Hi Guys! I knew that I would be out this week and would not get to The Apprentice in time to write my review. Because of this I asked my good friend Andy Smith (who has been commenting on the series on my blog every week to write a review). Andy is an NLP, EI and AI expert so he has some interesting tips for us…

On that note, I can’t wait to get home… It seems I missed a decision from Sir Alan that without seeing it… Anyway…

Week 10 of the Sales Apprentice and we’re down to six candidates – three boys, three girls, and no place to hide. As usual the contestants are summoned to a damp Wandsworth Bus Garage (because “the red London bus is an icon of tourism”) and given the task of setting up and running a London tour company for the day, to get at the pockets of some of the 26 million tourists who visit London every year.

Stuart is moved over to join Stella and Liz in team Apollo as project manager, monitored by Karen, while Joanna joins Jamie and Chris as PM of team Synergy, shadowed by Nick.

So, Stella, Liz and Stuart on the same team! Stella and Stuart have crossed swords many times in the past, and after last week’s very uncomfortable post-boardroom moment, where Liz made it very clear how much she resented Stella having a go at her in the boardroom, should we expect fireworks there? Not a bit of it – the girls were back on friendly terms, while they were back to their usual relationship with Stuart – think “indulgent owners of a bouncy puppy who can’t stay angry with it no matter how many times it chews up the furniture or poos in the house”.

Sales training lesson: People sometimes snap at each other when they are under intense pressure. If that is a blip rather than a recurring pattern, professionals will not take it personally, move on, and not let it get in the way of the task.

Stella really wanted to do a Cockney tour of the East End. Liz and Stuart, obviously strangers to the delights of the jellied eel, aren’t so keen, but in the absence of any better ideas, go along with it. Stella would be the tour guide – giving Stuart the opportunity to make one of his trademark buck-passing comments to camera: “If we lose she’ll be responsible.” No Stuart, as Project Manager you’ll have at least some responsibility.

On the other team, Jamie elects to be the guide on a ‘Ghouls and Ghosts’ tour, which is fine with the other two.

There are essentially four parts to this week’s task: researching and planning the tour, negotiating with the London Visitor Centre so that your tour is the one they pick to sell, selling the tickets, and actually guiding the tour.

Joanna doesn’t have much faith in Jamie, so she accompanies him as he walks the route of his tour so that she could step in to the tour guide role if he doesn’t feel up to it. In addition to this vote of confidence, she chivvies and nags him every step of the way (or that’s what the show’s editing makes it look like anyway) to the point where he snaps and swearily tells her to back off. She says she feels threatened, although she doesn’t look it.

Sales training lesson: Don’t micromanage – it’s a waste of your time and it kills your staff’s motivation. You may want everything to go right, but you have to trust your team. Give them as much management as they need, but no more – if you pay attention to how they are reacting, you will be able to see the signs that they’ve had enough and head off any discontent long before it becomes a rebellion.

The other team make the somewhat bizarre decision to have the tour guide stay behind doing paper research while Liz and Stuart go round the route. As two of the posher contestants, the East End is not their natural stomping ground, and a bystander tells Liz off for patronizing a jellied eel stallholder as she asks him to cockernee it up with some rhyming slang when the tourists come round. Not walking the route will cause problems for Stella later when she doesn’t know how to find some of the East End’s meagre tourist attractions.

Stuart and Liz set the prices for their tour. “What’s your gut instinct, around £30-£35?” The guy in the London Visitor Centre is openly sceptical that anyone will buy it a tour at £35 (the going rate is more like £25), but they stick to their guns and offer the Visitor Centre a 25% commission.

Sales training lesson: Do some – any – market research before you set your prices! Stuart and Liz have set a premium price for a tour with no obvious premium features, and ignored feedback from someone who knows the market.

Negotiating the Visitor Centre for the other team, Chris adopts an ‘interesting’ strategy. He prices the tour at a reasonable £20, and offers only 20% commission – but on everything! All takings, whether the Centre or team Synergy actually sells the tickets. And 20% of the tips!

Project manager Joanna isn’t happy when she finds out, but did she set any negotiation guidelines with Chris before he went in?

On the day of the tours, the teams go out and sell.

As usual you can learn a lot of what not to do by observing Stuart. First he attempts to tout right outside the London Visitor Centre (until the scary manager lady warns him off), then with the whole of central London to choose from he goes head to head on the little bit of Trafalgar Square that is Chris’ pitch, then he tries to steal Joanna’s customers as she’s making a sale while making disparaging remarks. I’m not even going to dignify this one with a sales training tip…

Jamie’s final tour has no customers at all. It’s at three, while the other team’s last tour of the day is packed. Presumably because the later tour had more time to sell. The LVC doesn’t seem to be doing much. Could it be that because they are getting 20% of all sales, they are leaving it to the team to sell while concentrating on other tours that they get the standard 35% only on the tickets they sell?

