Category Archives: The Apprentice

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Weeding Out the Player

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All the way through this series of the Apprentice, Katie has carved herself out a memorable role as the villain of the piece. Efficient and ruthless she gave a number of memorable one-to-one interviews including wishing one other candidate would get run over, before absolutely destroying him in the boardroom. She also managed to insult pretty much the whole of the UK at one time or another too, again with acerbic pieces to camera. Tonight she provided a moment that will make her truly unforgettable – she became the first and only candidate to resign from the Apprentice.

This week was the interview stage, when three trusted business colleagues interview the remaining five candidates and report back to Sir Alan with their impressions. Of the five candidates, the one to come out best was clearly Kristina. All three of the interviewers viewed her as a safe pair of hands, with a good personality – an all round strong candidate. At the other end of the spectrum was Lohit, who I’ve always regarded as quietly efficient, he fell down precisely because he was quiet, lacking the sparkle of the other four, very much a ‘nice guy but…’ response.

With Tre, his attitude again led him in to trouble. With one interviewer the interview never seemed to progress beyond an argument over the assertion by Tre that he was an international businessman. Ultimately Tre was just unemployable.

Simon again provoked a mixed response. The interviewers felt that he had drifted since being made redundant from a career in merchant banking. One of them had talked to a tenant in a property that Simon owned and who absolutely slated him. Another described him as a serial underachiever, saying that with his degree and obvious intelligence (he is a member of MENSA) he should be doing a lot better than he is. After the mauling in last weeks task he seemed visibly crushed under the criticism, and on at least one occasion was told off by an interviewer for not making eye contact. The definite opinion was that on paper he had potential, but that it was a potential unrealised. Having said that, he appeared to appreciate that. With one of the interviewers he said that he would happily only take half of the pay that was being offered for the first year in order to prove himself to Sir Alan.

Finally there was Katie. She of all the candidates was earning the most currently, and is a partner in her own business. All the interviewers latched on to her ruthlessness – at one point she rates the fact that she set out to get another woman’s husband for herself ‘because she wanted him’ as eight out of ten. This ruthless streak seemed to be ringing alarm bells with the interviewers. All thought that she would be capable of heading up one of Sir Alan’s companies, but two were obviously concerned, and even the third when pressed questioned whether, if she won, she would move from her family home in Devon to Brentford, and whether she was only in it to win.

So this left Sir Alan with three possible choices for two places. Kristina who definitely seemed to be a safe pair of hands, Simon who is a significant gamble and has messed up spectacularly, and Katie who could do the job, but who there were question marks over.

The final boardroom, it has to be said was amazing to watch. Essentially Sir Alan had to find out if Katie was only in it to win, and not for the job. He kicked off with talking to Kristina, making generally positive noises, but not giving her a definite yes or no. After that Lohit was despatched fairly swiftly.

Then he moved on to the key person in all of this – Katie. He talked about her ruthlessness (she denied that she had stepped on anybody to get to this stage) and then questioned why she wanted the job and whether she would move from Devon. He’d asked the same question of Kristina, but it was noticeable that he pushed the point a lot more with Katie. He also really reinforced his position that it was about the job and that he wanted someone committed – he didn’t want someone who was only in it for the win, and would exclude someone who wanted the job. He pushed and pushed, until she didn’t really argue back, although she still maintained she wanted the job. For a moment I thought he was going to fire her, but he didn’t, he told her she was definitely in, with three other candidates still left. Considering how Katie has played the game in the boardroom before, at times even flirting with Sir Alan to manipulate events, this was an interesting reversal. This proved to be very much a Sir Alan game – he had questions over her commitment, hammered her down and questioned her motives, until she looked like she thought she was beaten, but all of it sowing the seeds to establish if she really wanted the job.

From Katie he moved on to Tre, picking over his arguments, and highlighting how argumentative he had been throughout the programme before sending him home too. All this time Katie had been left. The other two were tense, Simon especially looked beaten – certain that Kristina would be picked. Katie had said before that she wouldn’t lie to Sir Alan, but in the previous discussion had been pushed to say that she was ready to move, herself and her life to London. She had even claimed that her parents would be happy to move away from Devon. Rather than focusing on the other two Sir Alan focused back on Katie:

“If you don’t mind, I’ll flip back to you Katie. You don’t look like a lady whose just been told she’s entered the final. So it may be that because you don’t want to make a fool of yourself, and because you don’t want to make a fool of me, that you might want to concede that now, and let these other two go forward.â€?

