The teams are asked to select two baby products and then sell them at a major baby show in Earls Court.

This is the point when I wonder why the candidates don’t check the events happening at Earls Court during the time they’re filming, before they get to the Apprentice.

And of course the team with the most money wins.

The Baby Products

The teams are sent to look at the following products:

1. Baby Headguard – “Thudguard”
2. Up-market Rocking Horse
3. Super Fold-up Buggy – Takeoff
4. High-heeled baby shoes – “Heelarious”
5. Birthing Pool
6. Cardboard cot

And of course the things to look out for here are:

1. Has the item sold well at other shows
2. How big is the market for the item
3. Can they get a special show only offer
4. Will competitors have the same deal they do and be at the show
5. Do the items they choose complement one another

Ignite Takeoff with Thudguard

Lorraine is made project manager, because as a mum she has some experience of the market the team is targeting.

And Lorraine’s instinct tells her to choose the Takeoff buggy as one item to sell. Come on! She already knows the number of women choosing home births is 2.2% so the number of people interested in a birthing pool is miniscule and they’re not likely to sell that many at the show.

Kate and Howard are the other members of the team and they recommend Thudguard,  the baby helmet, as the other item for their team to sell.

Well done to Kate and Lorraine in asking for a special show discount to give the show visitors an incentive to buy on the day.

Unfortunately, on show day the team discover that an independent buggy seller has brought the same buggy along. Worse, a little later they discover that the buggy is being sold for £100 elsewhere compared to the team’s price of £135.

Plus Lorraine hadn’t paid enough attention to the demonstration to confidentially put up and take down the buggy, so it took quite some time before the team learnt how to demonstrate it properly.

Eventually the buggy starts to sell, despite the competition from the cheaper one elsewhere.

Empire Swayed By Rocking Horse And Birth Pool

James is Empire’s team leader, because he’s a dad.

Debra wants the rocking horse and is quite happy to allow Ben to suggest the risky strategy of using the rocking horse because with one sale they’re likely to smash Ignite’s sales.

Unlike Ignite neither Ben or Debra request a special show price. Plus on show day they leave the price tags on the three horses they display.

In the end Debra does suggest taking the tags off so that it doesn’t shock people too much. Why aren’t they on the rocking horse showing how strong the horses are? They should be asking people if they’d like to have a go, recreate their childhood!

And Ben who would probably like you to think must be the best salesman in the whole world comes up with that tired old sale line for the rocking horse: “would you be interested in…” and the obvious answer to that is “no!”

One exhibitor expresses an interest in buying a discounted rocking horse, however as the team didn’t negotiate a lower show price they’re completely unable to sell it to them. 

Back To The Boardroom

Back in the boardroom Empire sales figures were £722 and Ignite made £1,669.89.

The problem was that Empire didn’t concentrate on selling the birth pools, or getting a special price for the show for the rocking horse. As Sir Alan says what would make the visitor buy it now? Ben complacently points out that the difference in price between the discounted price and the normal price for the rocking horse is nothing.

Debra had pushed through the rocking horse. And she suggested that she’d told her project manager that there was no other product.

When Ben was asked why he shouldn’t be fired. He then talked absolute drivel about how conceptually he was great and how he grafted and the fact that he had potential because he had been offered a scholarship to Sandhurst.

Sir Alan points out that Debra is alienating people on the teams she works with. 

In the end Ben gets fired.

Was The Apprentice Firing Fair?

It was a toss-up between Debra and Ben. Debra because she comes across as being very overbearing and not really listening to anything anyone else says. Meanwhile Ben seemed to have lost heart by the time he went into the boardroom, despite being a good and assertive talker.

During the boardroom discussion Sir Alan noted that neither Nick or Margaret were fans of Debra. I suspect that if she gets into a losing team again she’s at a major risk of being fired.

So I didn’t mind whether it was Ben or Debra that went this time. It’s surely only a matter of time before James goes, either quickly followed or preceded by Debra.

Who’s The Favourite To Win At The Moment?

Kate Walsh is still holding her own as my favourite to win The Apprentice.

At the current stage in The Apprentice the people who I could see winning are (In descending order ):

1. Kate Walsh
2. Howard Ebison
3. Yasmina Siadatan
4. James McQuillan
5. Lorraine Tighe
6. Debra Barr

 

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

The apprentices confuse themselves in this task.

As Sir Alan puts it this is a straight forward sales job. Although once Ignite and Empire get started on it it’s obvious they’re clueless. And they’re in the Manchester Hilton which is a very nice place to stay! But not the best I hasten to add.

The Sales Task

The task is broken down into 3 parts:

1. Choose 2 inventions from a list of 10 to sell in Manchester, Liverpool and other bits of the Northwest.
2. Try to sell the chosen items to the 2 firms (Liverpool hardware store and Heal’s: a Manchester designer furniture store) that Sir Alan has picked for them
3. Try to make other sales on the following day

The team who makes the most sales wins, of course!

Naturally the teams ignore the hint that Sir Alan gives of a hardware store – think what does it stock, or could usefully stock. And also Heal’s – what would a designer furniture shop stock? Well one item would have OBVIOUSLY been the designer coat rack that one inventor brought along!

Another obvious item for the hardware store was the drill dust catcher or more likely the stability legs for a ladder. Still the teams don’t think  to take hints do they?