In the boardroom: Apollo have made £834.30, while Synergy have made £1099.33! All of a sudden, giving the LVC 20% of everything turns out to be “innovative” in Lord Sugar’s words. Guess what he would have said about it if the team had lost?

Joanna, Jamie and Chris fly off to Jersey for an oyster and Michelin starred restaurant break, while Liz, Stuart and Stella mope in London’s gloomiest caff.

Back in the boardroom: get ready for one of the strangest boardroom decisions ever (and there’ve been plenty through the years). It looks like Stuart will go. What has he done really? What has he done throughout the show – his only demonstrated talent has been doing funny voices, his only demonstrated entrepreneurial quality has been bulletproof – no, nuclear-strike proof – self-belief. He upsets people, his sense of ethics is ‘different’, he’s bumptious…

On paper, Stuart also hasn’t performed. He’s sold £260 of tickets, while Liz sold nearly twice that at £505. It’s also not looking great for Stella as Lord Sugar describes her as “Steady Stella” – remember, he said at the start of the series “I’m not looking for Steady Eddies or Cautious Carols”. He also suggests that she had the easiest job as she didn’t have to sell.

Stuart and Liz, he says, were totally unprepared. He describes Stuart in very unflattering terms as “childish”. Surely he has to go? Stuart’s not going down without a fight, as he once again recounts how he has his own £3m business (he’s only twenty-one you know), and how he’s never had any financial boost from his parents – well they might have given him a tenner to buy a stock of yo-yo’s to flog at school. Lord Sugar is sounding very skeptical – has he done some research into Stuart’s real story and caught him out? No – the moment passes, and Stuart goes on to describe how much money he will make for the boss, and how he’s not a one-trick pony, he’s got a whole field of ponies. My favourite Apprentice tweet from last night really isn’t exaggerating that much:

@heatworld: “Stuart: ‘Lord Sugar: I’ll make you a unicorn made out of rainbows, together we shall run through meadows of joy forever’ #Apprentice”

(if you’re not familiar with ‘hashtags’ on Twitter BTW, searching Twitter on ‘#Apprentice’ will bring up most of the tweets about the show, and adding it to your tweets will make them visible in the wider Apprentice conversation)

Surely Lord Sugar will see through this nonsense. But no – he’s fallen for it! He gives Stuart another chance, and – amazingly – it’s Liz he fires, saying that she lacks a ‘spark of genius’. In the end, Liz just couldn’t come up with anything to challenge Stuart’s narrative. Even though it was all about the what he could do in the future rather than any results he’d achieved (although someone who has build a £3m turnover company at age 21 must have something about them), it was Stuart’s story that Lord Sugar bought into – possibly reminded of his younger self, though I suspect their starting circumstances were rather different.

What Liz could have said: Easy to be wise after the event I know, but Liz actually could have told a lot more convincing story: “No spark of genius? Well, if you want to set aside the record for the highest ever sale on The Apprentice (about £99Ks worth of heat-sensitive babygrows, if you remember). And my track record is based on solid achievements, week after week, rather than pie in the sky. And I get on with people rather than upsetting them….”

Sales training tip: This is actually more of a career tip. Everything you do is evaluated by bosses, customers and colleagues in the light of a ‘story’ about you that people stitch together in their own minds from what you’ve done previously. This story is not the objective truth – some facts will be emphasised, some ignored, to fit with what they think they know about you already. So what ‘narrative’ are you weaving about yourself? How are you seen by others, and what can you do to tell a better ‘story’ about yourself which will help them to judge your track record in a more favourable way?

Who’s going to win? It’s all up in the air now as Liz was previously looking like something of a favourite. What’s your prediction, and what did you learn from this week’s show?

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2010: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 7
2. The Sales Apprentice 2010: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 1
3. The Sales Apprentice 2010: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Week 8

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?

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part III
2. The Sales Apprentice 2009: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part II
3. The Sales Apprentice: Sales training tips from the hit TV show, Part II

Love them or hate them, tonight The Apprentice treated us to the “interviews” of Lee, Claire, Lucinda, Helene and Alex. There weren’t any sales training or business lessons to be learned and we didn’t get to see much of the interviews. You can’t learn much about interviewing from The Apprentice either unless you want the spirit if not the weight of UK Employment Law bearing down on you.

Still, let’s be straight here, this is not about interviewing, this is about sensationalist TV and nothing more. If someone with Sir Alan’s experience didn’t know who he wanted to recruit weeks before this and after all of the exercises they have been set, it would be a poor show!

And if you tried to interview salespeople in this manner you wouldn’t find any recruiters to recruit for you let alone applicants for your positions. This “dream team” of interviewers all make me look like sweetness and light but even I once got a stroppy call from a recruitment agency asking me why I gave their candidate a “hard time”!

