Its that time of the week again folks! Wednesday nights always seem to draw around quicker as we get through the series – and tonight’s episode of The Apprentice was not one to miss.
Photo Credit: BBC
Woken up at 5am (and told as always the cars will be there in 20 minutes!) – the 13 remaining candidates were told they were heading off to Royal Albert Hall. One funny thing about The Apprentice is trying to work out what the venue will have to do with the task. Sometimes it’s obvious, and other times it is so obscure you wouldn’t guess it in a million years. This was the latter!
Lord Sugar told the candidates that in 1901 – the Royal Albert Hall hosted the worlds first bodybuilding competition – and that the team would be going to Birmingham exhibition centre to sell fitness related products. Both teams were told they must select a high end product – and also a service to sell to consumers. Due to his success selling last week -Lord Sugar moved Kayode from team Typhoon to Team Collaborative. Lord Sugar reminded the candidates that he expected everyone to sell – something that should have been ingrained in everybody’s minds!
And so the mayhem began! Sarah was appointed project manager of Collaborative after an impassioned pitch for the job by Rick – who then could only muster one vote from Kurran supporting him for the position. Sabrina emerged as project manager of Typhoon.
It all started off reasonably well – with both teams splitting to choose the high end items and focusing on what service to sell.
Sabrina, Alex and Daniel decided on the high end item of bench pressing equipment – easily the best of the options available. An awkward moment came when Alex repeated three times if the items were ‘guaranteed’ in the post – which to be fair was a legitimate question to ask as it’s something that a consumer may have asked. The seller however didn’t seem very impressed. Sarah for team Typhoon also chose the bench pressing equipment – however in her pitch for the right to sell the product, she focused a lot on price discounts as opposed to asking questions about the actual product.
In the end the seller chose for team Typhoon to sell the product– but gave a warning about Alex’s understanding of the product. As a result – Collaborative were stuck with selling saunas – easily a harder sell than a bench press!
On the sub teams – Typhoon chose spray tanning whereas Collaborative chose massaging.
A particularly funny moment was the suggestion that to maximise profit they could spray tan ‘body parts’ and charge by the body part. This all sounded a bit too dodgy to me!
Also what stands out at this stage of the series is the candidates who are sitting back or not performing to their full potential. Two clear candidates stick in my mind – Kurran and Rick. Both seem to be either sitting back when they can and not contributing to the task – or when they contribute – it doesnt seem to make much difference!
The usual rush for sales ensued – as amusing as always watching candidates spray tanning people when they have never used the equipment before, or trying to sell a sauna to people who clearly aren’t interested.
Going into the boardroom it wasn’t clear who had won – but after going through the ins and outs of both teams it was team Collaborative who won – thanks in part to their sales of the massage.
In the final boardroom – project manager Sabrina bought back Alex as he hadn’t sold any products – and sub team leader Sian as she was responsible for the tanning.
Alex was eventually fired – after what seemed to be talking himself into his own firing. He was not responsible for the failure of the task – but Lord Sugar felt that what he had seen of him over the last few weeks didn’t give him confidence that he could be his business partner.
On to week 5 we go!
The Apprentice continues Wednesdays on BBC One.
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