Apprentice - week 7

[zico]

Another week of Titans v Nebulous and there are still far too many hopeless people around. The Lord needs a multiple firing or two. This week it’s the trade show task, selling stuff to nautical but nice people in Poole. The Lord mixes the teams up a bit and anoints PMs – Nebulous have Fran who hasn’t yet been in a winning team, while Titans are given Karthik, so both teams are equally handicapped. Karthik brags to camera about being such a good project manager, he project managed the conception of his child. Come again? He’s an odd one, even by Apprentice standards.

The teams have cheap, medium and high-end (never “expensive”) products to select and sell. Karthik asks his team who has experienced of “high-end” selling. Samuel says he has, so Karthik puts him in the team selling the cheap stuff. OK. Karthik can’t make a decision on which products to pick, while his team has steam coming out of their ears and just say "yes, yes, whatever" when Karthik leans slightly towards one product.

For the high-end items, the teams have to decide which they want to sell, and convince the vendor to pick them. On team Nebulous, Fran and Sofiane look at a speedboat and a jet-ski. Sofiane’s persuasion technique is to tell an obviously unimpressed vendor how much he enjoyed being on a speedboat on his holidays once. He then tells the jet-ski vendors he really enjoyed his ride on their jet-ski and it was really great. He seems to be understand the impression his irresistible charm will win them over. Team Titans simply ask boring questions about the products, its features and what price the vendors want. Both teams want the jet-ski. Will Sofiane’s charm of Titan’s competence win the day? Silly question. Titans get it, throwing Sofiane into a huge all-day sulk.

Selling day, and it’s a horrible wet windy day in Poole. Team Titans have Courtney and Grainne looking at the jet-ski's instruction manual and testing each other’s knowledge while potential customers walk past behind them. Karthik puts on a towelling robe, clutches an inflatable fish and asks passers-by if they want to buy a £15k jet-ski from him. Unsurprisingly, they don't.

Titans sell 4, maybe 5 jet-skis, but it’s subject to credit checks, so could all disappear in the boardroom. Team Nebulous sell a speedboat (again subject to credit checks). Fran tells potential buyers that the boat has a canape, while pointing at the canopy. The high-end items are so big it doesn’t really matter about selling the cheap stuff, but Dillon (with the neatly-trimmed beard) is looking desperate rather than good at selling. Jessica does particularly well by being cheerful, chatty and lying a lot (always a good strategy).

Boardroom time. Lord says “Was Karthik a good project leader?” and the team say “hell, no!”. Results time and Karthik’s Titans sold £188 while Nebulous sold £40,000. Now that’s what you call a proper win. Nebulous outsold Titans by 50-fold. Fran is overcome with tears of joy at stopping her record run of losses. Their super prize is to row a boat under Olympian James Cracknell’s tutelage. Meanwhile, back in the boardroom, the Lord tells Karthik he’s so bad he doesn’t even trust him to pick 2 of his team to come back in the boardroom, and fires him immediately, then picks another 3 to come back.

Back in the boardroom, Alana says she was only 2 fish pillows behind Dillon when it came to sales. If that's a new unit of measurement, her team lost by 2,000 fish pillows. It’s now between Alana, Samuel and Dillon. Alana is told off for being too quiet, Samuel for not being a team player, and Dillon for being nice but useless. Samuel digs his own grave by interrupting both the Lord and Claude, saying “that’s not true” when they are saying things about him that are true.
Back at the house, Dillon says “it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy from now on”. Personally, I think he’d do better with “No more, Mr. Useless Guy”.

[pottager]

Great to get Apprentice reviews back, thanks zico. I can't believe Fran got away with her canapes not being ridiculed on "Your fired!"

[servodude]

Have a rec