The Apprentice 2012 Week 8 – Hogg Roasted on Back Of Poor Sales

May 10, 2012 3 Comments

The Apprentice 2012 Week 8 – Hogg Roasted on Back Of Poor Sales

This week’s BBC Apprentice focused on the teams identifying urban art and selling it to the public and a corporate client.

Tom took on the role of PM for Phoenix. He got the job based on his enthusiasm for and knowledge of art. For Sterling, Gabrielle took on the task. This gave us the chance to see, in my opinion, two of the stronger performers to date.

The first part of the task involved a sub team checking out urban artists in Bristol, while the main team did the same in London and met a corporate client. For Phoenix this was Renault and for Sterling it was a brand of Gin. Suitably briefed, the teams set off on their tasks. Both PMs demnstrated good leadership skills with focus on the task, team and the individual. Truthfully, most of the candidates seemed out of their depth, but this allowed Tom to shine with his obvious knowledge of the subject. However, this was to prove both a strength and a weakness, as he got so wrapped up in his topic that he failed to impress his preferred artist (Pure Evil) and it eventually cost him the task. Tom had put all of his hopes (and plans) into securing Pure Evil that he had no plan B. In the end he “took a punt” on Jessop, whose art resembels Iron Maiden album covers form the 1980s. These pieces were high ticket items (up to £10K) but Phoenix sold none. Tom did do well with Renault, his corporate client, in understanding their needs from an artist who would represent their brand (“frenchness”) and the budget they had. He chose his other preferred artist, Copyright, to fit their needs.

For Sterling, Gabrielle correctly identified that they needed to impress each artist that they were passionate about their art. This they did  and Sterling had their choice of artists, including the much desired Pure Evil. One criticism that has been levelled at Gabrielle is that she lacks business acumen, and fuel was poured on this fire when she failed to explore what budget her corprate cleint, a Gin Distillery, had at their disposal. This error was compounded at the gallery when Gabrielle got everything wrong. She served wine, not gin and tonic, ignored her corporate client and never introduced the cleint ot the chosen artist (Nathan Bowen). However, sales for both of her artists were brisk.

In the boardroom, the errors for each team were explored in forensic detail; Sterling failed to secure the Gin Distillery, but Phoenix got Renault. However, Sterling made sales for both artists, but Phoenix failed to sell any high price Jessop’s. Tom’s high risk punt backfired and Phoenix lost the task. Tom quickly realised that Adam’s sales alone made him immune from firing and chose to bring back Jade and Laura. Jade had been warned last week that she only narrowly escaped getting fired and Laura looked vulnerable on the back of the lowest sales. In the end, the difference in sales between the teams was only £137, but Tom who was vulnerable due to his having no contingency plan. However, he used a combination of honesty, a bit of humility, and defelection to get Lord Sugar to focus on Laura. Sugar showed his favouritism by giving Tom credit for his risky strategy, and on the back of consistently good performances he survived. Laura had failed to make a similar impression and she was fired.

So Tom survived, but both he and Gabrielle have revealed weaknesses. For all of that, Tom actually looked to grow in stature based on his performance in the boardroom. Adam again showed he thrives in any sales environment, but Stephen looks more and more like a dead man walking.

In my next post I will review the remaining candidates left at the half way stage.

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The Apprentice 2012 – Strategic Review Proves To Be The End For One Candidate

May 3, 2012 5 Comments

The Apprentice 2012 – Strategic Review Proves To Be The End For One Candidate

Week 7 of The Apprentice saw Jade become the last candidate to have a go as PM. We have now had the chance to observe all of the candidates leading a project, and the pack is slowly taking shape in terms of front runners and also-rans. That Jade survived into week 8 was due to a flawed “strategy” from one of her losing team. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Lord Sugar reshuffled the teams moving Stephen to Sterling, with Laura moving in the opposite direction. Jade took the hint to be PM of Phoenix, and Nick beat Ricky hands down to lead Sterling. Each team was given £150 to purchase items from a Warehouse and sell on to the public in Essex. The winning team would be the one with the biggest turnover (including remaining stock as assets).

