The Apprentice- Week 1, 2 & 3

Since Series 1 and Tim Campbell, to Series 9 and Leah Totton, now we have moved onto what appears to be one of the most entertainment focused series of the Apprentice yet, with some of the worst candidates we have ever seen. During Week 1, 10 years of selling, we have already seen a prime example of this in candidate Sarah Dales, the first project manager of team Tenacity. Her first blunder and ridiculously degrading statement came when she told the girls to ‘hike their skirts up’ and ‘let’s half of us go dressed up and the other half will look semi-average’. Pamela asked, “Is she serious?”, as did the rest of the UK population, I should imagine. Then there was the fantastic idea of chopping lemons and trying to sell segments to the public- if only she was around when you were cracking open a Corona. As if this wasn’t enough, there was her ignorance to the skills of her team and splitting them down the middle because they were ‘confusing’ her. Added to this was her failure to give the sub team in charge of buying t shirts any money; followed by her absolute horror at the idea she must do some actual work and make coffee – “I’m actually project managing this whole task.” If you imagine that said in a disbelieving, conceited and snooty manner, you’re probably still not at the level she was.

source: bbc.com

London Zoo will never be the same after she tried to sell a small bucket and a box of cleaning equipment to them for £250 because they’re “such a great organisation.” Baroness Karen Brady, Lord Sugar’s aid and esteemed business woman has since said “I think Sarah’s rather lucky I wasn’t following her…” no kidding Karen. Unbelievably, her team went on to win the task, with Chiles Cartwright taking the fall on Team Summit for abandoning t-shirts and being a frankly poor sub team manager. Another hideously awkward moment came from candidate Daniel Lassman. After professing in his audition that he will ‘sell you that product that you might not even have needed’, in Week 2 on the wearable technology task, pitching their jumper with an installed camera; Daniel went on to say that you ‘wouldn’t wear it outside’ or ‘in public’. That’s certainly something I don’t need, an expensive jumper with a camera, and I can only film things that happen inside my house when I am alone. Not quite sure you’ve sold that to me Daniel. That has to go down in history as one of the worst pitches in Apprentice history, even acknowledging the disaster that was Nargis Agra in Series 2 – that’s right, we’ve not forgotten. Of course, team Summit lost, to a jacket with very fetching solar panels stuck to the shoulders, yet Daniel went back to the house unscathed. Instead, there was a double firing, with Robert Goodwin connoisseur of all things luxury being fired before the boardroom even began, for shirking the responsibility of Project Manager; and ironically, Project Manager Scott McCulloch for just being down right terrible. Week 3 saw accountant Roisin Hogan, PM of Team Summit, strictly brief her team on prices to sell their candles and reed diffusers in the Home Fragrance task, telling them to start selling at £25 per candle. Of course, this was not clear enough for sub-team leader James Hill who decided to advertise that their RRP was £45, forcing Karen Brady to have to step in for false advertising. Obviously taking this as a criticism of the price, rather than his complete disregard for legal business practice; he decided to sell the £25 candles for ‘2 for £10’. This rather quickly caused Roisin’s pricing strategy (to actually make a profit) to come crumbling down. Team Tenacity who had completely ignored all market research, making a sickly yellow candle with paraffin wax rather than a chic white soy candle, and who began selling at £45 for one, managed to win because of James’s ‘stack em high sell em cheap’ attitude. Amazingly though, James was not fired and has now gone on to cause controversy surrounding his apparent romantic relationship with candidate Lauren Riley. Nurun Ahmed and Lindsay Booth both got the pointed finger this time for being out of their depth. If selling a £25 product for £5 isn’t out of your depth, or a misunderstanding of business principles in their basic form, I don’t know what is. I can only imagine what this coming episode will contain, with candidates launching their own online video channel. Based on previous series’ when candidates have become consumed with director syndrome, and the released clip of Ella saying “it might be offensive, but it’s a talking point”; I don’t see the integrity of the show or candidates going up any time soon.