The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IV
[widget:ad_unit-157502571] This week the teams were sent by Sir Alan to Blue Water, Europe’s largest shopping centre to photograph customers and to sell them their photos. To try and shake things up a bit Sir Alan mixed the teams up a little sending Jenny, Sara and Claire to the boy’s team and Raef, Lee and Kevin over to the girl’s team.
Their task this week: to set up photography stands, charm customers into posing for them and then convince them to pay for their pictures. The winner as usual, the team with the most profit.
Finally! A task involving selling! Surely there must be both some sales training tips and some business strategies to be learnt tonight? Perhaps we will even see one or two of our apprentices step up and demonstrate their sales expertise? Or would putting their money where their mouth is be just expecting too much from them?
On both teams tonight there were volunteers for the role of project manager. Simon volunteered for Renaissance and Helene for Alpha. Simon’s offer was not met with enthusiasm with both Claire and Alex questioning his decision.
Meanwhile on the other team, Helene was shooting her mouth off, “I am business woman with a lot of balls and front. What pisses me off in business is incompetence.” What is it about this lot and their arrogance? As Andy Smith commented on my blog last week, they seem to have no self-awareness whatsoever! Why do they think that success in business and sales requires this gobby, self importance? It really doesn’t!
Could it be that mild-mannered Kevin, the bank manager, is at it too? “I am really good at sales,” he boasted.
As a sales motivational speaker and sales training expert one of the things that I have noticed about top salespeople is that they are not boastful. The thing about being good at selling is that you really don’t need to tell anyone. If you are, they will have to sit up and take notice when the sales results come rolling in! Top sales professionals let their sales results speak for themselves.
Conversely, if you’re not good at selling, you’re going to be found out… fast. As I always say when running sales training seminars; sales success is all about activity and results not about mouth and trousers. It matters not what you say, rather what you do. It matters not what you say you’re going to sell, what matters is what you do sell. I nearly sold that PC system is no better than I lost the deal!
It seems to me that this series every single apprentice thinks that they are sales superstar… At least, that’s what they seem to be lining up to tell us anyway. Can’t say that I’ve seen much sign of it myself so far!
Simon asked Alex to be his right hand man but Alex backed off and accused him of delegating responsibility for the task to him. Simon wasn’t but he had the sense to give the job to Claire instead. Unfortunately, this was later to prove not to be the best management decision ever… but more of that later!
When choosing themes the two teams had very different ideas of what to do. Alpha decided to hire a David Beckham look-a-like and Renaissance economised and aimed to deliver a glamorous shoot on a low budget. Claire, meanwhile, was already starting on the first of a series of undermining assaults on Simon comparing him to her toddlers loudly in front of the rest of the team.
To the camera Simon, quite rightly, acknowledged that his team had little faith in his business ability.
Aside: Simon seems to be one of the few on the show who seem to have any self-awareness at all but can that save him?
Apparently, Blue Water attracts 180,000 customers a day. The teams only needed to convert a very small number of these prospects into paying customers to do very well. Very well indeed! This seems like a target rich environment to me! But as usual our heroes have their own seemingly unique ways of screwing it up…
So let’s you and I chat for a moment…
Let’s suppose that you have a team of half a dozen salespeople and you are sited in the busiest shopping centre in Europe. 180,000 people pass through the doors every day. They have their credit cards and their cash burning a hole in their pockets and they are out shopping. How much money would you want to make in a day? How many sales would you want to make? How much do you think you could sell?
I don’t know about you but I am thinking… a lot!
To bring this into perspective, our winning team will finish this task having made only 145 pounds profit. 145 pounds! If they had had to pay for their own pitch both teams would have lost substantial sums of money. As a business exercise, the execution of both teams was truly pitiful.
These individuals seem to be incapable of working together and it’s killing them. They spend more time knifing each other in the back, massaging their over-inflated egos and trying to get one over on each other than they do on the task in hand!
But back to the show…
It seems that Alex got out of bed the wrong side today. He was not happy! He clearly had a problem with Simon and was seemingly incapable of hiding it. It radiated off him in his body language, his tone and what he said. He, of course, denied all of this saying that he was a top salesperson and that he wouldn’t be one if he was negative.