Immediately there was a contrast in styles and urgency. Nick and Sterling were decisive in terms of locations to use and lines to focus on (household goods for one pitch and beauty products for the other). Laura and Sterling got mired in discussion and were indecisive on both counts. Immediately, Azhar started chipping away at Jade, repeatedly asking her what her strategy was. He did offer some suggestions, but no one seemed inclined to listen.

This proved to be the theme of the task, with general harmony and focus in Sterling and generally decent leadership from Nick. He identified the fake-tanning product as a big seller (in Essex, who’d have guessed?) due to the local predominantly female demographic and put a huge mark up on the price (retailing at £10). Stephen and Ricky were having less success at Romford and once the tanning products started to sell out, they were dispatched back to the warehouse to get more stock. This was good judgement, but bad timing, as they eventually ran out of stock as the sub-team were delayed. Would this prove cruical?

Jade had to put up with constant comments from surly Azhar about a lack of strategy, and this seemed to pull the rest of the team together. Adam in particular was in his element (and natural environment), excelling as a market trader. Jade’s team were also having success with the tanning product, but were selling it at a lower price (£5-£6), but she chose to collect a variety of products for restocking, and this was a poor decision.

In the boardroom it was revealed that despite being out of stock for 2 hours, Sterling still won by £117. This loss could be accounted for by the poor mark up of the tanning product in Phoenix. The team were supportive of Jade, all except for Azhar, so he made sure he came back into the boardroom. Jade struggled to identify who else to bring in, and opted for Tom, who hadn’t done a thing wrong. Jade admitted this was a mistake, so her judgement looked suspect. It was between Jade and Azhar, and things looked bleak for Jade. Her leadership was poor (indecisive, slow to react, pricing), but Azhar had a “strategy” (get Jade) and went for broke.

On the task, Jade should have gone, but Azhar came across as what is known in business circles as a “cynic” (bad attitude, and the energy to show it). Sugar decided that he couldn’t work with Azhar following a sprited defence from Jade, who highlighed her previous success both in and out of the competition and tempted Sugar with her as yet unseen business proposal. Azhar was fired.

In the end it was the right decision to fire Azhar, in terms of being a candidate, but Jade can consider herself lucky to have escaped on the basis of this task. Gabrielle again showed her creativity and Tom was solid. Adam may be a good market trader, but can he do anymore? Ricky and Stephen are out of their depth, but Nick shows promise, but the lack of tanning stock for his team could have cost him the task.

Tom still favourite to win, with Gabrielle a close second favourite.

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The Apprentice 2012 – Sterling prove to be un-fit for purpose

April 20, 2012 3 Comments

The Apprentice 2012 – Sterling prove to be un-fit for purpose

Another week of great TV in The Apprentice, but yet again it tended to show up the weaknesses in this year’s candidates, rather than their strengths. Several candidates were barely visible. Take Jenna, for instance (please, anyone,  take Jenna), her biggest contribution was standing next to Gabrielle like a hopeful puppy as the latter answered the phone. Katie, Gabrielle and Nick also made fleeting contributions . Tom was quiet this week, but did make the single most telling observation.

This week’s task was all about creating a new fitness regime and selling it under license to 3 of the UK’s leading chains of fitness centres.

Following Lord Sugar’s advice of drawing on your area of expertise, Health Club Sales Manager, Stephen, put himself up for PM of Phoenix, and was universally accepted. In Sterling, fitness-freak Ricky Martin got the job. That Phoenix won the task would seem to bear out Sugar’s point, but that does not tell the real story. Stephen was a disaster as PM, and the team only won through a bit of (unlikely?) luck. More on that later.

Sterling settled on a regime combining martial arts moves and dance, and in this Ricky was very clear on his vision. Duane, Laura and Nick set to work with professionals to design a routine, and then produce the promo video. This proved to be a major focus of the programme, with Director Duane and Video-Instructor Laura clashing. As Duane became more autocratic, Laura became more monotonal. Not a great example of team working or leadership. The product was called Beat Battle, probably in tribute to how the sub-team worked together.