A Tiger is Chosen as Ignite’s Project Manager

Lorraine Tighe canvases opinion strongly to take the project leadership role. Everyone seems keen to let her dig herself a hole, so she gets her wish and is the PM.

The thing that always continues to amaze me is how some of these supposed high-flying managers and business people have abysmal people skills. Which Lorraine amply demonstrates when she talks down to Yasmina because Lorraine wants to get business by doing a pitch. Then Lorraine tells Yasmina that. “I’m your boss.” Of course the only problem with that approach is that it puts Yasmina’s back up.

Lorraine and her team choose The Cat Fire Engine and the Expandable bike bag.

Expandable Bike Bag

The expandable bike bag looks quite snazzy. It’s meant to carry shopping home from the supermarket. However, I can’t believe that someone who is that serious about using a bike wouldn’t splash out on a pair of panniers. Plus how many people would be able to cycle with a weeks worth of shopping on their bike?!

The Liverpool hardware firm is underwhelmed, however, Heal’s over in Manchester give it a cautious welcome.

Cat Fire Engine

This is a cardboard cat toy.  And when Lorraine and Yasmina present it to the hardware store set-up by Sir Alan the buyers are astonished to find that Lorraine suggests they can sell 400 of them per week! When questioned Lorraine glibly says, “I believe you would do!” What she bases that assertion on we are given no clue.

The team goes around trying to sell this cardboard box (fairly unsuccessfully).  Lorraine and Yasmina do manage to sell 50 to a very dubious Pets Superstore buyer.

The following day when one small shop suggests that he has no need for them the tired twosome decide that it must just be because wages are that bit lower up North! Do all apprentices have the sensitivity of a brick wall? Can’t they see that the retailer is genuinely at a loss as to why he should buy when he already chucks out loads of cardboard boxes every week?

Meanwhile Phillip, Kate and Ben are unable to convince anyone at all that they need the cat toy, in any form. So no sales there!

Mona Wrests Project Management for Empire

Over at Empire Mona makes an impassioned demand to be project manager. And she also is allowed to take the position.

The two items that Empire choose are The Silk Bag and The Lover’s Lead.

The Silk Bag

The silk bag is basically a sleeping bag with arms and legs.  Or as Howard says it has, “individual leg items.”

Neither store lined up by Sir Alan is impressed by the Silk Bag, particularly as it doesn’t fit with their product lines!

The Lover’s Lead

The Lover’s Lead lets two people walk the same dog at the same time. And in its favour Battersea Dogs home has endorsed it and 10% of the earnings go to the home.

The Lover’s lead isn’t much use for the two stores either. however, the following day Empire do sell a large number of them to smaller retailers.

Back To The Boardroom

Finally the teams return to the boardroom. The two stores chosen by Sir Alan bought nothing from Empire, whereas Ignite do manage to get some orders from them.

However Empire make £4,501 on their second day’s sales. Meanwhile Ignite make just £1,302 overall.

As Sir Alan points out Ben, Kate and Phillip sold nothing.  And Sir Alan reiterates that he was looking at individual sales figures – a clue was that each Apprentice had an order book with their name on it.

And just to check Sir Alan had some of his own staff ring up and made appointments, something that the Captain Squawk sub-team couldn’t manage. Even though Phillip vocally points out that he and Kate are so much better at sales than Lorraine.

Lorraine chooses Kate and Phillip to accompany her into the boardroom. Where Phillip gripes about Lorraine, and then chips in sniping at Lorraine at every opportunity.

Lorraine’s “Slow burner in the thought process” comment concerns Sir Alan. I suspect that will be a comment that comes back to haunt her in another task. Also he notes that she seems to alienate people – and he hasn’t heard about the argument she had with Yasmina about pitching.

In the end Sir Alan tells Phillip he’s fired because he suspects such an opinionated, arrogant and fiery character won’t it into his organisation.

Was The Apprentice Firing Fair?

I was willing Sir Alan to fire Lorraine because she demonstrated how completely rubbish she is at handling people. I’m sure she’ll have another opportunity to demonstrate it.

However, Sir Alan has got Phillip right and on balance it was better for the Bulldozer to go. He certainly did himself no favours in the way he taunted Lorraine during the boardroom threesome.

Who’s The Favourite To Win At The Moment?

Kate Walsh held her dignity when Lorraine attempted to bring up the fact that Kate and Phillip were an item which she suggested meant they hadn’t really committed themselves to the project.

Sir Alan commented that Kate has done well in the other tasks and she’s still looking the most likely of the current crop.

 

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

The Apprentice is about half-way through.

Certain characteristic Apprentice traits are coming to the fore.

Always remember that this whole process is really for entertainment and the editing can make people look completely different to who they feel they are.

Noorul Is Apparently Different In Real-life

Noorul has suggested that the editing made it look as though he sold nothing. However, I do think that Noorul didn’t do himself many favours by always looking very pensive whenever the cameras were on him. And when they were concentrating on him as Project Manager he came across as extremely ineffectual and indecisive.

His final nail in the coffin must have been his attempt to cast Ben in a bad light in the boardroom for going on about the magazine deals Ben had boasted about.

Recognising Those 7 Top Traits

It’s been shown by research that there are 12 key skills, or traits, that help you develop your business into the stratosphere.

