The Swift View Of The Apprentice – Episode Four
So with a 50 50 partnership at stake how did the thirteen candidates do this week.
I enjoyed this episode it separated the men from the boys, well the men with girlfriends that is. I would have thought Vincent would have really shone through this week, he knowing all about his cosmetics and that.
The Task in Episode Four
The teams met Lord Sugar in the British Museum where there is dinosaurs and stuff, to be told that they had to get in to the beauty industry. They had to choose two treatments, be professionally trained to apply those treatments and sell them to the public in Birmingham. A walk in the park for Susan then who is in the …….., oh what industry is it now, what does she do for living, I can’t remember, she didn’t really say what she did too many times, did she!
Zoe was placed as PM by Lord Sugar so she had the chance to shine for Team Venture and Felicity was PM for Team Logic. During the brain storming process of where to set up shop, Felicity was not happy that Tom was reading the brief and asked that he stopped reading, no input from Mr Notepad – Calculator required then. Zoe chose an out of town shopping centre with a 3 roomed treatment area, whereas Felicity went for a town centre area with one treatment room three floor away from the stand. Good or bad choice? We shall see.
After the teams were shown 8 different beauty products by experts they had to choose two of them. Felicity was let down with the tanning treatment as she and her team weren’t excited enough about the product, that would be Ellie then. Gutted by this Team Logic went for the shell massage and the hair treatment. Meanwhile over excited Team Venture landed the tanning treatment and the pedicure/foot massage. Each team had beauty products to sell as a secondary source of profit.
It was clearly a disaster for Team Logic, no treatments in three hours a TEAM decision to offer free treatments, good business strategy Felicity! The poor people of Birmingham were walking around in daft clip on fringes and hair pieces which were the wrong colour match completely, but that doesn’t matter, does it? And big Lady Gaga bows were also being thrust upon the poor public– Note to Tom – the singer’s name is Lady Gaga.
Team Venture however were romping in the customers for tanning and pedicure treatments. They weren’t so impressed by the tanning lotion offered by Susan, good decision made by Zoe not to really stock up this product despite Susan being able to sell the stuff on her own, as this is how she makes her money. The failure clearly landed with the “poor people” of Birmingham as Susan stated “these people have no money”, welcome to real world Susan.
The boardroom was interesting. Felicity made a great PM and the whole team agreed, although Ellie did confirm later that she was only being nice – that really made me laugh, go Ellie. Zoe told Lord Sugar that Susan give bad advice and hung her out to dry, just in case the team lost, interesting tactics by Zoe – would you have done this?
In the end, Team Venture made Lord Sugar £203.01 profit and won a fabulous night of dancing and being trained by stars from Strictly Come Dancing. Team Logic however made a massive loss of £246.28. Lord Sugar advised that Vincent and Tom were like a “couple of stalkers” and they needed to stop meeting like this, and Felicity finally made a decision and chose Ellie and Natasha to join her back in the boardroom.
When the ladies went back in they had a great shouting match, if only they were this energised during the task. Felicity decided that it was Ellie’s fault as she was not a team player, had no passion and failed to sell (to customers that weren’t being brought to her by Felicity and her team down on the stand!). Natasha didn’t sell enough said Felicity and that was it, more or less.
Felicity was eventually fired and left the boardroom. Lord Sugar advised Ellie to come forward in the future and as both Ellie and Natasha left the boardroom not one of them spoke to Felicity – Icy atmosphere or what!
I did enjoy the comment made by Vincent, in that he needs to be PM as failing the tasks is nothing to do with him. I want Vincent to be PM next time, and to fail and to get fired, he kettles my swede!
Your thoughts
Please comment on the show and give your views :-
Was Lord Sugar right to fire Felicity?
Any lessons learnt this week? – I think I have taken on board that in business you need to make decisions that are best for your business, not how they make you look as a person. Also when things are going wrong, be sure to recognise it and take swift positive action.
For previous episode blogs please see the Swift Business Networking Blog
