The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 3

Welcome back to The Sales Apprentice! It’s week 3 and we’re two boys down. The girls think that the weakest boys have gone and they will have the weakest link this week but I’m not so sure…

Tonight’s task was to find 10 items for the Savoy Hotel which was just finishing a 3 year, £200 million refurbishment. The team which could find the 10 items in one day and spend the least money would be the winner.

Simples. Or so you might think…

Lord Alan positioned this task as one of organization, of negotiation and of buying skills but in many ways it was just a parody of a task. Let’s face it, asking a team of people who don’t have a clue about buying for hotels to locate, negotiate on and buy items which have to be in stock now within one nine hour working day is not really a serious business task. Lord Alan said that if he goes into partnership with any of them they’d have to buy well so this was important. Personally, I’d hope that anyone going into business with him would be somewhat more prepared and give themselves rather more time to complete an important task like this!

After a quick reshuffle of the teams, Susan was elected team leader of Venture and Gavin stepped up to head Logic. In his own words Gavin considered himself to be a “worthy business partner” of Lord Alan. As he said this, I marked his card… the production team only let you have lines like this if you are going to dive headlong onto your sword later on.

You might be wondering at this point what the 10 items were and I’m not sure I got them all but I’ll have a stab…

1. Chamomile flowers tea.
2. 3-ply toilet paper.
3. A top hat.
4. Signage.
5. Fillet steaks.
6. Crushed ice.
7. A cloche.
8. Some chandelier bulbs.
9. Some silk.
10. And something else… any ideas?

From the off, Susan was pretty organized and in control of her team. Gavin , on the other hand, was somewhat of a shambles and I am sure he actually said at one point, “Calm down! Calm down!”

On Susan’s team, Jim was off to a fast start, chasing down the steaks. I like Jim and, although it’s too early to make any predictions, based on his actions so far, he’s unlikely to be going soon. His phone call however was not so great, “We’ll be in later, I’ll buy steak and shake your hand.” And therein lies one of the problems with the lack of time afforded to this task. What kind of negotiation can Jim possibly hope to conduct when the supplier knows that he has travelled to see him, he has already committed to buy and he has no alternative supplier?

Sales training tip: When conducting sales negotiations, positioning is power and the relative power of the parties dictates their relative negotiating positions. If you have no options and the person negotiating with you knows it then you effectively kill your ability to negotiate.

Suzy, meanwhile, was using the art of closed questioning to very poor effect in her attempt to secure a deal on a top hat. “Is there any kind of price you can hopefully go down to?” A closed question that deserves a simple, “No” answer. And, you know, psychologically she knew it too using the word “hopefully” in there.

Hope is not a sales strategy.

Gavin’s team had belatedly flown the nest to do some shopping and Natasha was showing us how to underwhelm your seller and your position by saying that the only money she had was £20… sorry £40… £50… oh, oh, OK, then, deal at £60! Oh come on. It doesn’t require a genius to see that you can only offer a deadline once and if you are going to say “all the money I have is” you can’t then go up in price without undermining your position and looking like a charlatan or, even worse, a liar.

Back on Suzy’s team, Suzy was making one of the biggest mistakes that people make when negotiating… she was trying to win. In Suzy’s case she was standing her ground for a 1 pence discount just to prove a point. Point proven Suzy, you had your ass-kicked and you got petty to try and make yourself feel better.

Sales training tip: Negotiating is about agreeing terms, it is not about winning points. One common mistake sales and business people make when negotiating is to compete to win concessions and score points and to forget to keep their focus on achieving a positive outcome.

But Suzy was racing streets ahead of Gavin’s efforts. He needed to take off his rose-tinted glasses and open his eyes to reality. He was losing this task… and you didn’t need 20/20 vision to see that!

How’s this for desperation?

Gavin: “Can you do anything cheaper at all?”
Seller: “No.”
Melody: “You look like a nice guy to me…”

Ugggh. Shoot me now…. Actually, no, fire them.

Despite their pole position Suzy and team were having a last ditch attempt at losing the task by considering buying some tea for over £900. And not a whole Clipper full either. But they managed to secure the tea at half price (bargain!! not!!) and they raced back to the board room…

In the boardroom…

Gavin and Logic had only managed to locate 6 out of 10 items and hadn’t even managed to figure out what a cloche was. Suzy and Venture had done better with 9 out of 10 items but in their haste to “complete” the task had spent £1381.69 to Logic’s £1389.20.

Phew! Messages to people…

Suzy… you so nearly threw that away.
Gavin… you nearly got lucky.
Lord Alan and the production team… time to change this task, it’s flawed. The teams need more time to plan and prepare. These are key ingredients of buying and negotiating. And ingredients that are necessary to prevent the silly situation where you have a team that pulled well together to buy all bar one of the items (albeit some of them at inflated prices) nearly getting beaten by a team who couldn’t even locate all of the items and at times looked like self-combusting.

Suzy and her team celebrated and Gavin looked crestfallen. There’d be no Ferry Across The Mersey for him tonight. The Lord Sugar steamer was pulling away from the station and he’d no doubt be walking alone.

In a last throw of the dice, Gavin elected to bring back Vincent and Zoe. Vincent because he is pretty annoying and there’s a good chance that his gerbil-stylee-tache and 80’s footballer reject haircut might have irked L’Alan (Lord Alan) and Zoe because… well… because she has only spoken once (I think) in three programmes so maybe L’Alan will cull her.

I reckoned Gav’s only chance was if Sir Alan didn’t want to sack the team leader again but it’s clutching at straws….

Sorry Gavin, it’s a short one. “Gavin. Frankly I wouldn’t work with any of the three of you but I think you’ve cocked this up the most so you’re fired.” Ok, so that’s not what he said, but it’s what I would have…

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week I
2. The Sales Apprentice 2011: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 2
3. The Sales Apprentice 2010: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 6
4. The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IX
5. The Sales Apprentice 2010: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 1