In Phoenix, the vision was less clear, but the team eventually decided on a 1980’s retro theme called Groove Train, incorporating dance moves from songs of that era into a fitness programme. The sight of the Adam, Azhar and Jade practicing steps from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video was a highlight of the programme. Azhar, complete with 1980s short-shorts was the Video-Instructor.

The flaw in Phoenix’ product was the need for equipment (hula hoops, space hopper, skipping ropes) as part of the regime. To be fair, this was something that Tom pointed out early on, but no-one on the team paid any attention.  It should have cost them the task, as the team did not take into account either the amount of storage space the equipment would take up or do any costings when deciding on the cost of their licence. In the end Stephen just plucked some figures out of the air. This stopped two of the target customers from placing any orders. And yet, the equipment was also their saving, as one of the chains (Virgin Active) could see the potential for the product to be used with children. They promptly offered to pay a one-off license, which was worth more than the sales made by Sterling, who had sold to the other 2 customers. As this was not a part of the business plan, Stephen can count himself very lucky indeed.

So, Phoenix rise from the ashes of a disasterous task once again. PM Stephen, who has expertise in this sector, did not come out of the task well. If they had lost, I believe he would have had to go, but he got away with it and lives to fight another day.

For Sterling, the feedback in the boardroom focused on the video, so PM Ricky chose to bring back Beat-Battlers Duane and Laura. This proved to be the catalyst necessary to unite them and they turned on PM Ricky. Sugar couldn’t see what Laura had done to deserved being called back, and let her off the hook. Ricky’s main complaint about the video was that some key martial arts movements were missing, but Sugar disagreed and said the video was just dull, especially in comparison to Phoenix’ cheesy effort. For this, Duane took the blame and was fired. On balance, this was probably more due to a series of poor performances, in comparison to Ricky, than just this task. It was the right decision as Duane has appeared out of his depth since Week 1. Ricky did ok on the task, and lead the pitches, which received good feedback.

From a leadership point of view, Ricky had the clearer vision, but the video did not do it justice. Stephen should have been aware of the issues around incorporating equipment into the regime in terms of cost and space. He was ineffective as either a leader or a business man.

Of the remaining candidates, Tom still shines for me. Stephen is a dead-man walking, based on this task. Gabrielle is creative, but does she have the business sense and Nick makes good contributions but has been missing for several weeks. Jenna and Jade are competing for the most annoying voice, and have contributed little. Azhar has not shown much and Katie has good management skills, but is this enough?

One other thing, if you check out the “Meet the Candidates” page of the BBC Website, it looks like a shooting gallery, with candidates being fired from the bottom row up. We are now on the second bottom row. If I was Tom, Ricky and, especially Stephen, I’d be worried.

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The Apprentice 2012 Week 4 – Antique No-Show spells the end for Jane

April 12, 2012 1 Comment

The Apprentice 2012 Week 4 – Antique No-Show spells the end for Jane

Quote of the Week: Duane –  “Don’t look a gift horse in the eye”

This week’s task in The Apprentice involved trying to unearth something that has maybe seen better days and sell it to a gullible punter. Unfortunately for Jane, Lord Sugar wasn’t to be fooled and she became the fourth person this series to be fired.

Sugar mixed up the teams again, with Jade (her of the amazingly annoying voice) going to Phoenix and Ricky going the opposite way. Duane made a bid to be PM of Sterling for the second week running, and got no votes. Laura got the job. For Phoenix, Fine Wine Investor, Tom was voted in.

The task involved sourcing antiques and then re-selling them from a swanky shop in Brick Lane. Each team had £1000 to spend.

Once again it was a case of contrasting strategies, with contrasting results. Laura had Sterling trying to convert “Trash into Cash”, but Tom followed his “fine wine” instincts, looking for “Quality over Quantity”.