The Apprentices meantime demonstrate a set of traits that would probably demolish a business. And those traits are:

1. Feelings of superiority over all other mortals
2. Ability to be as hostile as possible when in the boardroom
3. Complete failure to plan how to carry out a task
4. Broader, wider, deeper knowledge compared to specialist experts such as printers, designers, sound engineers, photographers and other professionals
5. Desire, need even, to sell rubbish to anyone who is still breathing – and preferably for the most possible money
6. Child-like delight whenever they win a task and are given a treat
7. Limited comprehension on how to use their own teams skills

So beware of others in your company with these traits. Before you know it they’ll be off to join the next Apprentice.

 

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

And so the Apprentices rush off to a Chiswick Auction house to meet Sir Alan for their new task.

Ignite’s project manager is Phillip Taylor, estate agent and Human Bulldozer and Empire’s is Ben Clarke, Rotweiller, Rot talker and aptly named Captain Squawk.

And the task is for the teams to sell 10 items and naturally the team which comes back with the most cash wins. And as their deadline is 6pm they don’t have much time.

Sir Alan adds a word of warning, “not everything is as it seems.” Who will take odds that nobody picks up on that throw away remark?

The Valuation Task

This is an opportunity for the Apprentices to demonstrate their valuation, sales and management abilities.  So what do they need to do to display their talents?

1. Find the VALUE of what they have
2. Decide where they can be sold
3. Allocate the items to the teams
4. Sell for at least the cost, preferably more!

That seems to indicate that some form of research and planning is needed…

And what do the Apprentice’s do?

10 Items The Apprentices Had To Sell

The items the teams had to sell were as follows:

1. Skeleton (quoted price £159.95+VAT)
2. Indian rug (valued at £200)
3. Cycle
4. Shoes (including vintage shoes worth £100)
5. 8Kg Jellied eels
6. Books (including first edition of James Bond’s Octopussy, worth £80-£100)
7. A pair of fire dogs
8. Commode chair
9. Autographed footballers picture
10. something else…

Ignite Fails To Find The Gems

The relationship between Phillip and Lorraine hasn’t improved much at all during this task. Phillip assumes he knows more than she does, as demonstrated when she suggests the rug and shoes (vintage) may be worth quite a bit of money and Phillip suggests the rug’s made of nylon!.

Neither team really got to grips with the valuations of the items.  Lorraine was the one who was most on the ball as she suggested that the rug and the vintage shoes were the most likely items to be valuable.

Later in the boardroom Margaret says that Lorraine is the teams Cassandra and explains that Cassandra means she gets it right but no one listens to her. I think we can all agree that’s exactly the case!

Phillip claims that he has improved since last week. It’s patently obvious that he hasn’t.

To give Phillipe his due he did manage to sell the skeleton, although he was extremely lucky to find the one man in England, in a pub, who’d been looking to own a skeleton all his life!

Feathers Fly With Captain Squawk

Captain Squawk Gets Flustered

Ben, aka Captain Squawk, knows he’s a leader because he was offered a scholarship to Sandhurst!  Was it a Captain Squawk commission?

Ben does try and do some valuation but it all seems pretty rudimentary and the most important thing they think is to just get rid of the stuff!

Later in the boardroom Captain Squawk claims to have had a strategy – I think not… 

Yasmina And James Miss Hints

While Jasmina and James do their best to sell the most expensive item in a streeet of carpet shops they’re told, at least twice, that the rug is TOO EXPENSIVE, for the owner’s shop.

That’s a massive hint. That means the rug is worth some money. Why didn’t they ask the carpet dealers ow much they thought it was worth? Ten why didn’t they also ask if they could point them at a dealer willing to buy such a rug?

Eventually they end up selling it to someone who could sell it on and who you could see was rubbing his hands with glee at getting such a carpet at such a fantastically low price.

Back To The Boardroom

Ignite managed to make a net loss of £34, whilst Empire managed to make a “thumping” loss of over £200.

Ben squawks that he was partly responsible for the Octopussy book sale that Debra had made. Which completely gobsmacks Debra.

Then when he’s asked who he’s bringing into the boardroom he says Noorul and James, after first telling Sir Alan to take account of performance over the last 6 weeks!

Then when Sir Alan and James express surprise he backtracks and says he meant Noorul and Debra.  What a rat.

So Debra gets the opportunity to have a good go at Nick, and displays her utter contempt for anything that moves. Maybe Sir Alan’s right and she considers herself the chosen one, already the annointed Apprentice and why go on if she’s been picked!

Noorul meantime blusters and points out that Ben has been relishing the opportunity for magazine deals when the series finishes. In fact he protests so much that he just digs himself deeper into his hole.

Finally, Sir Alan makes his choice and Noorul is fired.

Was The Apprentice Firing Fair?

I was pleased that Noorul was fired, he obviously didn’t understand business and seemed unable to work in a team properly. And that’s been obvious from the beginning and even more so when he was exposed as a poor project manager.

Actually I would have fired Ben in this task too because he lied about what he’d done, claimed to have a strategy when there was none, had tried to make the most profit by taking the majority of the items and tried to bring James into the boardroom because he knew Debra would make mincemeat of him.

Who’s The Favourite To Win At The Moment?

Kate Walsh is still doing very well, smiling and getting the job done. So for me she remains the definite favourite.

