Posts Tagged ‘The Apprentice Week 10’

So we were down to the last six in The Apprentice UK last night.

The teams were tasked with buying stock, selling it, noticing what was selling, re-investing in what was proving popular and making as much as they could.

Melody was team leader on one team and Natasha on the other team.

Natasha’s team triumphed but it was a very close.

As always there were lessons to be learned.

Listen To Instructions

Lord Sugar made it crystal clear that he was looking for the teams to re-invest and despite this both teams seemed reluctant to do this.  When you are given a clear instruction you need to pay attention.

You Need To Be Willing To Take A Risk

The winning team were actually fined £100 in the boardroom for lacking courage and not being willing to take any risk.  In business and in leadership roles you need to get comfortable with balanced risk taking.

Think Before You Act

Melody and Helen were trying to sell to retailers (even one which was a pound shop) even though it was blatantly obvious that they needed to be selling to individuals.

Choose Wisely

Susan decided to go to an upmarket part of London to sell low cost bedding door to door.  Decisions that you make can either make or break in terms of results so choose wisely.

The Bottom Line: In business and in leadership roles you need to be willing to listen, make smart choices and get comfortable with risk.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people to become highly effective leaders and managers.  Sign up for his free audio e-course Leadership Success here

So we reached Week 10 of The Apprentice last night.  This week the teams had to select products and sell them on a shopping channel to the public.  The team selling most won the task.

Sir Alan made it clear that the aim of the task was to see who could cope under intense pressure and demonstrate business flair.

The Project Manager for Ignite was Howard with Yasmina (after some debate with Debra) acting as Project Manager for Empire. With only three on each team it was vital that the teams worked well together and there was clear evidence that overall they did.

The two teams took different strategies when it came to product selection.  Empire’s Project Manager made it clear that she did not want to be too risky.  As a result all of the products they chose to sell were low price and selling volume was important.  Ignite by contrast chose a mixture of higher priced and lower priced items.

When it came down to the final numbers, Empire, who had gone for the low value items had a narrow victory and had Debra to thank for selling around £900 of the £1,541.88 sales total.  Ignite had highly credible sales of £1376.73.

As always, there were lessons to learn.

1. Howard was by far the best of the 3 team members on Ignite when it came to the practice audition but despite probably knowing this chose to present with Lorraine.  On hindsight, it might have been a stronger combination to have Lorraine and Kate present the fashion product and the fryer.  Yet Howard should be acknowledged for supporting Lorraine after she struggled with the audition.

2. Yasmina set out a clear strategy of low value, high volume which would have probably helped with the product selection choices.  The absence of a definite strategy on Ignite maybe resulted in them spreading their product mix too widely.

3. Lorraine and Howard’s big downfall was that they spent too much time talking about the product (the fryer) and the chips it produced rather than plugging the phone number and web-site where they could purchase it.

4. The uniqueness of the fryer was that it used very little oil yet we never saw either Lorraine or Howard use this in the selling process.  Maybe a health benefit could have been used and perhaps there was a point about thinking creatively.

5. A good sales person will be able to shift volume of low price products and Debra certainly demonstrated this highly effectively.

6. Team working between the person directing and the person selling is absolutely vital.  If the person directing feeds good ideas to the presenter it really can make a difference.

In the end Kate, Lorraine and Howard found themselves in the boardroom facing Sir Alan knowing that if they survived they were in the semi-final.  In the end Sir Alan fired Howard, referring to him as too much of Steady Eddy for his organisation.

You can watch The Apprentice on BBC1 at 9pm on Wednesday or on the BBCiplayer.