Each strategy had its merits, but ultimately Sterling apparently lost when they failed to keep on top of costs. This was not the cost of the “antiques” but rather the materials to convert them to “Urban Chic”. Laura gave Gabrielle the lead in the conversion process, and it was this subteam that allowed enthusiasm to get in the way of profit. Actually, it was not this that cost the team. Sterling sold slightly more than Phoenix, but they bought over 200 items at almost twice the amount(including conversion) Phoenix spent on far fewer items. No, it could be argued that either the stratregy was flawed, or they got their pricing wrong. They were left with a lot of stuff at the end.

Despite some regularly voiced doubts from Adam, Tom’s Phoenix produced a sparsely populated shop, arranged in an attractive manner.  He kept control of costs, only giving the subteam of Stephen, Katie and Adam £200 to buy from an auction house. Across the episode, his instinct seemed correct as the subteam showed no ability to pick a winner. His team did need to buy in some more items on Day 2, but ultimately, Tom’s clear vision, calm leadership and self confidence saw Phoenix through. Even Nick Hewer had to admit he underestimated the approach.

By way of contrast, the Sterling shop, complete with dead leaves to add ambience, had a confused bag of urban-chic and traditional items. Converting suitcases to tables, painting Union flags (NOT Jacks) on chairs created a lack of identity. Laura was pleasant enough, and there was a lot of focus on Jane’s aggressive, pushy sales “technique”. However, once again, this episode was notable for who we didn’t see, with several individuals making so little contribution on camera that they could have been away on holiday.

In the boardroom it was revealed that Phoenix had won, so we were denied the sight of Adam going for Tom. Rather bravely, or confidently, Tom said (before finding they had won) that he had no issues with anyone in his team. For Sterling, Laura focused on the spiraling costs of the “urban-chic” conversion process and brought back Gabrielle, and on poor sales and brought back Jane, possibly picking up on Karen Brady’s comments about Jane’s approach.

Ultimately, Sugar praised Gabrielle for her contribution, and blamed Laura for not being on top of the costs in her role of PM. Jane was on his radar having lost 3/4 tasks and, acting on his “gut-feel” or more likely Karen’s observations,  she was fired. Sugar said that despite her success with her own business, he had not seen enough. Nick Hewer confirmed on “You’re Fired” that Karen’s comments probably swayed Sugar.

This was an interesting episode, less for the task than for the way Sugar decided who to fire. I’ve no doubt this will prove to be a popular decision, but Jane has shown an instinct for business, and excellent knowledge of the manufacturing process. She was also obsessive in some tasks about costs and profit. You would have thought that this would make her stand out. Ultimately, her abrasive nature made her hard to work with and Sugar decided that he would not be able to.

There are several individuals who have managed to keep low profile’s as this series has progressed (Azhar, Jenna and Jade this week). It will ve interesting to see which of these might be the stalking horse.

Tom now stands out as an early favourite.

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The Apprentice 2012 Week 2 – Girls do a Stirling job of self-destruction

March 30, 2012 1 Comment

The Apprentice 2012 Week 2 – Girls do a Stirling job of self-destruction

Second task, second loss, and Maria – she of the bizarre eye-liner – pays the price. In reality (TV) we sat observing not one, but two car crashes in this week’s Appentice.

The task was to design a new gadget and pitch it. Simple you might think, but what we really learned this week was that this bunch of “Britain’s Next Great Entrepreneur wannabes” are anything but. This was an opportunity for individuals to shine by coming up with something new or better than is already out there. Remember, this is how Sugar made his name – looking at the market trends and coming up with a (cheaper) alternative and making money out of it. Instead as one of the boys said they “invented the bin” (actually a food waste ecompactor) and the girls ignored the market research and gave children the means to write on the bathroom wall with felt tip pens.

The whole thing was a shambles. For Phoenix, Azhar volunteered as PM and the atmosphere was lively, but upbeat and they quickly agreed to Duane’s food waste compactor idea. Apparently.

