The UK Apprentice – Who Fell On Their Own Sword?

This week the two teams were given the task of letting apartments in the Clapham area of London.

Michelle’s team made 6 lease agreements and Tuan’s made the same.

During the task the self-styled “The Badger” (Ruth Badger) went off on her own and made 5 sales under her own steam.

Sayed grabbed someone who was looking in the shop window and made one sale. Before that he’d managed to take the wrong keys to a viewing – lost a sale, arranged to meet at Wandsworth Bridge but gone to the wrong bridge – lost a sale. And still managed to blame Tuan for it.

Tuan meanwhile was happy doing his backroom thing and didn’t really get into selling until the second day. By which time everyone else had had a go. So he didn’t sell anything.

Ruth steam-rolled over Tuan, her project manager, to take most of the viewings herself.

Tuan’s team lost by a small amount so his team arrived in the Boardroom for the firing!

Margaret (one of Sir Alan’s advisers) told Sayed, “…you need the man with the brush and shovel to follow behind”.

When Tuan was talking about Sayed, Slippery said, “Stop pointing your finger at me” and then continued to point his own finger at Tuan!

Sir Alan noted that Sayed was a loose cannon, with the occassional flash of brilliance.

In the end though Tuan was fired. Was it right for Sir Alan to fire him?

Look at what Tuan did…

1) He let Ruth decide what viewings she would do and in fact tell him who should do the viewings
2) He let Sayed pull him down in front of prospects
3) He never went selling by himself he was always with Sayed
4) He couldn’t tell Sir Alan why he shouldn’t be fired all he could say why he was different to Sayed
5) In the boardroom he looked as though he’d given up and was expecting to get the push so he didn’t fight for himself and as good as threw himself on his sword by talking rubbish about being 3 steps ahead of Sayed
6) Last time Tuan had said he did this type of non-aggressive selling but didn’t demonstrate his ability during his viewing
7) During his viewing he was really down-beat and not enthusiastic about the place at all

So yes Sir Alan was quite right to fire him.

Now next time promises to be very interesting as the teams are off to a luxury cruise. Watch Sayed blag his way through the task.