And then she conceded, and then she went.

Sir Alan had backed her into a corner. It is what everybody suspected, but Sir Alan proved it clearly tonight, and ensured that he got two people who wanted the job at the end. She obviously didn’t look like someone who had won, if she hadn’t have stood down, would he have changed his mind and fired her? I don’t know, we never got to find out. The move was executed such that she fell on her own sword rather than be pushed.

As Sir Alan said to the remaining two, he thought that all three were very employable, but that what they had just seen was somebody who wasn’t willing to give him the commitment he wanted. You can see the whole sequence on the Apprentice Web Site.

Interestingly Katie is painting it as a victory. In her interview on the Apprentice site she states both Simon and Kristina are poor choices, stating that she believes that she would have won. In her taxi interview – which wasn’t shown but is online – she describes them as ‘thirsty little muppets’. By resigning as she did she is trying to portray herself as nobly standing aside to let two lesser candidates have a chance. However Sir Alan very firmly established the people who wanted the job, rather than wanted the glory. He weeded out the player.

What is interesting about all of this is that Katie seems very much to be acting as if she has created a good stepping stone to being well known in business through the show, but has she built a good reputation – or notoriety? She has insulted a multitude of people, and the level of ruthlessness she has shown has hardly endeared herself to a large number of people, certainly a number of the business people on the The Apprentice: You’re Fired programme have been quite clear that they wouldn’t hire her ever. Indeed during the programme tonight I thought she was going to come to blows with Michelle Mone, one of her most vehement critics. Thankfully there was a significantly sized table in between the two women. Has she blown her reputation? Only time will tell.

As to the remaining pair, which one is going to get it? Based on his previous comments, I think that Kristina is the one. When he despatched Ghazal he said he was looking for someone well formed to which he can hand over a task rather than someone who he needs to mould, and Kristina fits that bill. Having said that, this is Sir Alan Sugar. He clearly has a soft spot for Simon, despite his goofs and the concerns raised by the interviewers – so I won’t be totally surprised if he takes a gamble and goes for Simon instead…

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Finding Out a Bit More about the Apprentice Candidates

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The upcoming episode of The Apprentice is the traditional penultimate episode where the remaining candidates are put through a series of interviews by a group of trusted friends and colleagues chosen by Sir Alan. However this time around, the viewers have also been given a chance to find out some background to the final five thanks to a special programme that aired over the weekend that talked to their friends and family, had more extensive interviews with the candidates, and also got a good deal of comment from Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford.

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It certainly gave a good amount of background information about the candidates, and in many cases you understand a lot more about how they have got to where they have. Some come from a strong family business background. For example Simon’s father and grandfather have both achieved much in their business lives – Simon is very much following in the family footsteps and Tre started working in his fathers businesses pretty much from childhood. Tre has also fought back from a horrific car crash where the doctor’s told him he had only a 5% chance to walk again, and a 5% chance to have children. He has done both, and is typically direct about his opinion of the diagnosis!

Kristina is another candidate who has had to fight hard to get where she is today. As a teenager living in rural Ireland she fell pregnant and was despatched to a convent in disgrace to give birth, but from there has worked her way through a variety of jobs, bringing up her son to the point where she is now a regional sales manager.

Katie again came over as very determined and driven. Her parents comments stuck out above the others who appeared as both her parents seemed bemused as to where she gets her drive and determination from. She apparently runs to work on occasion, and even ran the New York Marathon whilst pregnant. Of all the candidates, she is the highest paid, apparently earning £90,000 a year as a partner in her own consultancy.

The quiet efficiency of Lohit that has been apparent throughout the series again came through in his interviews, and those with his boss and partner.

Perhaps the most eye opening part though were the comments from Nick and Margaret. They did make clear that Sir Alan will very much make his own choice, and whilst he will ask for their opinion will have no hesitation in disagreeing.

Both seem to regard Katie with concern, saying that she is very good at playing the game, especially in the boardroom. She was also described as dangerous, the way she utterly destroyed Adam in the boardroom being a particular example. Nick said that he felt he knew the real Katie no better now than he did when they started.