In Stirling, Jane and Katie (no doubt aware that she needs to be seen to contribute more) pitched for the role and immediately battle lines were drawn. Jane got it and described her style as “leading not following” and that even her son calls her “bossy”. She lived up to this description. Jane introduced lots of structure to ensure control and focus, as her Driving style tends to do. Unfortunately the girls coundn’t come up with any ideas for a long time, before Laura suggested something to stop water splashing at kiddy bath time. Surely this is what makes kids want to have a bath? The second choice was pillow/cosy/ tap cover.

Both teams set up sub teams to do market research, and promptly chose to ignore what people told them. However, they each did it in their own way. For the boys, Adam led a mutiny against the compactor, not voiced earlier, and suggested scourer-Marigolds. He then selectively ignored any negative comments from the focus group! They fed back that the focus group hated the compactor (they didn’t) and unanimously loved the gloves (they didn’t). PM Azhar ignored them anyway in such way that he reinforced the mutiny! War lines were drawn here too.

For the girls, the focus group loved the tap cosy, but were not sure about the splash screen. PM Jane did not want to hear this, especially from sub-group member Katie, and went with the splash screen.

The end result is two teams following poor process, clear on the task but not really acting as TEAMS and with individuals feeling excluded. This is a perfect example of how best to ignore the Adair “Action Centred Leadership”model that I personally favour.

At the pitches there was a lack of polish in both teams, but the girls had added lack of clarity around a pricing / profit strategy that they managed to share with the clients (Amazon and Lakeland). The boys managed to exclude the most passionate supporter of the compactor from the pitch – Duane who came up with the idea. He eventually jumped into the Amazon pitch and probably saved the day for the boys.

In the boardroom, the boys lack of unity (2 teams not 1) came to the fore, led by Aggrieved Adam, and yet they still won. Jane saw this as an opportunity to bring back outspoken Maria (who was caught taking a quick snooze in the car during one of Jane’s pep talks) and Katie (the lame duck) until Lord Sugar remiinded her to focus on the task and not personal feelings. With this in mind, Jane brought chum Jenna, who made a mess of the costings, back with her and Maria. Sugar was in a real pickle as to how many and who should go, such was the debacle on show. In the end, Jenna backed Jane and Maria was fired. Interestingly, she wasn’t bothered and stated to camera that she will get she funding elsewhere. That is a Real Entrepreneur. And in real entrepreneur style, she will do it on her own.

This week, either team could have lost as they had poor products, ignored the market research, were not united as teams and had poor leaders,. No wonder Lord Sugar was gobsmacked. He must wonder if he can work with any of these people. It is going to be a greast series as, for the first time, we are seeing individuals and agendas on show. Egos will clash.

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The Apprentice 2012 – been these, done that, got the tee shirt

March 22, 2012 2 Comments

The Apprentice 2012 – been these, done that, got the tee shirt.

Its back! The Apprentice returned to our screens last night, and will be with us for the next 12 weeks. Sixteen candidates, described as amongst Britain’s biggest and best would-be entrepreneurs joined battle in the House and the Boardroom.

The programme has now completed its own makeover/evolution to reflect the changed political environment. Under the previous government, individuals were given sponsored jobs to keep them off the dole. It was the same with The Apprentice. The current government prefers to partner Business and encourage a more entrepreneurial approach to growing jobs. The (New) Apprentice reflects this, with Lord Sugar trying to identify a business partner (and idea) to invest £250K into. Under the Trades Descriptions Act it probably should be renamed, and there isn’t much apprenticeship involved. Interestingly, although the programme has evolved, the format has remained more or less the same. This is to be praised, as it makes for great TV.

In this blog, I will review each episode and give my thoughts on any lessons we can take from a business process or influential communication perspective.

Last night we were introduced to the 16 individuals (8 male, 8 female). I won’t go into their bios, if you want to get to know them in more detail I recomment the BBC website .

Week 1 is all about meeting the candidates, forming first impressions and wondering how people can make some of the outrageous self declarations on show.

