The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part V

This week on the Sales Apprentice the task was for our two intrepid teams to come up with a brand identity for a new product – Sir Alan’s new breakfast cereal concoction. He wanted them to name it, create a brand, think up an identity and produce an advertisement to pitch it to an agency. The team with the best campaign would be the winner.

Leading Ignite this week was marketing consultant Kimberly and leading Empire was licensing development manager Kate.

From the start of the task the two teams could not have been more different – Empire seemed to run smoothly and harmoniously whilst on Ignite Kimberly, Lorraine and Philip picked up where they left off last week with bickering and arguing appearing more important than the task in hand.

Kate’s team came up with the idea of calling their cereal Treasure Flakes and used a quirky little cartoon, parrot pirate called Captain Squawk. Ben, clearly taking on all the “action” tasks this series, dressed up as the parrot and did his bit for the advert.

Kimberly’s team meanwhile were struggling to have an idea of any credence and eventually settled for an off-the wall campaign using a cartoon character called Pants Man. This was possibly the maddest idea that any apprentice has ever come up with and was the brain child of Philip who steam rolled it through by sheer force of will. Check out this incomprehensible nonsense from Mona who clearly had no more idea what the messages was than I did, “…when you eat our serial you won’t dress up like Pants Man because you’re not pants man and only Pants Man can wear his pants over his clothes”. What?

To top it all, the box of cereal they had designed was puke green and was only illustrated on the front facia, the others being left blank because they “ran out of time”. Kimberly was uninspiring, uninvolved and unworthy of the role of project manager.

She wasn’t supportive either. When Mona was practising her pitch Kimberly was full of criticism and when asked why she didn’t make the pitch herself (as she was so experienced) she said that she did not have the time to prepare that late in the day. Later on, when challenged by Sir Alan on this point, she admitted that she was not “completely comfortable in front of an audience”. On the evidence we saw, I am not sure quite what she would be comfortable doing.

She did however score one of the best lines of the show when she was “apologizing” to Mona for her lack of support which she managed to do without taking any responsibility for her apology and blaming Mona again at the same time, “I’m sorry you’ve misinterpreted my body language.” Fabulous – she has to go.

After the presentations and in the board room Kimberly’s team were relatively supportive of her with the exception of Lorraine who seemed determined to rub Sir Alan up the wrong way by distancing herself from the team and the project and coming across as genuinely awkward. Even Sir Alan, clearly bored with her, had to hold up his hand and say, “Shhh! I’m getting vibes from you.”

Kate’s Empire team had obviously enjoyed working for her and if there was anything to be learnt from tonight’s show it would be about the importance of having the right personality and attitude to be a leader. Kate is beginning to look like a possible contender. Even Captain Squawk acknowledged she was good a project manager and the team really did seem to have worked well as a team.

Not surprisingly, Kate and Empire were safe leaving Kimberly and Ignite to face the music…

“This is total garbage… how you think you can possibly believe you can have an advertising campaign based around pants… this is total rubbish”, yelled Sir Alan.

Kimberly elected to bring back Lorraine and Philip.

In her defence Kimberly claimed, “I am not a creative, I manage creatives.” Hmmm, a definite case of delusions of grandeur. At no stage did she appear to manage anything, she couldn’t even manage a side or back illustration onto the packet, she didn’t manage Philip and she didn’t manage to win.

That said, I’d have cut my losses and let both girls go. Sir Alan had this to say, “Lorraine I’ve listened to you and I’m trying to weigh up in my mind whether you are responsible because you are disruptive… Kimberly you have  a marketing background, you should really have walked this thing… Philip, you know, very cock sure people that bulldoze ideas through is not what I am looking for… I have to weigh up who I am going to forgive… Kimberly you remind me of the final scene from the Wizard of Oz you look very impressive but in my mind behind the curtains there is nothing there.”

And Kimberly was gone.

So not many sales training tips tonight but some examples of leadership – from Kimberly how not to do it and from Kate on how to do it. Here are just a few…

1. Be approachable and personable so that your team will communicate with you, confide in and support you.
   Despite their competitive, cut-throat, egotistical personalities, Kate’s personality and approach really did seem to ignite Empire.
2. Encourage involvement and participation.
   Kate encouraged discussion and equality from the off. She delegated well and got the best out of her team.
3. Create team spirit.
   By involving all and creating one common direction, Kate crafted a team which pulled together, took responsibility and got results.
4. Take responsibility and make decisions.
   Kate got her team moving forwards whilst Kimberly flannelled around and failed to make decisions leaving her floundering team with too much time on their hands to fight petty arguments.

So that’s it for another week. What did you think of tonight’s show? Who do you think is looking good? Who has to go soon?