Some frequently asked questions about The Big Decision

Since the episode aired, there have been a few questions that keep coming up:

1. What happened with Best Buy?

After Susan’s pitch, they put in an initial order for a banner for one of their new locations. On top of that, we have been making prototypes for them of other products that can be rolled out to all of their locations.

2. Who was the business consultant who came in?

The business consultant who came to see us was Lew Turnquist from Kirchner Private Capital Group. He wrote a blog post for CBC about “Planning to Plan” as a tie-in with the episode.

 

Other questions? Either comment below, ask on Facebook or twitter, or email us at vancouver @ flagshop.com.

The Big Decision episode online

In case you missed it, you can watch our episode of The Big Decision online now.

Click here to see it!

Tonight’s the night! Our episode of The Big Decision airs on CBC at 9 pm.

The Big Decision

It’s finally here. We’re a little nervous.

Join us online at our twitter account @TheFlagShop at 6pm Pacific (9 pm Eastern) tonight as we livetweet our way through it!

Oh, and The Big Decision is running a caption contest for this photo of Arlene and Susan. Submit your best caption to TBD’s facebook or twitter and see if you can win a Save-On-Meats t-shirt!

Watch the sneak peek for our episode of The Big Decision next week

Susan Braverman interviewed for an article in The Georgia Straight

We’re feeling overwhelmed by all the press love we’re getting!

Susan Braverman at The Flag Shop

Susan talked to Charlie Smith at The Georgia Straight about The Flag Shop, Textile Image, and what comes next for us after The Big Decision.

Read the article here!

An email we just sent to our Vancouver subscribers

Dear clients and friends,

In September, an opportunity to appear on the popular CBC show, The Big Decision, came our way. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the format, it’s a Dragons’ Den spinoff which features two businesses on each episode vying for investment money from Canadian entrepreneurs, Arlene Dickinson and Jim Treliving.

Understanding the national reach a show like this would provide, but unsure of the specifics, I filled out an application to appear on the show and submitted it. Two days later, I received a phone call from the CBC saying they were interested and wanted to start filming right away.

Immediately, cameras went up and over the next 7 days, my amazing staff and I went to work. We were given three challenges to complete in less than a week with a surprise fourth challenge piled on at the last minute. Despite working on a tight deadline, we succeeded and in our opinion, blew it out of the water!

While we’ve embraced this opportunity, we can’t help but battle a few butterflies as we wait for our big debut. We understand the national publicity will be beneficial in the long run and we continue to grow thanks to the support of our customers (that would be you!). When we signed up, we were pitched that the idea behind The Big Decision is to showcase Canadian companies in the midst of a growth spurt. That struck a cord especially as we work daily to meet our new goal of becoming a ten-million dollar company.

Apparently, many other Canadian businesses picked for the show, who were under the same impression, have not been portrayed in the most flattering light and we want to say ahead of our debut, that we are here, we aren’t going anywhere and our future looks brighter than ever.

For many years, we have been so much more than just a flag retailer and we will continue to keep pushing our boundaries into a wider range of products in larger markets. Our expansion to a larger Vancouver office on Powell Street in 2008 has given our production team space to expand and we are proud of how far we’ve come since the very beginning—37 years ago!

The Big Decision, featuring The Flag Shop, will air next week on Tuesday, November 27th at 9pm Eastern and Pacific, and we will be live-tweeting it during the Eastern viewing (6 pm Pacific) through our twitter account @TheFlagShop. Follow us as we watch it unfold!

Sincerely,
Susan Braverman
Owner & President, The Flag Shop and Textile Image

 

Want to join our email list? Sign up here.

The Flag Shop featured in The Vancouver Courier

Andrew Fleming recently interviewed Susan about our involvement in CBC’s The Big Decision. The story covers both us and Vancouver icon Save-On-Meats.

Read it here!

Media coverage in the run-up to The Big Decision

Our episode of The Big Decision is coming up fast! (Tuesday, November 27th, if you need reminding.)

Here is the initial press release we have sent out about our involvement in the show. (More to come!)

Iconic Vancouver business gains new insight on CBC Show
The family business, The Flag Shop, chosen to be featured on season finale of The Big Decision

Vancouver, BC—For over 35 years, The Flag Shop has endured as a part of the Vancouver landscape – first as a welcoming presence on 4th Avenue in Kitsilano and now as part of East Vancouver’s industrial area. Passed from its founder Doreen Braverman to her daughter Susan Braverman in 2006, The Flag Shop has quickly dominated the industry, introducing new equipment and techniques along the way and expanding to 12 locations across Canada. Read the rest of this entry »

Brace yourselves for The Big Decision

According to CBC’s press release, our episode of The Big Decision will air Tuesday, November 27th at 9 pm EST and PST. This will be the season finale, and we’re sharing the screen with another long-time Vancouver institution Save-On Meats.

Stay tuned for more details! We’ll be posting more as we get closer to its airing.

The Big Decision Challenges: Day 7 of 7

It’s here.

We did our part to the best of our ability considering the extreme time constraints and surprises. Now to find out if it was good enough!

We’ll find out shortly. You’ll find out when the show airs in November.