Lord Sugar introduced his own version of the Gremlin rules;

  1. The biggest profit (prophet?) wins
  2. Don’t hide
  3. Don’t feed after midnight (i think he said that…)

So, both we, and the candidates know what to do and what not to do. Do they listen? Of course not. Perhaps they should be called Muppet Rules.

The group was split into the now traditional boy v girl teams and given then the task to design, print and market their own range of printed goods.

But first the all important team names. For the girls we have Sterling (strong, traditional etc) andfor the boys Phoenix (are they expecting to fail and have to rise from the ashes? Given last year’s early performances by the boys team they could be right).

Next, who will be the first Project Managers (PM)? For the boys everyone took a step back and technology geek Nick Holzherr was slowest, so got the role. For the girls, architect and  print store owner Gabrielle(“I’m a bit quirky”)  Omar volunteered.

One definition of marketing is getting the right product to the right people at the right price. Immediately, the differences in style and approach between the teams that were to prove crucial became evident. Phoenix went for cheap and cheerful London souveniers (a tee shirt with a red bus and a “large” cuddly bear) and went for the tourist market down by the Thames. Sterling lived up to their name and created a quality tee shirt jigsaw and bag aimed at the parent and toddler market. These had the added option of being personalised with names printed upon request and at extra cost. The girls decided to target Greenwich Market (fixed stall) and London Zoo. Thanks to Gabrielle’s knowledge of printing the product featuring cuddly animals designed by Jade looked good and was produced without a hitch.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the boys, and they had many reject items and a good few that should have been rejected but got through the non-existent QA. What they did have, was a clear plan of action, general agreement on how to approach it (if you ignore Sales Manager Stephen Brady’s pep talk and sales training) and clear roles. Stephen correctly pointed out that the bears were over priced and got the items reduced from £15 to £10. This is still a huge mark-up on the production costs.

Sterling had a great product, but no clear strategy and no clear roles. The sub-group sent to the zoo got stuck in traffic (surely one of the most easily predicted obstacles in London) and resorted to bitching and working against, rather than with eachother. Aggressive sales techniques and poor planning once they decided to try their luck selling to retailers (they chose Primrose Hill instead of Camden) and a general lack of leadership would ultimately cost the girls the task.

And so it proved. Despite the programme editors trying their best to convince us the poor product being sold by the boys wouldn’t win, it did. The moral of the story goes back to Lord Sugar’s rules – biggest profit wins. The boys got the right product (poor quality) at the right price (massive mark-up) for the right people (tourists).

Once it was revealed that the girls had lost, we enter the Blame Game. PM Gabrielle was vulnerable due to her poor leadership. Katie Wright had been highlighed as making little or no contribution and alongside Bilyana Apostolova (of Bulgarian extraction) was part of the ill fated, and poorly performing “Zoo Team”.  These were the 3 who ended up back in fornt of Lord Sugar.

Bilyana had come across as domineering, selfish, driven and opinionated. Katie had sat quietly in the background, she contributed little other than to point out mistakes others had made. Remember Sugar’s second rule “Don’t Hide”? On that basis, Katie should have walked. But instead Bilyana talked, and talked and talked. In the end she did such a good job she talked herself out of the competition. Lord Sugar declared the he “couldn’t work with her”.

Now 16 become 15 and the first candidate leaves the programme. The girls lost because their quality  product did not make enouhg profit. Katie should have lost  as she was hidden in plain sight. The girls will have to learn.

More next week. Comment welcome

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Young Apprentice Week 5 – Something smelly in the boardroom.

November 22, 2011 5 Comments

Young Apprentice Week 5 – Something smelly in the boardroom.

So, we enter the second half of this series of Young Apprentice. This week’s episode started with 8 candidates, so with only 3 weeks left we may be due a week of double firing. Either that or the final could be a busy affair. It didn’t happen this week, but one survivor in the programme came out looking decidedly dodgy – Lord Sugar.

The task this week was a familiar one; create a brand, package it, make an advert to promote it and pitch it to an advertising agency. The product was a new anti-perspirant deodorant for the young adult market. No profits or sales to worry about, this week’s task was about creativity and leadership.