But in the name of good TV, four (probably normally) upstanding business people made out that interviewing is something like a cross between an interrogation and a no-holds, full contact, ultimate fighting competition. Tonight’s contenders were Paul Kemsley (property developer), Claude Litner (Sir Alan’s former trouble-shooter), Bordan Tkachuk (CEO of IT firm Viglen, owned by Sir Alan) and Karren Brady (MD of Birmingham City Football Club).

So, before we get into any conclusions that could be drawn from tonight’s melee let me share with you what I wrote but did not have time to post earlier this week…

Hmmm…

So who would I hire? You know, I still don’t know. Let’s see how they do in the interviews this week. Last year these were very illuminating. Very illuminating indeed!

Welcome back…

So those were my thoughts and I don’t really think they’ve changed after tonight’s show. As tonight’s show was barely chronological and has no real business or sales tips to get our teeth into I thought I would cover it off like this…

Claire added £8m to the bottom line of her business yet only took home a £27k bonus. She was told that she hadn’t negotiated a good deal there!
Alex was described as a “former landscape gardener who now works in a supermarket”! That’s just rude that is… and Alex looked like he thought so too!
Alex got told that he must have some “thick friends” if he thinks that his skills are exceptional. He didn’t look pleased about that either!
Lee was shown to have doctored his CV saying that he had spent 2 years in a college when he actually left after 4 months. Not a smart move for a recruiter that one! We learned that he has an “issue” about his lack of formal qualifications.
Lee had a sentence in his CV that had so many mistakes in it that I would have been disappointed had it been written by a 10 year old. Sorry Lee but that is just not “what I’m talking about!”
Alex got told that his CV was boring and to say something interesting. Apparently, he didn’t!
Lucinda got told that she doesn’t listen by an interviewer who definitely wasn’t listening!
Helene apparently managed a team of 500+ salespeople. Why would anyone give that up for this? I just don’t know but then as my mum likes to say, “It takes all sorts!”

And take all sorts it does. Who do you know who would put up with this kind of boorish, oafish, idiotic and childish interviewing? At least Karren brought a modicum of decorum and sense to the otherwise pointless proceedings!

The panel were relatively split in what they thought. There were no amazing surprises from them and I doubt that anything they reported back to Sir Alan will in any way have changed his opinions!

On Alex.

They liked him. They liked the fact that he had been on a commission only role and they found him charming and likeable. Claude was the only dissenter finding him shallow and believing that he would require work.

On Lucinda.

Intelligent, bright and articulate but a big NO for Sir Alan. They thought that she would be a handful.

On Lee.

Paul Kemsley hated the fact that Lee winked at him at the end of the interview. They found him likeable but did not like the fact that he had embellished his CV. Karen thought he did a good job of selling a pen to her. They thought he would work hard.

Claire.

Karen thought Claire was fantastic, a doer, saying that she would employ her if Sir Alan didn’t. (Claire, that might be a better role for you…). Claude was not so sure, doubting whether her retail skills would transfer well. Bordan thought she didn’t listen and questioned if she might be pretending to listen now. Paul said he saw her as the holiday rep that she once was. A tad harsh that one.

Helene.

Claude liked her. Paul saw her as back room staff but said you couldn’t rule her out. Karen liked her. They were all taken with her rise from a troubled upbringing.

In the board room…

Sir Alan asked each of the candidates to give an account of themselves which they did and then Alex stepped in and attacked Lucinda for maybe not wanting the job. This was a shrewd move, effectively casting doubt on Lucinda and showing his passion for the job through his annoyance at her going for a job she may not want.

Upshot…

“Lucinda, you’re a little bit too zany for me. You’re fired!”

So who would be the next two to go?

Apparently, no-one! Sir Alan does not have enough information to make his decision. 11 weeks and 11 tasks and he does not have enough information? And him this amazing business person too! He’s virtually been employing them for 3 months!!! Oh come on!

How can he possibly not know exactly what he is going to do?

Sir Alan decided to take four not two into the final stating that this was because he thought that they all had skills and were “very, very good candidates” and he wanted to see more of them. I don’t believe this anymore than I see them as “very, very good candidates”. I believe that it was fall for TV but in that I think he was right…

It will be more interesting!

Next week’s teams for the final will be Claire and Lee versus Alex and Helene. Apparently the losing team is going to be fired in its entirety and Sir Alan will chose from the winning team. This would imply that Sir Alan really does not “know” who is going to win as it could be out of his control if his “favourite” loses! I find this staggering!

So here’s my thoughts on next week…

I would not, could not hire Lee. If for no other reason than that he’s an ex recruiter and there is no way he could have expected to have got away with that clanger about his education. Whether this will bother Sir Alan who knows!

