The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IV
Tonight’s task on the sales apprentice was to produce two original and natural body care products and then sell them to the public. The team leaders were selected personally by Sir Alan and were Noorul and Paula… let the battle of the ex public sector employees commence.
Paula’s Empire team quickly decided that they were going to produce a shower gel and a soap using seaweed as their natural ingredient. Given the importance of profit margins in this task, this was a smart move and made it a shame that the later mess-ups elsewhere on costing totally wiped this advantage out. Paula was quick to recognize her blind spot in the area of finance and appointed Ben and Yasmina in charge of costs and finances.
Sales training & leadership tip: As a business or sales team leader it is important that you utilize the skills of your team effectively. Different people have different strengths and different weaknesses and using these to your best advantage makes sense. It’s not often on the Apprentice (or in life) that people are honest about their own weaknesses but being honest with yourself is a sure route to self-improvement (For more on sales leadership see my book Motivate People).
Over on the other team, Noorul “I talk posh” and his team looked particularly uninspired, an air which they managed to carry with them right up until the final stages of the task. This team didn’t seem to gel at all tonight. Usually on the Apprentice this seems to be because there are too many queen bees fighting over the hive and not enough workers but tonight it did genuinely seem that none of them wanted to lead… particularly not Noorul. Eventually, and half-heartedly, Ignite decided that their products were going to be a bubble bath and a soap, both using honey as their natural ingredient.
As the two teams spread their energies between bee bothering, beach combing and mad-professor-like-tasks in the laboratory, Ben was hanging back from getting too involved, “At the end of the day, I’m a bloke and they’re girls… they know all about soaps and smelly things” he mused. And whilst Ben had his eye off the ball, Yasmina and Paula made a defining mistake, confusing Cedarwood and Sandalwood (the former costing about £20 per kilo and the latter over £1200). This monumental cock-up was to overshadow the rest of the task.
With their products created, both teams set about designing their “brand identities”. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but brand is not the same as designing a label and some fancy stationery. Brand is about identity, about values, about how a company is perceived by its consumers; it is not just a case of designing some fancy packaging. For sure, packaging is A part of your brand but when you’re selling on the streets for just one day you are not designing a brand anyway, you’re designing something eye-catching, or pretty, or striking that will help you to sell more… today.
And then Debra noticed the Sandalwood on the “recipe” and asked Paula why they were using an ingredient that costed £1259.90 per kilo? Paula responded that they were only using about a half a gramme; Yasmina, meanwhile, was pouring in 450 grammes.
Sales training thought: Know your costs. This blog is about sales and sales training. This blog is about building profitable businesses. This blog is about creating, motivating and leading market leading sales teams. This blog is about increasing sales and increasing turnover. It’s not about accountancy or advanced arithmetic but the facts remain that if your cost of sale is too high it matters not how good a salesperson you are or how great a sales team you can muster and Paula’s team were living testimony to this.
On the streets…
The next day saw our sales teams head out onto the streets to sell their wares. They had 8 hours to sell as much as they could. The team making the most profit (sales less costs, obviously) would win.
Empire secured pitches in Portobello Market, Notting Hill and in Bond Street tube station. From what little we saw they seemed to be having a good sales day.
Notable high points included…
- Robust pricing. After their slip up with the costs the day before, Empire had decided to sell at twice the price they had previously intended and did so with belief.
- Know your customers and your location. Well to do customers (in Notting Hill for example) are prepared to pay for premium products.
- Sell on value and not price. By outlining the quality ingredients (Ben telling customers that Sandalwood is over £1000 per litre), talking up the freshness (we made it ourselves yesterday) and using scarcity as a sales tactic (we only have limited supply), Empire were able to keep on selling at higher prices.
- Smart selling. At the end of the day when stock was running low they upped their prices rather than lowering them, stressing the scarcity of the product and the prestige behind owning it.
Noorul’s Ignite team meanwhile were selling in Carnaby Street and Camden Lock. Enthusiasm and rapport building were helping them all to sell a decent amount of product. All that is except for Noorul who, frankly, can’t lead, can’t manage and, it appears, can’t sell for toffee either.
In the board room…
Ignite had raked in £900.85, spent £406.88 and made a profit of £493.97.
Empire raked in £1073.20, spent £1141.24 and made a loss of -£68.04.
Ouch!
This result was a shame for Empire who would have won by over £100 if they had not confused Cedarwood and Sandalwood but a lucky escape for Noorul who surely would have landed on his arse on the pavement outside Sir Alan’s offices had Ignite lost.
Sir Alan was quick to say this was all about costs but I disagree because no-one was in any doubt at the importance of costs. The failure here was a failure of common sense and a lack of focus. Cedarwood is not Sandalwood and that’s that.
The narrowness and sheer luck of their escape was totally lost on Ignite… Noorul, “We absolutely destroyed the other team” and Howard, “This is not Noorul’s win, this is our win.” Err, no chaps, this was Empire’s loss not your win.
Back in the boardroom, Paula decided to face the music with Ben and Yasmina – choosing them as she had delegated costing to them and therefore she felt that they were most responsible for the catastrophic blunder. Paula quickly passed the buck to Yasmina and Ben saying that she had tasked them with the costings. This, however pathetic it sounded, was true.