The leaders were Zara for Atomic (with resident mouse Hayley, Haya and Harry H) and Harry M for Kinetic (with Gbemi, James and Lizzie). Neither were role models for good leadership. Last week James demonstrated that you can be clear, focused, even opinionated, and yet be a democratic leader. Both Harry and Zara were very clear what they wanted, but demonstrated leadership styles slightly to the right of Atilla the Hun. Neither were popular with their teams. Of the 2, Zara was at least prepared to listen to feedback (eg from the focus group) and make adjustments, and gave some degree of structure and process. Harry M just gave orders and expected everyone to follow them, not question them. Neither PM is a good advert for a priviledged upbringomg and public school eductation.

Leadership is about getting the balance right between task, team and individual (see Adair). Zara concentrated on the first 2. Harry was only interested in the task. Not surprisingly, the result is unhappy teams, with individuals feeling frustrated and outside of the task. For Harry he did manage to create a team – one that was united against him. Never before has it been clearer watching the programme that losing the task could have dire consequences for the PM.

And so it proved to be. The programme followed the usual rollercoaster for each team, with the viewer’s expectations of who will win switching as the editing showed us potential disasters on either side. For Kinetic, Zara’s structure gave a good focus to the 3 components of the task (agree a brand and name, produce the advert and pitch it) with everyone contributing. At each stage, Zara showed she was prepared to make adjustments; the brand values were tweaked through a focus group, the advert storyboard was adjusted accordingly. In contrast, Harry kept everything in his head and was not for being deflected from his chosen path; no structure, no plan, no storyboarding. He did, however, allow the subgroup (including Gbemi who counts design as one of her specialist areas) to design the packaging.

When it came to pitching the 2 brands, both came across as resonably creative. Atomic went with Raw, offering a coherent link between advert and pitch. On completion, Zara told her team she was “dead proud” of them. There may have been some irony lost on Harry M with Kinetic’s brand. It was called Vanity, but was unclear what its brand values were. The product pitch suggested confident, the advert fun (think a poorer version of the Lynx commercials designed by two 17 year old lads for the female market). Harry never thought to thank his team after the pitch. They didn’t seem to expect him to.

After reviewing the commericals in the boardroom, Lord Sugar went with the more coherent Atomic product Raw. In the cafe it became clear that the Kinetic team laid the blame squarely at Harry as PM. He was going to have his work cut out to survive as his leadership had been a disaster. Surely he had to go?

Back in the boardroom again, the feedback for Lizzie on her pitch was good enough for even Harry M to realise that he shouldn’t bring her back. And then there were 3. Gbemi went straight for Harry M, but was vulnerable because Sugar identified the packaging as a major factor in Kinetic losing the task. James also criticised Harry’s leadership and it was here that I expected Nick Hewer to reveal just how poor a leader Harry H had been. It never really happened. Instead, our esteemed Emperor Sugar turned his attention to Gbemi. After all, she is a design specialist. James tried a half hearted rescue, suggesting (correctly) that if Harry had been a better PM the product design would have taken care of itself. This had little impact on Sugar, and despite Harry having lost all 5 tasks, Harry survived (again) and Gbemi was fired. This did not go down well back in the house.

Once again, Sugar proved himself to be consitently inconsistent. Even in this series, individual PMs have been fired because of leadership at least (think Hannah). Crucially, this task was a subjective one; the outcome was not decided by £s. Sugar clearly likes Harry M, as he forgave his crass leadership because he sees talent as a salesman. His drive and single-mindedness, with an instinct for a profit probably mirrors what Sugar is looking for (a junior version of himself). He is not looking for a democratic team player who is well liked (again just like himself). As a commentator on leadership, sales and marketing, this left a nasty smell in the boardroom, one that no amount of deodorant can mask. It’s the smell of hypocracy. It’s hard not to conclude that there was nothing Harry M could have got wrong this week which would have got him fired, even losing all 5 tasks to date. This must be hard for the others to take. I wonder how they will learn from this. Makes great telly, though.