Hmmmm! Add him to the list of people who have said they are sales superstars then!
Sales training and business tip: As a salesperson you need to be emotionally aware. You need to know how your emotions affect your actions. You need to be aware of how your interactions affect both your communications and your relationships with others.
Alex was either lying about the fact that he did not have a problem with Simon and could not hide that fact or he was unaware of the communications he was emitting. Either way, something he should be working on…
Helene’s David Beckham look-a-like was pulling in the customers. This lead generation strategy worked well all day however Alpha suffered meltdown in the processing arena and had to stop taking photos because they could not process them for a huge portion of the day. This was mainly due to the fact that Helene had put Lucinda in charge of the technical side of things despite the fact that Lucinda had told her that she was hopeless in this area.
Helene, another one oblivious to her outward persona, ignored Lucinda in setting her this task, shouted at her when she said she was struggling, and did not restructure her resources to solve the problem even when she knew about it.
Her business strategy instead? Shout at Lucinda and carry on with the failing strategy hoping that it might magically start working… Not surprisingly, it didn’t!
Back in the Renaissance camp, Claire was trying to ride rough-shod over Simon. I know it’s all in the filming but we have seen little sign of Simon’s alleged “emotional” or “aggressive” side but we do see both Claire and Alex making Simon’s life a misery. As I said on a text to a friend, in their current mood these two are unmanageable. They won’t support him, they won’t help him and they won’t work for him. And worse still, they are moaning to others about him and poisoning them too.
I’d like to say that this exercise was all about sales but it wasn’t. It probably should have been but today’s task was all about team work. Correction! Today’s task was all about lack of team work. Today’s task was all about how one or two people can effectively destroy the success of a whole sales team and rob your business of sales and profits.
In the board room Helene blamed Lucinda. Nick stepped in and said that Helene was “wishy-washy”. It’s true… Helene appeared indecisive as a team leader and made bad decisions when she did. She seemed unwilling to correct her mistakes regarding resources and appeared aggressive and overbearing when dealing with Lucinda. She could well have been leaving tonight except for the fact that…
Team Renaissance under Simon were worse! They actually lost 73.81 pounds!
Swanning of for some fun on a yacht Helene seemed pleased with her superior management skills… Her wake up call cannot be long coming…
Talking to the camera Alex said, “It will be a massive error to take me back into the board room because I will destroy him (Simon) if he takes me into the board room.” Oh come on! Who speaks like this? Where do they learn to speak like this? Is this what we get when our children are reared without the benefit of Watch with Mother?!
Back in the board room Simon said that he got a less than enthusiastic approval when he put himself up as project manager. You’re not joking Simon! Both Sir Alan and Margaret told Claire that she had little respect for her team leader. You don’t say…
Simon, not surprisingly, decided to bring back Claire and Alex.
Back in the board room the heat was on. Interestingly though Alex, when asked who should be fired by Sir Alan, said Claire. Claire meanwhile was firing all cylinders at Simon. Maybe this was a tactical move by Alex? Did he realise that Claire was committed to attacking Simon and that she could not now turn her sights on him? Was he quick enough to realise that had he broadsided Simon, Simon could have taken him on whereas by attacking Claire he left those two slugging it away together and him out of the loop?
After some discussion, Sir Alan, in his now familiar manner, said that he had heard enough. This is the tried and tested formula and the message to the contestants is to shut up as Sir Alan has made a decision. Claire however had other thoughts and interrupted him to defend herself again. Sir Alan, maybe amazed at her front, was quiet for a moment before saying that he wanted her out of his sight!
So Claire left…
But not the programme, just the board room and a date and an outing as a project leader in next week’s show!
An interesting twist so now only Alex and Simon remained. “I am sorry my friend I think you are out of your depth here. With regret you’re fired,” and Simon was gone.
A strange choice in some ways and not one that I would have made. We have never really seen the emotional or the aggressive side of Simon that the others complained of. He has worked hard and applied himself. Sir Alan had pondered as to whether he was a doer not a leader and… and that’s a fair question which we will now never be sble to answer…
But in reality he had shown no less leadership than any of the others because few of them have showed any leadership skills as of yet. And most of them show no signs of being able to get the task done either so he was way ahead of them there! What’s more, Simon does seem to have some self awareness…
Not for Simon the self-denial, blame and ego so associated with apprentice losers but a dignified and somewhat anti-climatic departure, “Thank you Sir Alan. Thank you for a wonderful opportunity.” And then in the cab, “I gave it my best shot. I give it everything I had…. At the end of the day I failed. I will go up and pick myself up”
I’d have kept him… for the moment anyway.