I don’t think Sir Alan will hire Helene either. She’s too corporate and he has already questioned what she brings to the party. She would be a safe bet but I don’t think he will go with her…

So that should leave it a shoot out between the pretty boy and the motor-mouth, Alex and Claire. They are conveniently split with one on each team so Sir Alan should be able to choose from one of them…

But will he? What do you think?

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VII
2. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IV
3. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VIII

Well! Well! Well! What was that all about? What did you miss if you chose to watch Man U and Chelsea rather than tuning in to Sir Alan and his wannabee business moguls! After tonight’s Apprentice I was left feeling that something must have been left out in the editing, that something must be lost in translation somehow…

Tonight’s show was an odd one with few or no sales training lessons to learn but plenty of mini-lessons in personal development, management and presenting.

Week 9 – Atishu! Atishu! We all fall down.

At the start of tonight’s programme only 7 contestants remained and only 4 tasks separated them from ultimate victory but as one “unlucky” apprentice wannabee was about to find out, sometimes one bad task is all that is required to see you evicted on this show.

After a bit of team restructuring we were left with Alex heading up Lee and Lucinda and Raef heading up Claire, Helene and Michael. Their task was to create an advertising campaign for tissues consisting of the box, a press advertisement and a TV advert. This was snot an easy task!

Once they had created their brands and their ads our teams were to present to one of the UK’s biggest ad agencies and the team with the best presentation would win. You know the rest.

Raef was immediately in his element, “I have done a lot of theatre in the past” he stated, “I love advertisements”… I’m not sure whether these guys are “set up” by the film crew asking them questions to make them look stupid but you couldn’t help but watch this and think, “Are they setting him up for a fall here?”

On Alex’s team they were thinking of branding and started with the name, A Tish U… Atishu!

Back on team Raef they were getting somewhat carried away with the “story” but eventually came up with the name I Love My Tissues… A strange name this one and not one really representative of tissues at all. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think that anyone feels that passionately about their tissues!

Back on Alex’s team, Alex and Lee were not getting on too well with Lucinda. She, in turn, was not impressed by their “story” asking, “Who wants to hear about a normal bog standard family?” She suggested a story about homosexuality which was immediately rejected by Alex.
Seemingly to get rid of her, Alex sent Lucinda out to find a location whilst he and Lee designed the box for the tissues.

With two boys and a girl on the team, this was no doubt a flawed plan from Alex. Surely most tissues are bought by women and it would therefore have been logical to keep Lucinda involved with the branding and design…

Tonight I really did feel that we missed a lot of cuts as what people were saying really seemed out of whack with what we saw at times. Lee and Alex were adamant to camera that Lucinda was being unreasonable but from what we saw (whilst accepting she was a little negative) it looked a lot more 50/50 with them not wanting to work with her because she did not agree with them. I would have liked to have seen more of the “reality” of the situation…

Over on the other team however, we saw Michael and Raef behaving like they were creating a blockbuster movie rather than keeping their focus on the task in hand.

Sales training and business tip: As a motivational speaker I have the privilege to work with many different companies in a multitude of industries and it never ceases to amaze me how so many people can manage to focus their energies and attentions on entirely the wrong things. The key behind this task was to persuade the ad agencies that they had a viable concept not to persuade them that they were the next Spielberg… The second option might have been more “sexy” but it was always going to lead Michael and Raef down a slippery slope…

Next morning the tissue boxes arrived at the house. Lucinda did not like the boys’ efforts calling the box “ugly”. Lee thought it was “quality”. Alex thought it was fine. Lucinda and Alex were about to kick off in a full scale argument when Lee stepped in saying that what they needed was “cohesiveness” and that they needed to “pull together”.

Sales training and business development tip: If everyone in the boat rows in different directions as many of our apprentices seem to do then the boat is not going anywhere! Many companies and teams work really hard but with poeple working at cross purposes much of their potential is lost.

Over on the other team Raef and Michael could hardly contain their joy at meeting their “celebrity” star, Sian Lloyd. They both seemed convinced that she would be a real winner for their campaign. Even Sian herself was not so sure saying that if they Googled her they would know that she was not a mother (they were casting her as one), she was single and she had never worked with children. She also expressed surprise at the concept that they thought that she was “wholesome”.

Ed: But when all you’re interested in is fame, it’s not surprising that they did not consider any of these facts rationally! They were too busy meeting a “star”.

Raef and Michael meanwhile were joking about getting into the movies. This might have sounded like light banter but it masked a much deeper ill, they had lost sight of what it was that they were supposed to be doing…

In the editing suite Raef and Michal struggled to cut down their advertisement from 54 seconds to the required 30. Between the two of them they managed to decide to cut out the one close up of the tissues, a decision that would come back to haunt them.bClaire was not impressed by the finished ad saying that she was disappointed by the quality of it.