Phillip is coming across as thinking he knows it all and again is too complacent, so I don’t think he’ll win. Unless he can really change his spots and let other people make their point, actually take it on board and run with it.

Ben and Debra also need to look cooly at what they’re doing because Sir Alan has given both of them great feedback on their personalities and the way they’re presenting themselves. After all part of this game is seeing how people develop – witness The Badger from a previous series!

 

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

The Apprentices meet Sir Alan in Kew Gardens where he gives them the task of creating 2 original body care products from natural ingredients, manufacture and then sell them.

And to entertain us further he makes Noorul Choudhury Ignite’s project manager and Paula Jones project manager for Empire.

Noorul, because Sir Alan notes that he’s been a bit quiet.

The Product Design Task

The objective is to make more profit than the other team by selling products to the passers-by in London, somewhere.

The other objectives they need to bear in mind are:

1. Making sure they keep the costs down, as usual!
2. Designing and making a good product
3. Branding the product so it’s attractive
4. Selling out by the deadline!

So how do The Apprentices manage?

Empire Go for Seaweed

Empire kick into action and decide to use seaweed as one of their natural components and quickly agree on producing soap and shower gel.,.

Unfortunately Paula and Yasmina get carried away and choose the sandalwood oil which costs £1,200 per kilo. If they’d used Cedarwood it only costs about £26 per kilo and would have been a better choice.

So Yasmina and Paula  decide to use 454 grams of Sandalwood after which Nick kindly tells them they spent over £700 on fragrances.  That means that they needed to sell a lot of product before they made any profit.

Empire Brand

Half of Empire goes to Portobello Market and the other to Bond Street tube station. A tube station is a massive mistake because people are always rushing somewhere and aren’t going to take any interest in soap..

Sales at Portobello Market go well and then eventually they find someone who is willing to buy the remaining bottles for £400.

Ignite’s Project Manager Demonstrates Inability To Manage

After all the talking Noorul has done it was immediately clear that he had no commercial sense and lacked any ability to lead a team.

After some extended consideration and much indecision Noorul eventually decides to use honey as the natural component.

When the team he sent to get the honey asks how much they should get he asks the remaining team whether they are going with honey! Give me strength!

Ignite Branding Is Pathetic

Kimberly comes up with a brand, “Honey I’m Home” which apart from having no meaning doesn’t even describe the range (of two products).

Margaret points out that Noorul was also a poor project manager. You can say that again, indecision and uncertainty was written all over his face.

Carnaby Street High Fashion Soap

Noorul hasn’t a clue how to sell and just keeps talking and then finishes by asking whether people would be “interested.” He also asks wether he can “pinch” someones time.

Noorul, like a complete idiot, pulls his team out of Carnaby street, because he isn’t selling.  And then he gets lost! And ends up in Bond Street where nobody sells anything, for the same reason

The other half of the team are selling at Camden Lock. They sell fairly well and towards the end they have over 100 bottles left and ring Noorul to suggest they price them to sell.

Indecision strikes and Noorul decides to go to Camden Lock with his team – yet more lost selling time! When he arrives they start to sell at ridiculously low prices.

Back To The Boardroom

And the orders for the teams were as follows:

So Empire lose yet again. And yet Empire should have really won, except they made  a complete pig’s ear of the costs. If they had used cedarwood oil instead they would have made a profit of £598 and won the task. And of course Ben says that the costs are nothing to do with him!

Ben Threatens To Shred Paula In The Boardroom

Ben is yet again in the boardroom and deservedly so because he edged out of any involvement with design or with the costings despite being asked to check them by Paula.

When Ben’s in the boardroom he tries to take credit or the nice marketing. Kate soon puts him right by saying that the marketing was all Paula.

Paula appears to have been a reasonable project manager and had asked Ben and Yasmina to check the costs. Ben threatens to rip her to shreds if she drags him into the boardroom.

Of course Ben, rightly, is dragged into the boardroom.  The costs are discussed and blame spread liberally. Ben claims a scholarship to Sandhurst  shows he’s a leader of men!

finally Sir Alan has enough and fires Paula for not keeping a tight rein on the costs. Has the message got through? Costs need controlling!

I think Ben needs to go as soon as possible as he doesn’t help the team win, instead he makes sure he isn’t in the firing line.

And more to the point Noorul needs to be given the project management again so Sir Alan can fire him when his team loses.

Was The Apprentice Firing Fair?

Paula was the project manager and should have double checked the costs with Yasmina and Ben, as they are numbers people. Ultimately it was her fault and much though I would have like Ben to go Sir Alan was right to fire her.

Who’s The Favourite To Win At The Moment?

Kate Walsh sold well during the task and was fair about Paula doing all the marketing.

Again Phillip with his sense of urgency is looking useful too.

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

The Apprentices are given the task of inventing a piece of portable home fitness equipment with the intention of selling to 3 leading fitness retailers priced at under £30. And of course the team with the most orders.

Immediately the teams start to “brain storm” ideas for a piece of fitness equipment. Ben Clarke comes up with the clearly stupid suggestion (for an Apprentice task) of making a sex-related piece of fitness equipment. Over on Ignite they take plenty of time to come up with an idea. As Debra notes they lack creativity so they’ll have problems coming up with a product!