So we continue on our strange journey… business, drama, humour, pantomime… whatever this journey is, searching for our next apprentice. To date, no-one has caught my eye. No-one has shown any real leadership skills. No-one has stepped up and showed any real sales skills or presence. It’s an open game…
So let’s help ourselves…
What sales training and business lessons did we learn tonight and how can we use these to help us to improve our sales and our businesses?
Get the right people in the right job!
Successful leadership, management and business is all about getting the right people in the right jobs at the right time. There’s little point employing talent if you don’t leverage it. I am flabbergasted that Lucinda apparently knows virtually nothing about computers but she did declare that to Helene. Forcing her to do this role either out of stupidity, pig-headedness or spite was ludicrous.
Frequently, I work with companies who are trying to hammer round pegs into square holes. Even if you could, why bother? They won’t fit as well as a square one and they will never sit happily there!
Working out what your team are good at and capitalising on those talents is one of the signs of a great leader. If you want to make more sales, this skill is critical.
Working as a team is one of the keys to business and sales success.
For sure, you can climb to the top of success mountain by yourself but what are you going to do when you get there? Team work is the quickest, most effective and most sustainable way to grow your business.
In The Apprentice tonight what we saw were (allegedly) intelligent people destroying their sales and business results and potential because of their inability to work together. Helping your teams to support, appreciate and respect each other will deliver exceptional sales and business results.
Many sales teams do not work together and miss opportunities to help each other through referrals, advice, support and motivation. Shared goals, values and systems create a powerful forward momentum. Working to achieve this is essential.
Systemise for success.
As a salesperson or a business owner you need systems. Not complicated, hard to follow systems but simple, easy and repeatable ones.
In tonight’s show we saw both teams lose valuable sales due to not having a systemised approach to their sales activities. Leaving your sales efforts to the whims and moods of individual members of your sales team is wrong and could well lead to the collapse of your sales results.
Successful companies have successful systems. Successful companies have sales and marketing systems. Successful sales teams have proven sales systems. Great salespeople have their own proven systems. People work better when they are working to a system. People feel more confident when they are working to a proven system. People need systems.
Don’t leave your sales results, your business growth and your personal success to chance. Create systems for yourself, your sales team and your overall sales activities… Let me know what you thought of last night’s episode by commenting below…
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Gavin Ingham is an author & speaker specializing in sales psychology, motivation & performance. Make sure that you sign up for his regular newsletter here now.
These bods seem to overcomplicate everything whilst leaving the simple stuff out .. KISS principle
Keep it simple stupid.
I understand 20,000 people applied for this show and it could reflect badly on Sir Alan`s team if they felt these we the best. Indeed, it is shockig that these were considered the cream of the crop, until we remember that they were being selected for “The Apprentice” – an entertainment show and it is quite apparent that the “characters” are selected for entertainment purposes. In reality, few of of Britain`s finest business minds are likely to apply, there too busy cutting it in the real world. If they did apply they are unlikely to be selected because they`re unlikely to “make good telly”! Just a thought…
Thanks Gavin. This is the best ongoing and serious review of thos series.
For once I was surprised that Margaret actually chipped in what she thought, and told Sir Alan exactly what had gone on. She really doesn’t like Claire, does she?
Simon would never win this, but the first half of the series is usually about losing the dead weight, chancers and nutters, and he’s none of them. Claire was certainly conspiring to kill the task. I could just imagine her saying to herself as she stomped her cankles back to the so-called processing room “What, in these heels? Stuff him, he’ll swing for this”
In the boardroom, Alex certainly did an abrupt volt-face, when Sir Alan was rounding on Claire. Clearly deciding to back a different horse after initially betting on Simon going down. She will now crucify him for that, given the chance.
Lucinda dodged a bullet again, I see. Some people have “victim” written them, and the others have sensed weakness and smelt blood.
