Shout out to Bogel Bros which is again producing a lego animation of each edition of the Apprentice. If you don’t have time to watch the programme, catch-up each week on YouTube with lego versions of Sir Alan, Nick and Margaret and the candidates of 2009.
Lessons from The Apprentice, episode 2: budgets and product excellence
Week two of the Apprentice (available on iPlayer) was the catering challenge in which teams typically under or over order materials. The challenge required each team to serve canapés at receptions for a pair of law firms in the city.
Here’s what I learnt from the programme.
Management
Both teams sensibly selected a person from their ranks with catering experience. The kitchens worked well. It’s becoming obvious that candidates have all watched previous series before signing up for Apprentice 5. Hesitation is out and quick thinking and decisiveness is the order of the day.
Product knowledge
Knowing your product is critical in sales. Both teams struggled to make a convincing sales pitch because their knowledge was limited. Ten minutes with Jamie Oliver’s Naked Chef or the Nigella Lawson’s Domestic Goddess would have taught the teams everything that they needed to know about producing classy canapés.
Negotiation
Neither team negotiated well. The boys priced on the basis of a single call to an events organiser and pitched in a cost that was ridiculously high and went through a ridiculous pantomime of discounting. Both teams suffered financial penalties after agreeing to discounts.
Product excellence
Seth Godin says either be remarkable or don’t bother. Half measures simply won’t do. Clients of a city law firm do not want to be served by a bunch of hairy, pimply blokes in togas. Crisp black suits would have been much more successful.
After seeing the girls’ team serve up chunks of French stick topped with tomato (served as bruschetta) and a sloppy mixture of tomatoes and courgette wrapped in sweet pancakes (served as bellini) it makes you wonder what team leader Yasmina Siadatan produces in her restaurant.
Both teams produced lousy food. They cut costs and it showed.
The boys’ lost because of a number of failures: their product quality was poor (the girls’ was no better), they didn’t budget their food costs and as a consequence their pricing was ill informed, and they spent precious budget on costumes and room dressings that were unnecessary.
Team leader Rocky Andrews was fired. I had him down as a cert for the final based on his experience owning and managing a chain of 15 sandwich shops in the North East. But it was the right call and in a rare display of humility on the Apprentice Rocky admitted as much. This isn’t the last we’ll hear of him.
Lessons from The Apprentice, episode 1: focus on profit
The Apprentice is back. 8 million viewers and a lively back channel on Twitter (tag: #apprentice and others) are testament to the fact that the format is as strong as ever.
Episode one saw the 15 candidates split by gender into two teams and set up a cleaning business. Both teams set up car cleaning operations and generated respectable revenues in a single day of trading. The girls (Ignite) made the most sales but the boys (Empire) made the most profit by keeping their costs low. And therein lies Sir Alan’s first lesson.
Here’s what I learnt from the programme.
Focus on profit
There is a reason why the phrase “turnover is vanity, profit is sanity” is a cliché. It’s because it is spot on. In a start-up situation every £1 spent is a £1 that you are further away from breakeven and profit. The most important line in a P&L account is profit, then turnover and costs. It is crucial to keep costs as low as possible.
Business opportunities
Each team succeeded in negotiating deals with businesses that maintained fleets of vehicles. The programme didn’t dwell on this element of the task but it seemed remarkably straightforward. Either the opportunities were warmed up in advance or the show demonstrates the adage that business opportunities abound irrespective of the state of the economy.
Volume versus value
The boys ran a parallel shoe shining operating generating £60 in an hour at St Pancras Station. This is a low value business model that is reliant on volume. But the team chose its location smartly and was able to generate and turn around trade quickly. Had they sustained this activity for a day they would have generated significant revenue and profit as costs were low.
Process
Cleaning cars is not a complex job but without a process and clear roles and responsibilities both teams duplicated activities, ruined work that had already been done, and wasted time. The task of cleaning a car needed to be broken down into small chunks with a person taking responsibility for each and a clear sequence for each activity.
Management
Putting yourself forward as the team leader in the Apprentice is tough. Doing it in episode one is pure madness. Everyone is an unknown quantity and individual skills and strengths are unknown. The team management was poor but the level of bickering and bitchiness was extraordinary.
I can’t wait for next week.