The Product Design Task

Now let’s take a look at this task…

First “The Objective” this time is to take more orders than the other team.

Second “The Customers” are:

1. 3 leading fitness retailers
2. They are used to selling fitness kit
3. They probably don’t want cheap tat

Third the key areas to be concerned with are:

1. Designing a good product
2. Making the product look good
3. Doing the research to ensure there is a market
4. Getting the pitch right so that they get the orders

So how do The Apprentices manage?

Empire Design The Bingo Buster

Ben comes up with a suggestion for toning women’s upper arms! Instantly halving the market. So with nothing else the team go with that.

James Empire’s project manager knocks Bingo Buster as a name – well done.  Wing Worker is thrown into the ring by Howard, I think more tongue in cheek than in reality.

Ben spends time demonstrating how fit he is. Yawn…

In the meantime Kate,Howard and James go off to do their research and tell the design team inexplicably headed up by Ben that the biggest seller is a chin-up bar – so “we don’t want a home gym – don’t over complicate it.” What a laugh, this is the Apprentice!

Empire Over-Complicates Matters

The design team visit a gym and decide to…

Overcomplicate the product!

When the product is explained the prototype makers observe that “it’s going to be a long night!”

The Bingo Buster now called the Home Multi-Tone looks like a loudspeaker. Ben is very keen on it. In my opinion it’s complete rubbish. Have they never heard of a BullWorker for low-end and a multi-gym for the high-end?

Ben and Kate do the modelling for their poster. Ben says it’s obvious that he was chosen because he’s the fittest of anyone. Personally I’m not sure I’d have Ben in the picture.

Empire Pitch Struggles With The Product

Kate valiantly puts forward the supposed benefits of the Home Multi-Tone to the 3 retailers. Ben “helps” her put it through its paces.

None of the retailers looked particularly convinced. In fact the John Lewis buyers looked amused.

Ignite Go For The Bum Ball

Phillip suggests a cube instead of the Swedish Ball. The trainer they consult suggests it’s rubbish. Debra, Ignite’s project manager has an idea she’s been pushing, ankle weights, but the trainer rubbishes that too.

Finally Phillip suggests the “Bum Ball” and at last the team leaves the rough design with the manufacturers to come up with a prototype.

When the team gets the Bum Ball, now called The Body Rocker, everyone is pleased with the product. Particularly Mona who really seems delighted.

Scapegoat Time Arrives

Lorraine Tighe asks to pitch the Body Rocker. She demonstrates that she’s not the best sales person in the world. Debra admits she’s taking a risk with allowing Lorraine to pitch. Hmm, I think more like lining up a scapegoat.

Lorraine is not the most confident pitcher and then Debra puts the knife in by saying she’s worried about the pitch! Go scapegoat go!

And yet Lorraine does a very good opening pitch to John Lewis. John Lewis seem quite keen and ask about an exclusive deal.

Exclusive Deals Need To Be Worked Properly

If the Apprentice’s had seen previous series they’d remember that chains often want exclusive deals. However, Ignite are a bit stumped wen John Lewis ask about an exclusive deal. Until Yasmina jumps in and suggest 20,000 units with 6 months exclusivity. Well done Yasmina! Debra looked to be trying to get out of the meeting!

Back To The Boardroom

And the orders for the teams were as follows:

So Empire lose yet again. And over at Ignite Phillip supports Lorraine in the face of Debras scapegoating which must help Phillip in the whole show.

Ben Over And Take The Blame

Ben correctly thinks that James is going to slap the blame on him – where it belongs because Ben over-complicated the whole product. And as one of the retailers says it looks very 1970′s.

Equally James should have been more involved in the whole design – after all that’s where the whole thing could fail!

The end result is that James chooses Ben and Majid Nagra (who we’ve not really seen do that much. In fact Margaret points out that Majid was a passenger.

As Sir Alan points out there’s no creativity or design in the product. So Majid, “you’re fired.”

Was The Apprentice Firing Fair?

James was the project manager and should have had more control over the product design because that was obviously the most important point in the task. And yet again in the boardroom James starts flying off in all directions.

Ben was the designer and yet overcomplicated the whole product. Despite James telling him not to over complicate the product.

In the end though when Majid was fired it was fair because he had actually over complicated the product and as the design team hadn’t held Ben back from his over active imagination. Plus he really has seemed like a pleasant enough person but a passenger.

Who’s The Favourite To Win At The Moment?

I’m still thinking Kate Walsh is a good bet as she did a reasonable pitch to the retailers.

Also Phillip with his stout defence of Lorraine is looking good too.

 

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

To many The Apprentice is looked upon purely as a form of entertainment for all us unwashed masses.

In fact on the BBC Apprentice forums someone has (with a little tongue in cheek) suggested that The Apprentice is unfair and good bosses would train their apprentices before testing them in the way Sir Alan does.

In fact they make the point that this whole show is really a form of abuse as any “good boss” wouldn’t go to the lengths shown in the show.

It’s a good point.

However, as Sir Alan notes in his introduction this whole series is a job interview.  That means he’s not training the candidates for the job of Apprentice. He’s seeing whether they have what it takes to be The Apprentice.

The Apprentice Testing Times

If you want to find out whether your new recruit can undertake a range of business tasks and still come up smiling any business would be pleased to have seen whether their candidate could.