Lastly, aren’t these the cream of entrepreneurial flair in modern technologically advanced Britain? How come so many of them couldn’t work a bleedin’ PC with photoshop, even after training? Typical though. I know several IT Consultants, who don’t know their backside from their elbow on PC’s, and could barely setup their own broadband, nevermind partition a drive or run a network.
I have a 6 year old who could print those pictures. In fact he printed some pics from my phone via bluetooth only yesterday.
Gavin,
It just goes to show that the nice guy doesn’t always win!
What frustrates me most about watching the program is that we don’t know
what SAS is looking for in terms of an apprentice (bar the throw away
comments, “drop dead shrewd, not a schmoozer” etc.). Fine, we can all
sit and cringe at what goes on during the tasks, but for me it’s
meaningless given that we don’t know his end game.
As an employer, would I employ Simon – from what I’ve seen, I’d employ
him tomorrow. Would I employ him to head up my company – again from
what I’ve seen, no way….. but what a fantastic, enthusiastic, diligent
2ic or team member in general.
Is SAS looking for a ruthless, win at all costs individual, or a more
rounded individual? I suspect that there is too great an emphasis on the
former, hence his decision to send Claire back to the house, because he
sees something in her that he’d like to explore further. If it is the
latter, then the rules of the ‘game’ need to be changed to reduce the
‘game playing’, hidden agendas and egoist behaviour.
Alternatively do the producers of the program have too great a say in
who gets through and what the rules of the game are? Is the formula over
egged in terms of making a TV spectacle?
You can’t help but ask yourself how you would have achieved the
unachievable and managed the team in question. For me, given the
benefit of hindsight, I would have kept Alex, Claire and Jenny apart
(certainly one or two of them working closely with me) – all strong very
individual characters, who working together created a pretty malevolent
team within a team, seemingly intent on destroying Simon’s efforts. I
would have been very tempted to completely sideline anyone who seemed
intent on destroying the team effort – but hey, that wouldn’t make good
TV viewing!!!
Did SAS make the right decision? Yes, probably. Simon failed to organize
his team effectively and failed to get the best from them – not an easy
task I concede. Both Alex and Claire (and Jenny in a silent manner) had
destructive game plans, but perhaps SAS quietly admires their single
minded ruthlessness. Would I have made the same decision, no, but then
again I would have been looking for a different kind of character.
Cheers,
Tom
I think that the big failings in this series, (other than the boys in week 2) is a severe lack of organization. If either team had got organized yesterday they would have won the task by a country mile. It is ok selling a product but if you can’t deliver it is a serious problem.
Also far too many big ego’s, as you rightly said ” a good salesperson will let the figures do the talking for them”
Gavin,
I am listening to a good CD session on leadership by Stephen R Covey currently in which he talks about ‘the four imperatives of leaders. They are:-
Inspire Trust
Have Clear Objectives
Align Systems
Unleash Talent
It is amazing to me when you apply these imperatives to the candidates just how bad they score here – basically I agree with you Gavin, I see no one here who is capable of leading a good team.
Looking closer at the imperatives then…
Inspiring Trust
Covey says the fastest way to get anything done is have trust between all parties. If there is trust that things will get done, people will work honestly towards a win/win etc. If there is Trust you are already ahead of the game.
Watching the look on some of their faces when people (particularly Simon) put themselves forward, it was clear that trust was going to be a problem. OK this is a competition, but surely the most effective way of winning is to stay out of the boardroom as much as possible – and if you do find yourself in the boardroom to be able to honestly say, “I did everything in my power to make our task a success”.
Trust here was abundantly lacking and boy did it show.
Have clear objectives
The mission was clear, make a profit from selling photos in the shopping center.
It was clouded, warped and distorted however by the candidate agendas, egos and personalities. Again it goes back to working as a team – which they didn’t. I’m pretty sure that the clash of personalities in Helena’s team clouded the objectives. I am also sure that some of the team members in Simon’s group saw him as a threat, and decided to sabotage their own team to bring him down.
In real life this happens all the time. Bosses trying to protect their position don’t credit their team members. Team members feeling they have no part to play in the company spend all day playing online poker. You get the picture.
