“This is a job interview from hell. I’ve been in business for 40 years. Your prize is working with me.” And thus we entered tonight’s third show with 14 wannabee apprentices remaining to fight for the chance to become The Apprentice. This week’s task was to transform two pubs by putting on food service. As usual, the team with the most profits at the end of the day would win. Sir Alan Sugar changed the routine slightly by picking the team leaders himself. He chose Sara for the girls, a trained barrister and … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part III
April 10, 2008 By 14 Comments
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part II
April 2, 2008 By 2 Comments
With another stirring rendition of Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights The Apprentice got under way. Another show, another early morning call that we got so familiar with on the last series. One of the boys answered the phone in a superman t-shirt... I wonder what sales training strategies and tips will we learn tonight? Tonight their task was to sell laundry services. Sir Alan Sugar had got the teams two industrial laundries and their job was to go out and win business, launder the laundry and then return it to their clients. They must … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part I
March 26, 2008 By 7 Comments
So here we go, 12 more weeks of The Apprentice and 12 more issues of The Sales Apprentice. Are we going to be wowed with amazing sales techniques and strategies? Are this year’s apprentices going to prove themselves to be sales gurus and experts? What sales training, business and personal development lessons will we learn? Will I regret ever starting this report at the start of the last series? Only time will tell... Towards the end of last season I was losing patience with the self-serving, self-satisfying apprentices. Would this … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, The Final
June 13, 2007 By 4 Comments
After last week’s flashback to what interviewing might have been like in “Life on Mars” with it’s sexist questioning tactics aimed at proving woman with children have to make their case to work, tonight’s episode was back to business as normal with a task.. This was billed as the “head to head” between Simon and Kristina but turned out to be more of a battle of egos between many of the “bit “ players. This was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern centre stage and it wasn’t pretty. Not so many … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part XI
June 6, 2007 By Leave a Comment
It’s not the job interview from hell for nothing and tonight we saw why working for SAS might really be hell. Not for him the subtleties of interviewing but the in your face, I need to know all about your personal life crash, bang, whallop approach. With no task this week, sales training tips were a little more subtle than other weeks… Maybe this approach will work? Perhaps we will we find out if any of the apprentices are actually drop dead shrewd? Or discover if Lohit really deserves to be there? Or uncover whether Katie really … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part X
May 30, 2007 By Leave a Comment
Week 10 of our Sales Apprentice and what a week! I was pretty much incensed for the whole hour. This was a sales training lesson in how not to sell and for once I would question SAS’s firing decision although I think it was fairly obvious why he did it… After a quick shuffle of the teams SAS set this week’s task, “You are going to be selling live on TV. The team that sells the most will win.” He told them to be careful about the products that they chose and then told the camera that if these products … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IX
May 23, 2007 By Leave a Comment
630am. The phone rings, waking our Sales Apprentices from their self-contemplation. Time for some sales training lessons. SAS would like to meet you in Greenwich. “We’ve done selling. We’ve done exporting. We haven’t touched importing. Billions of pounds of goods are imported every year.” SAS wanted our teams to speak to 5 countries who will each pitch 3 products to them. Our heroes are to decide which country they wish to work with and then sell those products to the trade. As usual, the team that makes the … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VIII
May 16, 2007 By 1 Comment
We've had sales training tips from The Apprentice from 3 countries and 6 different cities now… tonight I am in Birmingham half way through delivering my No Fear Cold Calling and Professional Selling Skills sales training seminars. My sound engineer watched the show with me tonight and had a few interesting insights on some of the more hip ideas… hey I never claimed to be cool! At the top of the show Ghazal was talking about the fact that SAS is considering the contenders seriously. I don't know what evidence she had to support … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VII
May 9, 2007 By 2 Comments
Ring! Ring! Ring! 6am and the teams are ordered to meet at the Lloyds Building. Cars will be with them in 20 minutes. Clearly, getting ready fast is important for big business people! How do all those Sales Apprentices get ready so fast? On arrival we found out that today’s task was all about “buying”. SAS wanted to test the sales negotiation skills of the teams by pitching them into a series of separate sales negotiations. To facilitate this, each team was given a list of 10 items which they had to buy for the least … [Read more...]
The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VI
May 2, 2007 By Leave a Comment
With the words that he was accepting no excuses about not speaking the language SAS set our intrepid Sales Apprentices the task - “take the best of British food products and sell them to the French”! Our teams were to buy their food and sell it from market stalls in an upmarket French town. With a quick balancing out of French speakers and the installation of Lohit and Paul as project managers they were off. There were plenty of sales training tips to choose from today! I have to say that I am beginning to wonder where the class … [Read more...]