If you look at the first few of last year’s tasks they are pretty representative of the type of tasks the Apprentices are set.

As you can see most of the tasks are testing how the teams are managed, how they go about getting customers, how they make a profit and the ability to sell themselves.

As the tasks continue each week it starts to become pretty clear as to who can cope under pressure. Which ones are able to manage their team effectively and bring in the profits. And also who is a team player and doesn’t always try and wriggle out of blame and/or out of work.

So in reality the Apprentice is a very entertaining and pretty effective method for sorting through your application pile!

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

Sir Alan’s Apprentices battered and bruised from last weeks mauling in the boardroom  meet to be given the task to pitch to cater for lunches and an evening event with canapés for city high-flyers.

Obviously this involves food, and probably sandwiches.

Rocky Andrew immediately suggests himself as project manager for the boys team: Empire. Everyone looks relieved and think the task’s either in the bag or Rocky will go because his vast experience means the lads have a classic excuse: “we should have won because he was an expert!”

In a similar vein the girls are all relieved when Yasmina Siadatan who “runs a restaurant” puts herself forward.  This is the same Yasmina who is a finance director and confidently expected some poor soul to pay £300 for the Ignite team to clean 3 stretched limos.

The Apprentice’s Food Task

Now let’s take a look at this task…

First “The Objective” is, as always, to make more profit than the other team whilst satisfying the customers.

Second “The Customers” are:

1. City high-flyers
2. They earn a lot of money
3. They expect the best
4. They probably don’t want run of the mill sandwiches
5. They want a good sandwich, good canapés and a good event

Third the key areas to be concerned with are:

1. Creating food that has an acceptable quality (that is taste and looks)
2. Checking what sort of charges these firms expect for events and sandwiches
3. Making food at a price that get a reasonable profit
4. Ensuring the event is well managed

So how do The Apprentices manage?

Empire Makes An Olympics Dog’s Dinner

Some bright spark comes up with the idea of making the London 2012 Olympics the theme for the evening. And who on earth thought of using peanut butter sandwiches? What about nut allergies? Which Rocky should have known about. And as Paul says “it’s not to everyone’s taste.” No it’s not so why not make something with wider appeal?

Rocky looks slightly concerned but then accepts it and they’re off at a metaphorical gallop. Rocky’s experience means that they can quickly come up with a variety of different sandwiches.

An Estate Agent Who Can’t Sell or Negotiate?

And straight into the sales ring leaps our forthright estate agent, PhillipTaylor. He’s out to get those lunchtime sales and fails.

In the meantime Howard Ebison (who manages 10 pubs) has the bright idea about ringing one (yes, just one) other sandwich company to see what they would charge for an event. He doesn’t spell out exactly what they’re planning – that is a stand up buffet for 50 people. But he does get a price – £50 to £60 per person.

Rocky tells Phillip to pitch at £60 per person for their Olympic evening event. Phillip isn’t happy and the sales team all agree that £60 is stupid money. And sure enough when they pitch the £60 per head event to the client the look of surprise is comical.

Then Phillip negotiates his own price down further and further until he gives the client the same £60 a head event for £15 a head!

Rocky Fights On With The Tacky Olympic Theme

However, Rocky seems on the ropes with the evening event as he tries to buy costumes and decorations for it. Despite Howard’s misgivings Rocky insists that the event needs to be fun! He comes up with old style Olympic togas for the lads to wear, a few statues and some gold table clothes. And the sandwiches are distinctly lacking in style, Olympic association or ease of eating when standing up.

Rocky decides to make a whole lot of sandwiches on-spec to sell to the unsuspecting London public at lunchtime and actually cleans up with the tourists – well done Rocky. Despite James wearing a boxers outfit and looking as though he’d like to beat someone into buying some sandwiches.

However, the evening event for Kirkland & Ellis (an international law firm) is an absolute disaster. The lads parade their semi-naked flesh around the room holding the sandwiches on aluminium trays so the whole effect is tacky and cheap. The supposed canapés, including a ploughman’s on a cocktail stick go down like lead balloons.

Plus why did Rocky as project manager give the event co-ordinating job to James? And during the event the client apologises to his visitors.

Ignite Concentrate On A No-Cost Event

Yasmina decides that the team will have a Mediterranean theme and all food will be the cheapest possible. Nothing actually wrong with that, just that the menu contains very little that’s attractive for the evening event.

Unlike Empire the girls get some lunchtime orders.

Kate Walsh acts as the salesperson and flounders when trying to tell the evening event clients the canapés they can have.

The client says he’s not happy with how the event appears to be managed at the moment so reserves the right to claw back money if they get it wrong..

Later Kate, yet again, behind the project manager’s back pipes up with a great comment, that she’s concerned that Yasmina is much too concerned with cost (because of the car cleaning debacle) and she’s ignoring the quality.

Food Glorious Food, As Long As It’s Cheap!

Yasmina gees her team up by telling them to call her chef!

The only problem is that no one is taught how to prepare the wraps that Yasmina has said they’re making. Although portion control is very strict, plus Yasmina explains how to cut tomatoes so they “look” more in a box!

Ignites Lean Lunch

When the girls deliver their lunches it’s obvious that the clients are unhappy. One suggests that one lunchtime sandwich per person is insufficient. Another that there’s no dressing on the salad and yet another finds a hair in her salad. Finally to cap it all they discover that at least one chicken wrap has no chicken.