Align Systems
Systems make you or break you as a leader. Sure you could be that reactive hero that steps in to take control over everything – but what happens when you go on holiday? It is the system not the person that makes you an effective leader. SAS had plenty to say on the subject, so I will not elaborate on what is turning out to be a monster of a comment, save to say clearly the leaders were so busy focusing on people they neglected the systems – which then went all wrong.
Unleash Talent
Again, Covey says unleashing talent is about recognizing, positioning and developing talent within your team.
The only talent the candidates seem to be able to recognize is their own (misjudged in my opinion). Actually that is not entirely true Helena for example has the knack of knowing who is not talented in one area (Lucinda) and ordering them to do that task. OK Lucinda’s talents may not seem immediately obvious. However, surely if someone is clearly failing in one role, then as a leader it is your job to reassign her – front desk admin perhaps? That is positioning of talent. Position badly for political reasons and you may win in the short term – but this will surely come back to bit you.
So, for me it provided a really good practical demonstration on how NOT to implement Coveys leadership imperatives, and gave a great example of what will go wrong if you don’t.
Thanks Gavin for the extra insight from a sales perspective and I look forward to your next post.
Tim Jackson
Hi Gavin,
I could not believe what I was seeing last night. All the contestants (with the possible exception of Simon) seem to have no grasp of how to work in a group or even how to communicate like normal human beings. They seem to talk in text book and motivational buzz words with no delivery and no honest appraisal – unless it is to blame others.
I do wonder though whether the BBC went for people who they knew would cause disruption (turn it into a more credible version of BB – which is a joke) or whether the quality is frighteningly that poor. I have worked and do work on a daily basis with people who would put these to shame. True sales people and business people.
Any MD / CEO out there must be thinking there is no way they would hire any of these guys at the moment. And to be honest, I would agree with them all.
Why do people not realise that being part of the team, doing your task and striving to win is going to stand you in great stead even if your team loses. Yes have an opinion and state it to the Project Manager but do not sabotage and negate the team with destructive negativity.
From the moment Simon put himself forward as project manager I knew the whole thing would fall apart around his ears for the simple fact that nobody had an encouraging word to say to him. Alex and Claire’s appauling display of patronism and disrespect can only be described as sabotage and after watching 15 minutes of the show from that point it became clear why they had agreed to Simon being project manager in the first place – to set him up to fail. Although I liked Simon I thought that he was under a large misconception that his knowledge of photography would compensate for his lack of business accument, something that he could have perhaps overcome with the support of his team.
Helene shocked and disgusted me when in the boardroom she blatantly lied to Sir Alans face when he asked Lucinda why she hadn’t brought her lack of technical knowledge to the attention of her team mates. At this point Helene confirmed what I thought all along – That she had set Lucinda up to fail whether it was through spite or to try and make somebody do a worse job than her in order to get her head as far from the chopping block as possible!
All in all I think what we have is a group of people using schoolground politics to play a game that is clearly way beyond their mentality!
Roll on Next Week!!!!
The ‘project manager’ has frighteningly little power compared to a boss in real life. If someone in his team decides not to play (as at least two of Simon’s team did this week), the only sanction he has is to take them into the boardroom with him IF his team loses (by no means a given on this show – no matter how many mistakes a team makes, there’s always a possibility that they will win because the other team have cocked up worse).
The boardroom ceases to be an effective threat to the backstabber, schemer or underminer if the firing decision is made on the person’s effectiveness. If Sir Alan chooses to overlook lying, buckpassing and bullying (despite Margaret for once speaking up to nail both Alex and Claire’s failings), then he’s effectively rewarding that behaviour.
I thought the worst behaviour this week was actually Helena’s – her treatment of Lucinda showed both intellectual and emotional f***wittage.
In contrast to what I said last week about the candidates having too much self belief, Simon actually seems to have too little. He seems to genuinely think that many of the other candidates are more talented than him – although I have yet to see any evidence.
When does ‘knowing your limitations’ cross over into ‘holding yourself back’?
Andy, I agree with you about the lack of project manager power. Surely it wouldn’t be hard to provide a simple incentive for effective team work and still make an entertaining program?
I can only assume that SAS decided that Simon was too weak in some way (he also seems to take a dim view of soldiers) and in Claire he saw some fire that he thinks gives her potential.
But it is indeed very hard to know what he is after.
Tom.