They also both seem to think that Sir Alan has a false impression of Lohit, and feel that he doesn’t do himself justice in the boardroom encounters with Sir Alan. Both certainly seemed to regard him as a good candidate, much better than Sir Alan has given him credit for.

Probably the favourite from their point of view seems to be Kristina with them both seeming to think that she has the right mix of attitude and skills to work well with Sir Alan.

However, as they said, it is very much the decision of Sir Alan alone – and we’ve only got to wait a little over a week to find out who he has picked.

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Teflon Simon

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Mark Frith on The Apprentice: You’re Fired summed up the result of last night’s episode of the Apprentice pretty well:

“I’ve never, in any series of the Apprentice seen anyone fail so completely and utterly as Simon did tonight, and not get fired.â€?

The basic task was simple. Sir Alan had lined up an hour in prime time for each team with shopping channel Ideal World. Each team split into a single and a pair and selected two products for the other part of the team to sell live on air whilst the others were in the gallery producing, and the winner was the team that produced the most cash. As always they had a wide variety of products to choose from ranging from low value high volume to high value low volume items, although Sir Alan explicitly advised against gambling on a high value item to get through the task. He also mixed up the teams again, swapping Lohit and Naomi. The project managers for the task were the only two candidates to have been on the same team all the way through, Kristina for Stealth and Simon for Eclipse.

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Neither team can really walk away from the task feeling proud – Ideal World quite literally lost thousands of pounds over the two hours, with both teams bringing in barely a tenth of the sales that the channel would usually expect. More than that their appearance actually produced complaints from the viewers of the channel! If anything it proved that selling on TV is a lot more difficult than one might expect. Both teams had an eclectic mix of products, and exhibited various levels of ineffectiveness over the selling ranging from just appearing generally uncomfortable, through unintentional comedy in product demonstrations through to Kristina who in the process of struggling with demonstrating a mop actually swore live on air. Ultimately though it was Simon and Eclipse who sold least, and it was Simon, Tre and Naomi who ended up in the boardroom facing Sir Alan.

It is worth going over quite what a mess of the task Simon actually made. Like Kristina he decided to select himself as the single, and pair up the other two team members. Whilst that put Naomi who was by far the strongest presenter of the three with Tre who for once admitted that he wasn’t good at something, it was a significant mistake when it came to guiding his team members from the gallery as they tried to sell the items he had selected, as he dried totally. Indeed on the live show the professional producer from Ideal World was looking significantly concerned at his lack of interaction.

However his lack of interaction paled into insignificance against the product choices. Naomi and Tre selected some pads to allow craft fans to easily produce decoupage, and an exercise trampoline, whilst Simon ignored the advice of Sir Alan and picked a hair-removal kit, and a luxury folding wheelchair. When the time came around to present the items, Naomi and Tre seemed to have tried to make the best of the choices they had been given and understand their products. Simon however seemed to be trying to wing it. A staff member at the channel expressed concern that Simon had made no effort to understand what decoupage actually was, and had done about the same amount of work to understand the trampoline – and it showed. Simon failed to sell any trampolines at all, and the decoupage pads didn’t do much better. Naomi and Tre did slightly better, even managing to sell two of the wheelchairs, netting more than half of their final total.

On that basis, it seemed pretty clear who was going to go.

Simon had explicitly ignored Sir Alan and gambled on a high value item, he had been hopeless as a producer, and failed to sell when on screen – alongside that he provided some unintentional laughs whilst demonstrating the trampoline – you can watch the trampoline selling for yourself below… (and watch out for a classic Tre moment in there too.)

On the other hand Naomi and Tre had, despite the products Simon had landed them with managed to sell two expensive wheelchairs, and brought in the bulk of the money on the task.

Also against Simon was the fact that throughout all the previous weeks he had never been in the board room which usually means that the candidates aren’t adept at defending themselves, plus the fact that he was project manager of the whole sorry affair. When he walked in, you could see from his face that he expected to go – he knew he had messed up.

However that wasn’t the way it went. When criticised over selecting the wheelchair, Simon countered that he thought that there would be housebound people watching who would be interested in the product. Whilst due to it’s high cost it wasn’t exactly an impulse buy, two people had bought. Sir Alan seemed to give Simon credit for this, but no credit at all to Naomi and Tre who had managed the sale. When it came to the fact that Simon had failed to sell any trampolines, or many of the decoupage pads it wasn’t down to Simon – Naomi and Tre were to blame there too for poor product choice. When it came down to the firing, Simon didn’t even figure, it was Tre for moaning too much, and Naomi for her poor product choice and unimpressive performance previously. Tre seemed to narrowly escape, resulting in Naomi getting the boot.