Giant Tomato Fest

Later during preparation for the evening event Margaret helpfully points out that Yasmina’s huge chunks of French bread stick with bits of tomato on aren’t really canapés.  Yasmina suggests that it’s not a problem as the guests will have had plenty of wine by then and wont care!

It looks as though every canapé has tomato on it.

The girls did manage to present the food better than the boys, by a long way, despite all the tomato!

And of course yet again Yasmina was confident that the client would overlook the food shortcomings once she spoke to them after more champagne. Presumably she assumes everyone gets paralytic and incapable of decisions.

Back To The Boardroom

Ignite spent £354.77 and the client paid £500 rather than the agreed £750 because o the poor food quality giving a total of £1,006.20 and producing a profit of £651.43

Empire conveniently forgot they were meant to be making a profit and spent £821.37 against their agreed £750 for the event. As the client was unhappy the amount paid was halved to £375 giving sales of £666.61 resulting in a loss of £160.76.

Empire Doling Out Large Portions of Blame

James did a lot of talking and made sure that the sales team was fingered. Sir Alan asked the very good question – who worked out the costs?

Nick points out that Phillip’s sales patter was rubbish. He also pointed out that during the evening event Noorul who was meant to be helping with the event management was simply wandering around with a tray.

Sir Alan gets back to the point that the costs were not even looked at by Rocky.

In the end Sir Alan’s firing finger points at Rocky.

Was The Apprentice Firing Fair?

Rocky was completely in the wrong for not checking the costs. Equally Howard who runs 10 pubs should have had a very good idea of prices and should have reined Rocky in.

However, Rocky didn’t bother checking the profitability of the whole thing. Unforgivable, as Sir Alan always wants a profit.

James admitted that his mouth got himself into trouble. And yet although he kept speaking he didn’t actually say anything. Then when asked who should be fired James suggested that both Howard and Rocky should both be fired. James was a definite waffler so I think James needs to go next.

In the end it was a toss up between firing Rocky and James. Rocky simply made more mistakes and so in the end I agree that Rocky was right to go.

Who’s The Favourite To Win At The Moment?

My favourite was Rocky Andrews. Now Kate Walsh seems to have some commercial sense and Debra Barr also kept a reasonably low profile. So I think my favourite at the moment to win is Kate.

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

The Apprentice 2009 started with it’s usual “I can’t believe you don’t know the first project is always dirty” task!

This time our band of intrepid smartly dressed Apprentices had to go and clean something. They were given the choice as to what they cleaned. To help them each team had a van stuffed full of cleaning stuff. Each item they took from the van cost them. And they could buy materials up to a value of £200.

The boys team ignore their teachers well-prepared team name suggestions and go with Empire. And quickly choose a project manager (Howard Ebison). Howard tells everyone the sort of manager he is – why bother Howard they’ll find out soon enough on the task – just get on with it!

The girls come up with team name Ignite, then take a long time deciding who they want to take the fall as project manager. In the end they choose Mona Lewis who I can predict is not going to last long!

Empire Is A Wash Up

Phillip Taylor rings round and finds a taxi firm that shows interest in his car valeting service. He and some of the boys jump up and go off to negotiate a deal with them, and get a little annoyed with their project manager who attempts to set some boundaries for the work they do and the profit they need.

Before leaving Howard suggests that he and the remaining boys shouldn’t clean cars too. Why? Surely that’s likely to be the highest earning cleaning job?

Anyway, the remainder decide at the drop of a hat that they’re going to do shoe shining! Doing a shine doesn’t take too much time. However, you don’t get much for it either! Bad decision – they should have just chosen another company to target for car cleaning.

Before the car washers leave Howard also makes the sensible suggestion that maybe they shouldn’t do car interiors as it takes a long time – too true!

Empire Stretches Credibility

Phillip’s team of car washers demonstrate that they don’t know how to do a job properly by submitting their first car (at 1:30!) for inspection. The company’s rep finds yellow fluff on the seat, water on a window, roof  not cleaned and an inside sill still dirty.

Attention to detail is vital for a good car wash – these lads were more interested in doing it as rapidly as possible. It makes you wonder whether they’re ever cleaned their own cars?

Shoe Shine Boys Get The Cash

Howard and the rest of the boys team shine shoes and make about £60/70 in an hour. Hmm, I suspect it was more than an hour!

When Howard discovers that the other team are washing cars very slowly he downs tools and speeds off to give them a hand.

Eventually the boys complete the mini cabs and get paid. However, Howard was right to point out that they shouldn’t have been cleaning inside and out.

Ignite Burns Slowly, Too Slowly

The girls hurriedly run around getting lots of cleaning stuff. One of them suggests that they shouldn’t be trying to spend up to the budget of £200. Later in the car she again suggests that they’ve spent too much and another says they’ve got to make a lot of money to get back the amount they’ve spent on cleaning products.

Anita Shah congratulates the girls for spending nearly up to the £200!

No one in this team has managed to get the rest of them to see that the objective of the exercise is to make a profit. The less you pay for cleaning materials the more profit you get!

The Hummer Washers

Eventually the team splits into two and Mona’s sub team arrives at a limo company at 11:30 (an hour and a half after trading was allowed to start). They suggest that they’ll clean 3 hummer limos for £300! Are they completely crazy? The director they talk to gently suggests that they’re too expensive and says their current supplier only asks £20 per car.

