so surprising that I grew up to be a businesswoman. We might not have had two pennies to rub together when I was a kid, but my dad really was king of the entrepreneurs. He bought a derelict old building on the high street of Coundon, a mining village in County Durham. Our whole life was then based there over the years it became the headquarters for his many ventures, from double glazing to a bike shop, a dolls furniture workshop, a transport company even some mushroom growing and much else along the way. And it was also our childhood home. My mam and dad still live there today.

Businesswise, my dads mainstay was a property and transport courier company. He also set my mam and nana up with a wallpaper and paint shop. Well, I say shop, but they started out on the market, selling slight seconds and production overruns of wallpaper and all sorts, and gradually got more respectable as the years went by.

These family businesses werent always massively successful, but they were always ours, and that meant that the whole family could make decisions about their careers and run the businesses in a way which also fitted in with the family. Working hours were compatible with school runs and summer holidays, and the businesses were the bedrock of family life: they evolved around us and we evolved around them. Most importantly, this meant that I was given a clear demonstration of the correlation between hard work and how we lived from the time I was a small child.

Having said that, when I was young, Im not so sure any of the family thought Id go into business. My dad is a traditional guy and was even more so when I was growing up, and I think that, having daughters, he hoped we would marry well as much as he hoped wed have good jobs. If anything, we might help out in the shop with my mam and nana.

From the moment my mam was pregnant, Dad was saving for his babies only he said it was to pay for private school for any boys or weddings for the girls. That was his mentality back then. So I think it took him by surprise when I started to take some interest in the wallpaper and paint shop and how it worked as a business, not just as a Saturday job when I was a young teenager, and started chipping in with ideas. But at that stage I wanted to be a teacher. I thought I was curious rather than ambitious, and helping out at the family business felt like helping out, not like learning a skill.