I didn’t agree, neither did any of the panel, nor most of the audience on the Apprentice: You’re Fired – it was an amazing decision. I guess ultimately it comes down to the fact that by this point Sir Alan is very much picking based on the ultimate job he has for the winner, but still it was incredible that Simon survived.

Next week though, comes the interviews, where the remaining five are reduced to the final two. Often it is this round that throws up the biggest changes, with someone who has done comparatively well up to now heading out the door – Paul last year being a prime example. In terms of who will get through, despite her faux pas this week, I think Kristina has a good chance. I still think that Lohit and the way he quietly and efficiently gets on with things is great, but he may well be too quiet to get through. The mauling that Tre got this week seems to make him an outside bet, however the survival of Simon certainly implies that Sir Alan thinks a lot of his abilities. That just leaves Katie. The problem with her is that she is very two-faced. Yet again we had a fired candidate this week who regarded her as a friend, until she saw footage of Katie comparing her to a golden labrador…

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Katie’s Gamble Pays Off

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Over this series of the Apprentice there have been only two tasks where the loosing project manager has survived the boardroom. Coupled with the fact that over the past three weeks Stealth have lost the task, and their project manager, and in two of those tasks the project manager had been a survivor of the board room who had begged for a chance to be project manager to prove themselves, things were looking bad for Katie.

Up against her was Eclipse being led by Tre, who on paper was by far the stronger candidate. Tre had been on the winning team the same number of times that Katie had lost.

However, despite the apparent indications of previous performance, the result was exactly the opposite. Katie and stealth were victorious, and it was Tre who ended up in the boardroom.

So what went wrong – or should that be what went right? The task this week was to sell products to the trade. The key thing that the teams were told was that the task was about cold calling and making appointments with retailers – this wasn’t about just selling to people on the street.

In the case of Stealth, the bad run of recent weeks has cleared out a number of the people who were sources of friction, leaving just Katie, Kristina and Naomi. Whilst there are tense relationships amongst the three of them, especially between Katie and Kristina, they seem to have grasped that you need to put those issues to one side, and as a result they came up with a good strategy and it paid off. Whilst they didn’t get any advanced appointments, after a solid block of work on the phones they made appointments with possible retailers, and managed to sell all their products.

Looking at Eclipse, the story was very different. Over the past few weeks the source of friction – Tre has been kept largely in check. The other candidates seem to have got a handle on how to manage him. His only previous attempt at being project manager, way back in week 3 was marked by a team not really under control, and as I noted then it was more a competition as to who made the biggest hash of it. Here, up against a well organised and motivated Stealth, and without one of the others keeping him in line the disorganisation of Tre really came out. Whilst they managed to get one appointment arranged in advance (one more than Stealth of course) they didn’t follow this up with more cold calling, and pretty soon took to wandering the streets and visiting shops without appointments. Simon had managed to get a list of possible retailers which he had handed to Lohit, but it transpired many of them were incorrect anyway. The whole task was an absolute mess from start to finish.

When it came to the boardroom, Tre was hammered by Sir Alan. He then makes a pretty brave decision, and opts to leave Simon out, taking in Lohit and Jadine who together had made the biggest sale of the day. In the final boardroom it as always came down to strategy. Jadine, much like Ifti had a bad case of homesickness during the task, and really didn’t defend herself well. Tre as always fought his corner. Lohit, much as he has done on his previous visit to the boardroom got quite heavily hammered by Sir Alan of not having the ‘killer instinct’.

However, much like the treatment of Syed in series 2, Sir Alan gave Tre another chance. Although Sir Alan seems to have a real problem with the fact that Lohit is relatively quiet and well spoken, he survived too, with Sir Alan saying that he was still a possible winner. Ultimately it was Jadine and her bad day that were shown the door.

It was however one of the most apologetic firings of the series. Sir Alan explained that this time he was looking for someone with experience, and that he felt that Jadine still had too much to learn. However after firing her he congratulated her on getting so far, and said that he couldn’t say anything negative about her. He told her to go home to her daughter and wished her good luck.