Ben said he had nothing to do with the mistake itself which was partly correct although that in itself was an admittance that he had totally failed to do what he had been asked to do. Had he looked over the pricing as asked he would have either spotted the error or blundered in the same way as both Yasmina and Paula. Yasmina admitted to her mistake but said that she should not be judged on just one mistake but on how she then dealt with it.
After some debate and plenty of arrogant shouting from Ben, who clearly thinks he is the best thing since slice bread (“We were better candidates that you are… I did outstandingly on sales… I also got a scholarship to Sandhurst… The girls even said I was brilliant at selling…”) Sir Alan sacked Paula believing her to be ultimately responsible for the fatal mistake. As project manager, clearly she was responsible, but by this rational why not just sack the losing project manager every week?
But it was obvious why Sir Alan sacked Paula – both Yasmina and Ben make good TV and have big personalities. Yasmina shows sparks of potential and Sir Alan himself said he would like to see her in a project management role again. And, arrogant and annoying as he may be, Sir Alan is unlikely to let Ben go without testing him further to see if he is all mouth or all trousers. Personally, I think he’s too arrogant and too full of himself but time will tell.
So that’s it for another week.
What was your favourite sales tip and who would you have sacked tonight?
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Empire torpedoed themselves on Day One – I loved Nick Hewer’s masterful dropping of the bomb and then saying ‘Anyway, I’ll leave it with you’ before stalking off! Noorul was absolutely hopeless – I couldn’t believe that in a cosmetics factory of all places he couldn’t have come up with any idea about what to make. But none of them seemed to have much of a clue.
The sales points I picked out were:
Although Nooral wasn’t selling well at “fashionable” Carnaby St, the girls seemed to be doing okay, so I couldn’t see the benefit in upping and moving to Bond St tube. Although we’d already seen the other team do nothing at the Tube, they weren’t to know that, however a little common sense should have suggested that people at a Tube station basically just want to get on their Tube. They should have at least stayed at street level.
Ignite’s continual knocking down of prices at the end of the day to get rid of their stock smacked of desperation. On the other hand I thought Empire’s negotiation with a dealer to take all their remaining stock was quite an inspired idea. Was that Yasmina negotiating again? I’m starting to warm to her a little, I think she’s maybe more capable than I initially gave her credit for.
We thought in the boardroom Ben was talking himself into being fired (Sandhurst? Who cares?) and that Paula was unfortunate to get the chop after her team said she was a good PM. Though Ben talked up his sales, which AS probably liked – we’ve said at work for years that AS doesn’t want an all-rounder, he wants a barrow-boy like himself who just sells. The Guardian’s liveblog raised the suggestion that Ben and Yasmina were kept because they make good tv. But they all showed their true colours when Yasmina said she’d had to turn on Paula (and to me she seemed cut up about it), they all justified her by saying she’d done what she had to do i.e. stab her friend in the back. Honestly, you wouldn’t want to be on a team with any of them, would you.
Phil
I too loved Nick’s torpedo… brilliant. Yasmina’s face was a picture. And of course, you are totally right about interrupting busy people in the tube.
Ben has a major ego issue and I would have sacked him for that reason but, like The Guardian, I agree that they kept the people who might make the best TV and both Yasmina and Ben have plenty more mileage yet.
As for working on a team with them… not without a stab vest.
Sir Alan got it spot on again!
Paula got sacked because having clearly delegated costing responsibility to Ben and Yasmina she overrode them and did it herself.
Delegation is about giving other people responsibility and setting their expectations about what is required and what resources they can draw on. Once Paula started doing the costing herself she took the responsibility back and paid the cost. She did not even ask anyone to check her calculations!
She then went on to be far too nice to Yasmina – her mate – and tried to blame Ben – who, apart from being arrogant, didn’t do much wrong on the task.
Also, having realised her mistake (or rather having it pointed out by Nick) she simply doubled her prices. Why did she not calculate the unit cost and then double or treble it. They at least would have stood a chance then as they actually sold all their stock!
As for Noorul – I’m suprised Sir Alan didn’t just sack him anyway!
I don’t see why Ben should have been fired for Yasmina and Paula’s mistake. As I saw it, they made the mistake not by mixing up the oils but by misinterpreting the recipe and thinking they only wanted 3 grams and then by failing to double check their costings with Ben. He thought they were choosing the oils, which they were and I suspect he thought that they would go over costings before adding an entire beaker full. Indeed, when Deborah pointed out the cost later they still seemed under the impression that they had only used 3 grams when it was clear they hadn’t.
If Paula had blamed Yasmina for the mistake, perhaps the result would have been different.
I agree with Rachel, the show made too much of the confusion between Cedarwood and Sandelwood. They knew the correct cost per Kg of Sandelwood and simply misread the recipe and thought that only 3g was required and not 450g. However, how Yasmina didn’t realise that the beaker of oil she poured into the recipe weighed much more then 3g was staggering.
Personally I thought Paula deserved to go more for her bad taste in shoes then her performance in the task. After all even Nasa make mistakes in calculations using imperial measurements instead of metric so it just goes to show even Rocket scientists can make simple mistakes if they use the wrong numbers.