Cut to the pitch…

In the audience Sir Alan has placed 3 agency chiefs, a group of consumers and… himself!

Meanwhile Lee was doing some last minute rehearsing. Lucinda and Alex were helping him with his wording. Margaret commented to the camera that she thought that it was too late to be changing the pitch. Lee said that he was still struggling with the order of the pitch. This did not bode well!

Raef’s team presented first. The problem with these “sales presentations” as with the negotiations and the selling situations is that we never see enough of them to really judge what’s going on. Certainly, we seem to be getting even less of this, the good stuff, than we even did last year.

And then Lee came on to make his presentation…

Oh dear!

Lee is not a natural presenter. He seemed glued to his notes, seemed to be struggling to read them, seemed to get lost at one stage (and we only saw a few seconds!), had no flow to his pitch and seemed to use very unnatural language.

Sales presentation tip: Great presenters engage with their audiences not with their notes! Great presenters talk naturally and openly with their audiences. Great presenters base their talks around key benefit points not fact after fact after fact. Great presenters know how to get and keep themselves in a positive mindset.

In the board room…

Raef said that he and Michael had experience in drama!
Michael said that he had his own theatre company at university.
Sir Alan told Lee that his presentation was fumbly, unprofessional and poor.
Nick told Lee that Claire used no notes.
Lee said that he was absolutely gutted.
Alex said that he found Lucinda abrasive and border line upsetting.
Lucinda said that she buys a lot of tissues.
Sir Alan said that the brand name Atishu was excellent.

Sir Alan then played both ads to the two teams. During the playing of Alex’s ad, Raef and his team looked smugly on. You could see it all over their faces… They thought they’d won. They could barely contain their laughter at what they thought was an inferior ad…

And then Sir Alan told them that they had lost. Raef had created an ad for tissues with no tissues in it. Sir Alan said that he did not know what their ad was about and that it would not sell any tissues.

“This is not my opinion. It is the opinion of the experts.” Sir Alan barked, kicking a man when he was down.

Alex looked relieved. His smile appeared to be one of almost unbelieving relief. He clearly could not believe what had just happened.

Michael’s face meanwhile said it all – going, going, gone! “I love my tissues”!. You’d better, you’re going to need them. So finally we will get rid of Michael…

… Or maybe not!

Raef elected to bring back Michael and Claire.

Michael was quick to claim ownership of “everything” that Sir Alan had liked. Raef was, understandably, put out by this saying that Michael was being dishonest. From what we saw I would agree. Stupidly Raef backed himself into a corner by saying that he was totally in charge but then saying that Michael wanted to take the close up of the tissues out not him. A contradiction.

Sir Alan had a half-hearted attempt to rope Claire into the afray accusing her of not wanting to stand up and fight to correct the mistakes that she said shre saw to try and salvage the win for her team. But it not going to wash… no-one seems interested in her here.

Sir Alan to Raef, “You have been lucky to only be in the board room once…” and then, “Raef, you’re fired!”

What?!

So ok, he shot off on a tangent with the task, he got totally carried away with the whole filming thing, he should have know better, he didn’t manage his team particularly well but, seriously, how can you elect to keep Michael and fire Raef? What are Sir Alan’s criteria?

So where does that leave us tonight with our sales training and business development tips…

Presenting well is a key skill.

In every walk of life the ability to present a clear and compelling message and to engage an audience is critical. Whether you are selling face to face, pitching a product or an idea or motivating a sales team you need to be able to present naturally and persuasively.

If this is an area where you do not excel at present, fear not. Anyone can improve their presentation skills with practise and dedication. Here are a couple of tips…

Improving presentation skills, tip 1: Awareness

The first stage of improving your presentation skills is to be more aware of how good, or not, you currently are. Most salespeople take feedback badly. Most salespeople go on the defensive when they are given feedback. This is a shame as without feedback you will struggle to become self aware and without this awareness you will struggle to improve.

Improving presentations skills, tip 2: Practise

Practise is the key to making good presentations. Do not confuse practise with rehearsing 5 minutes before the event! Practise is a constant focus on improving your overall ability to present in any situation.

Anyone can create opportunities to practise their presentation skills whether with clients or with your peers. Many people who would benefit most from this practise are the same ones who avoid it!

If you really cannot find any opportunitites to practise then try your local Toastmasters club where you can practise inside the safety net of a specialist club dedicated to helping you to improve.

Don’t do like many business and salespeople do and put off working on your presentation skills until you have a huge pitch coming up… Even the week before a life changing pitch is too late… start now!

Improving presentation skills, tip 3: Be natural

Great presenters learn how to present naturally. They don’t pretend to be anyone else. They don’t copy others. They show their audience their true genuine selves.

