Hairdresser wins month of business mentoring from former dragon

Hairdresser Debs Imber of Tots Crops (pictured right) has won a month of business mentoring from former Dragon’s Den investor and Yo! Sushi founder, Simon Woodroffe, in a competition organised by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, in partnership with The Times newspaper. Debs is one of five winners from various industries, having fought off competition from hundreds of entrants from across the UK. To win, Debs had to initially supply a video pitch stating why she would benefit from the mentoring, and then present her case in person to an expert panel, including Simon. Tots Crops is a children’s hairdressing business which specialises in visiting nurseries. Simon will act as Deb’ personal business trouble shooter, with the aim of helping the seven-year old business move on to the next level. Commenting on her success, debs said: “I’ve been lucky enough to have been mentored once before and I know the value of having someone to run things past. At the end of the day, I don’t know how things like employment contracts work but I need to understand them in order to grow Tots Crops into the business I know it can be. We’re already so popular that we’ve got haircut waiting lists but I know that Simon can give us the boost we need to make it even more successful.” On becoming Debs’s mentor, Simon Woodroffe said: “As a panel, we really believed in Debs’s ability to make a success of Tots Crops. We loved her boundless energy, her good humour, but also her courage in putting herself forward for the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles scheme. People who are brave enough to take time out of their busy and already pressurised lives to put themselves in situations such as this, where there is a very real danger of failure, will in fact succeed.”