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Young Apprentice Week 2 – Pitched into a Sea of Troubles

November 1, 2011 3 Comments

Young Apprentice Week 2 – Pitched into a Sea of Troubles.

Having lost out last week, the boys went into week 2 no doubt hoping for more success. There are strong personalities in both camps, but the boys in particular have some egos to contend with.

This week our Dark Lord of the Sith (or Alan Sugar to you and me) continued on his quest to identify his “Young Apprentice” and get them to join him on The Dark Side (no, not banking; BUSINESS ENTREPRENEUR). Remember, in the Sith there are only ever 2; Master and Apprentice. This is worth remembering when we watch this competition as the candidates (to quote voice over man) “must work as teams, but shine as individuals”. Sugar tells us that this is “not a talent show” and this week, the majority of the candidates went some way to proving him right. There was very little talent on show.

So, to this week’s task. The teams remained the same as last week, split along gender lines. The task? To design a new product for the lucrative parent and baby market and pitch it to 3 large retailers. The winning team would be the one that gets the most orders. As usual, the task is a Macguffin (to quote Hitchcock) and almost incidental to what really matters – entertaining TV.

From an influential communication perspective there was a lot to learn here. If we focus on the task as a whole we saw two poor PMs; Gbemi (“I’m quite in your face”) Okunlola for the girls and Lewis “Cocktail of Success” Roman for the boys.

Roman was completely out of his comfort zone and was unable to control the bigger egos in the boys team (Harry M and James). He was also a poor delegator and effectively cost the boys the task by his decision to pitch to the first 2 customers (told you the task isn’t what really matters).

Gbemi (a younger version of Edna from last season’s Approentice, sort of Anakin Skywalker on the road to becoming Darth Vader) was a poor listener and control freak who also made the erroneous decision to pitch. The girls would have lost if a coup d’etat hadn’t resulted in Gbemi being replaced for the final crucial pitch by Haya. This resulted in a large order which rescued the girls and won them the challenge, as it was to the largest retailer.

So, the boys lost, despite taking orders from two retailers to the girl’s one. Their product was a hippo cover to carry baby drinks bottles in. The girls idea of a sleeve with a cushion to help support a baby’s head comfortably won the day, but only in the final pitch.

For some top tips on how to pitch, check out my previous post from Dragon’s Den. The tips about creating the right impression a practice makes perfect seem most apt here. What you don’t want to do is read it out (Lewis) or be unclear about what your product does (Gbemi).

In the boardroom both PMs got muted support, but once it was clear the boys had lost, Lewis had to decide who to bring in with him. He played a political game, bringing back opinionated Harry M and the anonymous Ben, both of whom had been singled out in the boardroom by Lord Sith, I mean Sugar.

Any one of the three could have gone;

  • Lewis for being generally useless as PM and putting himself forward to do the pitching. I mean, they have a whole evening to decide and prepare for this and decide the best person (probably Harry H on the basis of his rescue pitch).
  •  Harry M could have gone for his appalling attitude. He does have good things to say, but no idea how to go about doing it.
  • And what about Ben? Well, what about Ben.?We have seen nothing of him, and he was there because he made so little a contribution. Was this real or editing? Everyone agreed that it was real, and he was fired.

The take home message this week? In Young Apprentice it is better to be obnoxious and disliked but occasionally correct (Harry M) than to be the strong silent type. Ben was fired because he did nothing. One suspects that Lord Sith sees something of himself in terms of Harry M’s attitude, and that has held sway. However, Harry was warned that he needs to change. This isn’t a team competition, but you need teamwork to survive it. Most telling was the reaction of everyone back at the house.  Lewis was greeted and hugged by everyone, except the unfortunate Lizzie. Harry M cornered Lizzie and she seemed reluctant to congratulate / hug him. The final shot was of Harry M declaring that he must change. And change he will, as he has the ruthless determination to go on and win the competition.

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