People today are bombarded with sales and selling messages all day long. Some of these messages are amateurish. Some are incredibly slick. You may never be the best presenter in the world but that doesn’t matter… People will connect with presenters who they see as being genuine, presenters who they see as connecting with them.

You don’t have to be the best presenter in the world, you just need to be the natural, genuine, you!

Improving presentation skills, tip 4: Constant improvement

No matter how good you are or how good you think you are, you can always become a netter presenter. Making sure that your mindset is focused on constant improvement will steer you away from falling into bad habits and mis-steaks!

One of my favourite questions to ask myself after making a presentation is, “How could I have improved that presentation?”

(If you want to know more about making powerful and persuasive presentations then check out my Powerful Presenting seminar schedule.)

So there we go, a strange decision tonight and one which leaves me none the wiser as to what Sir Alan is looking for. I’m really interested in knowing your thoughts so let me have your comments below…

Who do you want to win? Who do you rate and why? Who should go next and why? Is there anyone worth hiring??

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VII
2. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VIII
3. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VI

Lights! Camera! Action! We were down to 10 but by the end of the show these 10 were to become 8! What went on in tonight’s Apprentice and what sales training and business development tips, if any, could we learn from it?

At the start of tonight’s programme I was concerned for Sir Alan… Could it be that there is no-one remotely worth hiring in the show at all this year? I’m really not sure and not much occurred to change my mind tonight although there could yet be some dark horses to watch for…

7am. Michael answered the phone to be told that they were going on a two day business trip. “Unbelievable,” he responded. Not really Michael! On telling the rest of the house we could hear several female sounding voices erupt in screams.

Where have they got these people from? If their CVs are to be believed (and they certainly cannot be taken as gospel – see Michael’s Jewish intro later) they are already successful business people so why the juvenile celebrations over a two day trip to Marrakech? You’d think that they had just been told they were flying to the moon and back…

Next morning in Marrakech the teams awoke to their task which was to buy 10 specific items and return to the hotel by 630pm that evening with those. The team who spent the least amount of money would be the winner.

Our teams were to go forth and haggle, negotiate, barter, beg and trade to get themselves and their teams the best possible deals.

This show had promise…

1. There should have been plenty of negotiation, selling, persuasion, influence and closing tips. We should have had plenty to learn and apply. Unfortunately, these lessons were, by enlarge, never to appear, being replaced instead by far more basic lessons and…
2. I have been to Marrakech as a motivational speaker to speak at a sales conference where the sales teams did a very similar (although rather more stretching) exercise in the Souks. I was looking forward to some tips and ideas that I could share with future clients wanting to do something similar…
   Unfortunately, they weren’t to materialise and the teams I went with were significantly more successful and creative in their efforts in the Souks than our Apprentices!
3. On a more personal note, I personally bought some silver jewellery in the Souks and I was interested to see how their experiences of “negotiating” compared to mine…

Before they started, Sir Alan rejigged the teams sending Jennifer and Michael to Renaissance and Sara to Alpha. I don’t know about you but I have lost the plot with these teams. The players have been substituted so many times I have no idea which team is which! The only permanent thing about the teams seems to be their names and their affiliations to Nick and Margaret.

Lee and Jennifer were made team leaders. I was looking forward to seeing these two in action. Jennifer because I have previously thought her somewhat ineffective and incompetent and Lee because, until last week’s attack on Sara, I thought he was a potential dark horse…

Raef was quick to get into the spirit of things and suggested that they would all be able to negotiate more effectively if they dressed in local garb. Given the pigeon French that we heard on the flight over it is unlikely that this would have fooled anyone. Fortunately, this idea was rejected quickly by the team…

Lee suggested that they should start the project off by getting on the phones and locating the items before they set off. This made total sense. Planning and preparation was going to be key to covering the ground necessary to get the items that they wanted at the best prices.

The Souks really do represent mile after mile of shopping opportunity but as I found, it is really easy to get lost if you don’t keep your eyes on where you are going. This might be fine for me in my touristic ramblings with my Canon camera – but not so good for people on a strict time budget and with a mission to accomplish!

Jennifer was not as wise as Lee and elected instead to push on into the Souks and hope for the best. A poor strategy by anyone’s standards.

Despite her lack of research Jennifer’s team were lucky to stumble upon an orange Santos juicer. Alex and Claire pretended to be a couple and tried to negotiate together. Unfortunately, we did not really see enough of this negotiation and I would have loved to seen more. Suffice to say however that the scenario did not play well and resulted in them agreeing a ridiculously small discount of only £1!

Sales training and negotiating tip: When you are entering into client negotiations with another member of your team present it is critically important that you agree rules and boundaries for how you are going to work together. Claire thought that she was free to speak as and when she wanted. Alex, on the other hand, felt that there were too many cooks spoiling the broth and that only he should speak.

