Tony Nicholls
The Apprentice, now in its sixth week, sees things starting to hot up, with the candidates getting down to business. This week they headed to Scotland to create gourmet street food.
The show is now in its eighth series and provides more than just a fly-on the wall insight into the business world. Now the show is about characters and who can simply say the most outrageous thing!
The candidates that are competing to be Lord Sugar’s business partner are supposedly the so-called entrepreneurs of our country, and honestly, if these are the people that are apparently going to help drive us out of this double-dip recession, frankly we are worried.
Candidate Katie asks tourists in Edinburgh, ‘What do you think I am selling?’
Phrases such as when Jenna asked “What if people come to the stand and speak Scottish?”, and when Katie asked to a bus full of tourists, “What do you think I am selling?” whilst wearing a pizza fancy dress outfit and getting the answer “pizza?” replies with “No, you have to think outside the pizza box…..it’s Meatballs!” makes us seriously doubt the business mentality of these candidates.
Dancing in the street, wearing a pizza outfit to sell meatballs? Costing street food at £5.99? It is a wonder these people got to where they are today! Where are all the sensible, level headed business entrepreneurs that set up successful businesses? Well, running successful businesses it would seem!
It gets to a point where you start to wonder whether the show is just about making a show or whether it is about actually finding a person with real business acumen?
At least Lord Sugar still seems to possess enough business integrity to question the approach of the candidates, and we for one would be really interested to see the unedited version, to see just how much he really pulls apart the candidates’ businesses strategies and approach.
But thankfully, last night’s show definitely saw the better ‘business’ team win, which was encouraging. The branding was better, the ingredients were better and the sales strategy worked, plus there was good leadership and they strived to clinch the win. It was a risky strategy to make the dishes with such costly ingredients, but if you have faith in your sales team and you know they are going to do well, then sometimes in business those risks can pay off.
A good product, rightly priced, no gimmicks, no fuss. Just a good, honest product will always shine through. Did you watch the show? Is there anything you’d like to get off your chest? We’d love to hear from you!
Shaz Manelli