Once she’d gone though, he again told Tre how lucky he had been – will he go the same way as Syed? Tre and Lohit seem to be two extremes, on the one hand Lohit comes over as quiet and efficient, whereas Tre spends much of his time talking about how much better he is than everybody else, and then when he is put in charge just blows it totally. As in the past Sir Alan does seem to be willing to give the loud candidates the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately when it comes to the crunch, doesn’t go with them – putting aside Ruth Badger in favour of Michelle last year, and Saira Khan in favour of Tim in series 1. On that basis, and with only a couple of weeks of the series left, I’m pretty sure that Tre won’t win. Despite her win tonight I think Katie’s card is marked too. There is definitely a very flirtatious level of sparring between her an Sir Alan, which whilst it is entertaining, certainly isn’t the basis of a business relationship. Lohit does seem to be unpopular with Sir Alan, so perhaps isn’t the right fit, whilst all thought that Simon who has never faced the boardroom had a lucky escape this week. In the past, candidates who have avoided visits to the boardroom in the early stages have often slipped up when ultimately they do face Sir Alan.

However it can all change next week, in what looks like it will be another entertaining episode. The teams try their hand at hosting some TV shopping, and from the clips so far look to make a catalogue of errors. Will we be seeing a whole load of potential media careers go up in smoke?

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Apprentice Deja Vu

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It was a definite case of deja vu on the Apprentice this week. In a repeat from Adam last week, we had Ghazal, one of the boardroom survivors who had begged to be project manager in order to prove themselves getting her wish, and again the gamble not paying off. To be fair, this was the advertising task, which thanks to the very limited time-scales involved is always notoriously difficult and unrealistic.

Effectively you have a few hours from cold to come up with a product, and then in two days have to produce a billboard advert and a TV advertisement. The product this year was a trainer – for which the teams had to come up with a brand and associated campaign.

Neither team did overly well – unfortunately the team difficulties came into play and yet again, Stealth lost as they effectively divided into two, and in another deja vu moment the fired candidate, who this time around had been relying on Katie throughout the task, admitted that she saw her in a whole new light having seen all of the rest of the footage in the programmes.

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The most entertaining part of the episode was probably the Tre/Simon double act. The team had come up with a ‘reclaim the street’ concept for their campaign, which aimed to tie in to street culture. Unfortunately the limited choice of actors for the advert couldn’t provide the requisite dance skills. Luckily Cambridge graduate Simon proved to be multi-talented – well maybe it would be fairer to say that he was willing to try his hand at anything. He wrote and recorded the rap for the advert, and then volunteered to do the dancing. However through all of it Tre, who had come up with the concept got increasingly frustrated at the quality of the rap, and the lack of good dancers, leading to a number of amusing Tre-isms to camera.

Katie continued to dominate the other team. As a Global Brand Consultant this seemed like an ideal task for Katie, but despite her presence, and also with Naomi having relevant experience, the team failed to come up with a decent concept. Kristina and Naomi got increasingly frustrated, making a pretty obvious split with Katie and Ghazal. Unfortunately that left Katie running the team by proxy, to the extent that Katie later persuaded Ghazal to change the concept mere minutes before the other two team members headed off to film the advert and take the pictures. Despite producing a good looking advert and poster shot, it couldn’t make up for the lack of concept, which was quickly spotted by both Alan Sugar and the advertising agency.

Katie again was called into the boardroom but largely sat back whilst the other two, Naomi and Ghazal argued. Sugar however picked her up on this, at which point amazingly she seemed to be trying to flirt her way out of trouble – not that it got her very far – Sugar pointed out that she’d been on the loosing side six times out of eight, and what a lousy record this was. Interestingly after protesting for a while, she then tried the ‘give me a chance, make me project leader’ gamble that has been tried by Adam and Ghazal in the previous two weeks. Will it be the same outcome? We’ll have to wait and see…

As to potential winners, I’m not sure. Katie certainly seems to have annoyed Sir Alan enough that she won’t make it. Tre is probably too much of a hot-head too, even if he does survive longer. Naomi and Kristina are possibilities, and Simon seems universally popular amongst his fellow candidates and able to turn his hand to almost anything along with it. I have to say that Lohit is probably still my favourite, not least because he just quietly gets on with things – you can read more about his time on the show on his website. But then what do I know – Sugar very much follows his own path with his choices, so it may well still be a total surprise who he picks in a few weeks time.