Negotiation tip: Understanding the core games that buyers play, recognising the psychological pressure that these put you under and learning to deal with them will greatly improve the results that you get from your sales negotiations.Introducing your own games can work well (e.g. good cop / bad cop) but if you get caught out game playing you could well severely compromise your negotiation position.

There is a great story told in personal development circles about a factory owner with a broken down machine. He tries everything that he can to fix it but cannot get the machine working again. Eventually, he calls out an expert who takes one look at it and then hits it once with a hammer. The machine is fixed.

The factory owner is delighted until the bill arrives for £1000. He rings up the expert and angrily asks how the bill could be £1000 when it only took 5 minutes to fix. He asks for a break down of the bill.

The expert responds with the following:

Hitting the machine £5.
Knowing where to hit it £995.

The moral is clear. You can run around in your business like a headless Kosher chicken but if you don’t know where to put your effort you are unlikely to be successful.

Lee, having observed this cardinal rule of business and selling, had spent part of the morning on the phones and planning and was looking good..

Meanwhile Michael was reminding us what an arrogant idiot he is, “I am an extremely arrogant person,” he said not beating around the bush in any way! He then blundered into a deal on a cow hide knocking the dealer down from 2500 dirhams to 825. He was ecstatic about this and later boasted of his prowess to Sir Alan.

Like any good cock fight you really ought to know the size of the cock before you start crowing about your big cock. Across Marrakech in the tanneries Raef had bought their cow skin for a mere 250 dirhams, a price so good even he could not believe it! From what we saw he did not negotiate at all so he may well have been able to get it cheaper still!!!

Back in the Souks Michael was trying to buy 1.5 kilos of Kosher chicken. I have never seen such a fiasco in all of my life. Michael, whose CV apparently started with words something like, “I am a good Jewish boy” did not know what Kosher was. Later in the board room he was to protest that he was only half Jewish. Well, I’m not Jewish Michael and even I know what kosher food is.

(Interestingly, I did not think that Kosher food needed to be blessed and it is implied later on in the programme that they were penalised because it was not blessed correctly. According to this article at Judaism 101 it would appear that the blessing bit is a myth…)

On planet Jennifer meanwhile her team were having difficulty even sticking to the script, buying a white mosque alarm clock rather than a green one and some unbranded Tagine dishes rather than the branded ones that Sir Alan had requested. Surely when they bought them for 100 dirhams rather than the guide price of 800 they might have suspected something???

Nope!

With time ebbing away both teams resorted to desperate measures, Lee’s team scouting the streets for an orange juice machine and Jennifer’s team looking for a green alarm clock…

Chasing one of their last items, tennis racquets, the teams found themselves in the same shop. Jenny (and a non complaining Michael) offered to pay the shopkeeper to tell the other team that the racquets could not be strung that day. This outrageous idea was rejected by the shopkeeper…

Last chance lesson in sales training, business development and life: Attempting to get ahead by underhand means is unacceptable. What’s more it rarely works.

I remember attempting to get into an account once that one of my friends was working with. He had it sewn and stitched it right up and my chances of getting an opportunity were slim until… he personally attacked me in the account. An underhand, untrue and unprofessional slight on me. The prospect, who until this point was barely talking with me told me exactly what had been said, told me that he did not like his attitude and gave me all of the business…

A sales lesson for all indeed. But back to the show…

In the final moments of the task Lee managed to secure an over priced second hand juicer for 120 dirhams. Cue another round of screaming and shouting. “Come on!” yelled Lee… (see my “Why People Think Salespeople are Stupid” article of mid week referring to Charlotte Ross’ piece in The Evening Standard)…

Back at the hotel Nick told Sir Alan that Sara and Lucinda were “a revelation” this week. Margaret said that Jennifer was a bit “scatter gun” in her approach.

The results were in…

Alpha had spent £413.61 and all of the items were present and correct. Renaissance had spent £449.60 but two items had incurred penalties so their final figure was £603.59.

Alpha had won and headed off for a hot air balloon ride at Leeds Castle.

Back in the board room next day Sir Alan was not happy…

“Good evening.” He barked.
“Bonjour,” came back the reply.
“What’s the significance of bonjour?” Barked Sir Alan. Now, now Sir Alan… I think you know!
“Just wanted to say it in French” stated Jenny.
“I see.” Said Sir Alan grumpily.

What a stupid conversation.

Sir Alan then attacked Jennifer for not doing any research. Claire said she thought Jennifer was OK but messed up by getting the wrong colour alarm clock. Sir Alan rightly pointed out that buying a clock was not brain surgery…

Now there’s a scary thought… any of this lot with a scalpel messing around inside your head… Enough to give me nightmares for a month!

Alex meanwhile was attacking Claire for basic negotiation errors. Have you noticed how Alex, at least once per week, manages to preface some statement or other he makes by reminding us that he is in sales?