Mona suggests that the price is impossible. Has she never heard of the minimum wage. It’s easy to pay someone for an hours work to clean a car and still make a profit on £20! She even suggests that the director is wrong – has she never heard of that famous phrase “the customer is always right?” Plus he seemed quite sincere in what he was saying to the team.

Classic Car Wash Capers

Meanwhile the other car wash team headed by Debra Barr sign a deal to wash and valet 4 classic cars for £80 (ie £20 per car) with the opportunity to do another 10 in the showroom at £10 each if the company likes the result. And of course the team manage to take so long, and make a hash of the job that they are told they wont be able to do the other 10 cars.

And Debra’s team discover they didn’t bring one of the pressure washer bits they needed, so after more wasted time they ended up using a hose! So they’ve lost money on the pressure washer and they took 4 hours to complete just 4 cars.

Mona suggests the team go to a supermarket and do car washes there. And Anita comes up with the idea of doing car washes in 4 minutes – what world does she inhabit?

The girls decide that they would have been better of at supermarket all day, as they would have “cleaned up!”

The Girls Boardroom Shambles

The girls took £357 and spent £196.45 so their profit was £165.55 and the boys spent £107.39 and got £347 giving them a profit of £239.61. Which meant the boys won.

The boys made £10 less than the girls but had been more aware of their costs so they made more profit.

Project manager Mona immediately asks Debra and the other team what went wrong – so carefully shifting the blame away from herself. And yet the issue was that they’d spent too much money – which is what the project manager should have been checking.

When asked who’d produced a business plan Mona talked a lot about nothing and didn’t answer the question. Then she pointed the costs issue straight at Anita.

And to make sure she then said that Debra had to check her costs for her team. So neatly pointing the finger at someone else.

Meanwhile Anita displayed that she had a complete lack of business sense by saying she was only there to add up how much they were spending.

And when Debra was pulled up about what she’d said about her team she had the brass-face to deny that she’d said it and to say that she was extremely pleased with the efforts of her team members! Unfortunately for Debra TV is very good at picking that sort of difference.

Mona really goes for Debra all guns blazing. And yet Nick points out the important thing that Debra’s team failed in was not getting the other 10 cars. Because if they had they would have won.

Anita then digs herself into a big hole for no reason. She should have agreed with Nick about the other 10 cars and I think Debra would have been in peril of a firing. And by the time Nick raised the point again it was too late.

Mona, kept avoiding the questions that Sir Alan asked her and spouted out more hot air. Or as Sir Alan saw it, she showed some spirit.

In the end the firing finger swung and pointed at Anita.

Was The Apprentice Firing Fair?

Sir Alan was right to fire Anita because she’d not raised the question of the costs that were rising. She’d not appreciated that business is all about delivering a service for the least cost to make a reasonable profit.

Then she went on about how it wasn’t her best performance! No how true!

Debra was quite lucky to survive because she managed to lose £100 by not getting the remaining cars.

Who’s The Favourite To Win At The Moment?

My favourite from last time is Rocky Andrews and he was not very obvious in this episode so maybe the editing was done to hide his light! Certainly at the moment it would be easier to say who shouldn’t be the Apprentice.

Table of contents for The Apprentice - series 5

1. The Apprentice: A North South Battle!
2. The Apprentice: The Girls Fight Dirty
3. The Apprentice: The Food In-Fighting
4. The Apprentice Is A Form Of Abuse
5. The Apprentice: Empire is a Wash-up, Ignite Cleans Up
6. The Apprentice – Floored By The Carpet
7. The Apprentices Avoid Selling
8. The Apprentice: The Cereal Killers
9. The Apprentice: The Empire Strikes Out!
10. 7 Top Traits Of Under-Achieving Apprentice Fodder
11. The Apprentice Are All At The Seaside

The Apprentice with Sir Alan Sugar starts on the 25th March. I can’t wait for the annual pressure cooker that is the BBC’s Apprentice programme.

From the moment you hear the Apprentice music to the introduction of the first task to the final boardroom show down it’s all fun and you can even pick up a few business lessons along the way.

And as well as splitting the teams into boys versus girls it looks as though it’s the North against the South too. The girls are mainly from the South and the boys mainly from the North.

Lovely!

And so who do we have? Well for a start we have a drop out. Someone didn’t want to be away from their family for a possible 12 weeks so retired before filming began.

The Apprentice Girls Team

The Apprentice 2009 girls team is made up as follows:

We’ve seen how marketing consultants and human resources people work on the Apprentice. Let’s hope these improve the batting average.

The Apprentice Boys Team

The Apprentice 2009 boys team is made up as follows:

Howard could be someone to watch as I laughed out loud when I saw the quote the BBC attributed to him:

I am a credible businessman who wants to go far. I’m incredibly ambitious. If I don’t go far down this route I shall go far down another route.

The favourite must surely be Rocky Andrews. After all with a name like Rocky you’ve got to live up to peoples expectations, just like in the Rocky films he’s going to come good in his final fight!. Plus he currently earns more than is being offered as Sir Alan’s apprentice running his chain of 15 sandwich shops! So presumably he knows something about the nitty gritty of real business.