Junior Apprentices “Arty Farty” Task

Tim's PM and worried

After last time Lord Sugar sweetly allows Tim to be one project manager. The Revolution’s manager is obviously Emma, giving her the chance to shine, or dig her own grave.

This time the motley band of junior apprentices meet at the David Beckham Academy. And the task is not about football but about art. Given that the adults struggle with selling art the junior apprentices don’t really have much chance.

The teams have to decide which two of the six artists Lord Sugar has chosen they would like to represent. Tim notes that he’s not used to this “arty farty” stuff.

Over on team Instinct Zoe has art running through her veins because both parents are art teachers. Which means the team she’s on is going to have a problem…

Why? well because obviously she then tells everyone who’ll listen that she knows all about art.

The artists they get to choose are photographers abstract artists and others. They include:

• Mike Melven with his neon “Stammer” sculpture and what looks like an eye chart
• Andy Taylor-Smith, landscape photographer
• Sarah Kate-Wilson, abstract artist
• Tom Lewis, prints and originals
• Jessica Layton, more arty stuff
• someone else

Instinct Come Out All Guns Schmoozing

Back on Instinct Tim tells the team they must schmooze the artists so they’ll want to work with them so Instinct can take their pick.  Now I know they’re junior apprentices, and Tim is a simple sheep shearer but surely both he and Hannah realise that Kirsty is completely single-minded about business. That means art is a means to an end. So she has no interest in the artists or the art. Which, of course, doesn’t go down well with said artists.

Maybe Kirsty felt a bit isolated because she came across as very abrupt. In fact in one meeting she had I’m not sure she even looked at the artist – of course great editing tends to help there too!

The result is that when Instinct and Revolution want one of the same artists, Tom Lewis, you can predict that Revolution and Zoe (great schmoozer) will win out over Instinct and Kirsty (complete non-schmoozer).

Anyway, in the end Tim and team end up with Sarah Kate Wilson and Andy Taylor-Smith with an exhibition “space” in the East End in Brick Lane. So the team manfully set-up their artists paintings and photographs. Although Kirsty bitches about Hannah acting like a wet lettuce and unable to do anything without following other people around.

Interestingly Tim has managed to get a bit of wriggle room in negotiations with potential customers by persuading the artists to reduce prices by 10% if necessary to get the sale. Whereas Zoe managed to ensure that she closed off the potential to negotiate by saying something like, “I suppose a discount would be out of the question?” The simple answer to that being…YES!

Tim does manage to do something right by ringing round to find people to invite to the exhibition. However, he doesn’t allow the other team members to get involved in inviting people and so doesn’t get the numbers he could have got.

Revolution Win Tom Lewis

Team Revoloution and Emma have been given a nice gallery in Pall Mall to exhibit their selection of art.

As I mentioned before Tom Lewis wasn’t really happy with Kirstys no nonsense treatment of him and his art so he goes with Revolution. Luckily his art in really quite affordable. For example £60 for a small print. Although Revolution does also get to sell the original too – for a lot more money.

Emma’s team are very, very slow to ring people to invite them to their exhibition. And the whole day seems to start quite slowly.

During the exhibition Zoe floats around being really annoying telling everyone that her parents are professional artists and taking over sales left, right and centre. And like a bulldozer Zoe is completely unaware of her impact on the team.

Arjun who has quietly got on with every task manages to make a very good sale (£3,000), without any “backup” from the artistic one, Zoe.

Back to the Boardroom

In the boardroom there is praise for both project managers, although quite a bit of annoyance is vented about Zoe taking over the task.

Surprisingly Revoloution make sell £6,005 worth of art and as I mentioned previously Arjun sold one piece for nearly £3,000.

Meanwhile Instinct managed a pathetic £2,247.30, despite Tim negotiating a 30% discount for one artist, because his paintings would be hanging with other great artists. I bet that buyer was rubbing their hands with glee!

Tim’s reckoned that the “right people” didn’t come through the door so they didn’t get the sales they should have.

Lord Sugar Fires the Right Apprentice

There are only 3 members of Revolution. Hannah didn’t do that much but she didn’t actively sabotage the task by not being nice to the artists like Kirsty had. Tim was guilty of not sending Hannah and Kirsty together to find the best artists.

In reality once they lost Tom Lewis they were on a bit of a loser anyway.

Could Tim have pulled it round? Possibly.

Anyway, I would have fired Kirsty as she needs to work on her relationships with other people. And in business it is all about relationships: building and maintaining them. I’m quite sure she’ll be great with relationships when she matures.

This time Lord Sugar fires Hannah and you can see why he made the decision. As I said before, she didn’t do much so Lord Sugar probably thinks she hasn’t got the fire in the belly he’s looking for! But I still would have given Kirsty the push.