And then there were some rapid fire attacks…

Alex said the negotiations were not his fault (very slippery shoulders that one), Sir Alan told Jenny she was older than the others and should know what Kosher was (not sure age has much to do with it), Sir Alan said he could check if Michael was Kosher by pulling his trousers down (not sure that’s a particularly useful technique Sir Alan), Michael said he was only half Jewish (and?), Sir Alan said that he could fire all of them right now (Ed: Go on! Go on! Please!)…

And then…

Alex admitted a mistake buying the wrong pottery, Jenny said Claire was hard to shut up, Claire said she thought she was doing a boyfriend / girlfriend role play, Michael said he did the best deal of the day (cow hide), Michael called Jenny a liar, Margaret accused Jenny of a cheap trick over the racquet strings…

And Sir Alan sent them all out. A shame that he did not sack them all really…

He then called them back in and asked them if they had a clear vision in their minds as to why they should stay?

Jenny was the first to speak. Sir Alan listened and then responded by saying that she was listening to what he had to say and then basing her arguments on that. “Jenny you’re fired”.

Thank goodness. I’ve not rated her since the first time that she opened her mouth. Bye!

But Sir Alan was not finished, “Right who’s next?”

Jennifer was next up admitting that she did not pay attention to detail but that she did her best to rectify her mistakes. Sir Alan pointed out that it was not even her who noticed the mistakes.

Michael then stepped in to say that he had made a horrific mistake with this Kosher business.

Alex, said that he gave it 100%.

Not the best answer but Sir Alan seemed happy and asked him who he would fire. Alex said Claire. Claire then said she would fire Jennifer as there should be some accountability. Jennifer then said that Claire was like the Tasmanian devil and should be fired. Michael said that Claire was “fabulous” as a project manger and Jennifer should be fired.

Claire and Jennifer then started arguing with each other only to be interrupted by Sir Alan, “Here’s my next move. Alex – go back to the house. I’ll see you on the next task. OK. You three go outside. I am going to have a chat with Nick and Margaret and then one of you is going to get fired.”

Back in the board room the games continued but Sir Alan decided to sack Jennifer holding her responsible for the failed task and accusing her of changing like the wind. “Jennifer you’re fired”.

Not a bad decision because she was incompetent although personally I would have probably sacked Michael too.

I do find however that the board room shenanigans are becoming a bit of a farce. It seems the whole thing is designed to promote aggressively Machiavellian tendencies. I dread to think what non-business people must think about the world of business. In the real world, this lot should be judged on results and results alone not their ability to play some TV friendly game in the board room…

Back in the house Raef said that he hoped that they all got fired for lack of integrity… I didn’t like him in the first show or two but he seems to have mellowed a little (or is it just that I was still hopeful for a star then?)…

Whatever, I’m coming around to him… a little…

So what sales training and business development lessons did we learn from tonight’s show? Not the ones that we would have hoped to have learned that’s for sure. Certainly not top negotiation or influence tips nor selling or closing tips…

Planning and preparation is essential.

Yet again the good old sales training and business staple of making sure that you have planned and prepared effectively. Lee’s team spent the first part of the task on the phones planning who they should visit and marking out their time.

This saved them valuable time and energy on the ground and meant that they could focus their activities on getting the results that they wanted.

Most sales and business people do either to little or too much planning and preparation. Knowing when to stop planning and start taking action is as important as knowing how to leverage your planning and preparation efforts to work smarter not harder.

Work as a team.

Lee seemed to have a greater control of his team than Jennifer who seemed to have as little control as she did planning.

Team spirit and shared goals and aspirations are essential if you want to create high performance sales teams.

Be straight and honest.

Salespeople hate being called dishonest, shifty and elusive yet clients did not just make this stuff up one day! Some salespeople are dishonest, shifty and elusive (as people are in all walks of life). You need to make sure that you are not one of them.

Jenny’s dishonest tactic was underhand and unacceptable. I would have sacked Michael for this too. He had neither the strength to stand up and say “No” to her nor the strength to admit he was in on it fully to Sir Alan. He was hoping to surf the wave whichever way it went.

Because of the bad reputation that some salespeople have many clients throw up barriers to the sale and lock salespeople out. You cannot disarm these barriers with fast talk and schmooze. The only way to unlock them is by being straight and honest with your prospects and clients (see my 6 Psychological Keys to Sales Success in my Professional Selling Skills programmes).

I’d be real interested in hearing your thoughts on the 8 remaining Apprentices. It’s midnight and I’m in a hotel in Ireland… I’ll let you know my thoughts later in the week…

Related posts:

1. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training & Business Development Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part VI
2. The Sales Apprentice 2008: Sales Training Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part IV
3. The Sales Apprentice: Sales Training & Business Tips From The Hit TV Show, Part V