With Tom winning, does it mean the others have failed? Not at all. We have seen before that some candidates who have not won The Apprentice have done better than those that have. And it cannot be doubted that whilst most candidates who have appeared on The Apprentice would like to win The Apprentice, their main motive was not necessarily wanting to work with Lord Sugar.

For me, it became obvious that Tom was a strong favourite to win The Apprentice. How many times did we hear Lord Sugar saying he is a “product man” and that Tom was right up his alley? Add to that the number of times Lord Sugar warned Tom that the next time he appeared in the boardroom he would be fired, and yet each time he did appear in the boardroom he escaped! It does seem that Lord Sugar was determined to land his man at all costs; you then have to ask what the point of the show was. It does not take much to figure out that Tom had the worst record of all The Apprentice winners, and that being so, it seems unfair on the other candidates who thought they had a genuine opportunity to win it if they performed well during the tasks.

I am in no way doubting Tom’s value and perhaps Lord Sugar saw that of all the candidates his skills and previous experience put him in a stronger position to succeed in a real business venture. Clearly the fact that he had got his product into a major retailer showed Lord Sugar the opportunity for an instant win, and who can blame him for taking it from a business point of view. But then you have to question the whole point of The Apprentice – because what they like you to believe is that the best performing candidate will win it. But let’s leave that for another day.

For now, it is right to congratulate Tom Pellereau again for winning The Apprentice. I look forward to seeing how he gets on and also whether my opinion regarding the prize is correct!

I hate to say I told you do but…I did! A few blogs ago I predicted that the first chance Lord Sugar gets, he is going to fire Natasha. Low and behold, he got his chance to day and took it.

Clearly Lord Sugar can justify his decision anyway he likes because there never seems to be anyone analysing his performance in the boardroom – apart from me perhaps! Today Lord Sugar felt that with Natasha he couldn’t “reconcile some of the things that happened today.” We didn’t get to find out what he meant because there was no further clarification from Lord Sugar. To me it seemed like another one of those vague criticisms to which there was no substance; made only to enable Lord Sugar to say something critical for the sake of the camera in order to fire someone when in truth it probably was not justified.

After firing Natasha, he commented that it was a tough process and if the candidates could not hack this process, it showed him that they were not capable of being his partner. Honestly, it’s not a tough process at all. The only challenge is the continual race against time and I can’t help but feel that this was another firing on the advice of the producers. Perhaps Natasha wasn’t as big a personality for them hence her card being marked early on? You would think that looking at the task, the biggest failure was from the project leader Jim Eastwood who failed (or so it was made to appear) to formulate any kind of strategy or run the numbers to see if their business was a viable one. Had Jim analysed the figures he would have known what quantity he needed to sell every hour, and this would have enabled him to select a better/easier product to make. Focusing on what he needed to sell each hour would also have indicated to him that the process he had in place to produce the food was too slow. But other than a passing criticism, this seemed of no importance to Lord Sugar when deciding who to fire.

When Natasha tried to justify her position by pointing to the fact that she had fulfilled the responsibility she was given, Lord Sugar retorted “ah ah ah you’re all in the same boat. Don’t give me ‘my responsibility’. Everyone was supposed to pipe up to make the team win.” So today Lord Sugar was looking for the “we, we, we” approach; on numerous occasions before we have seen him advise the candidates to forget the team approach, in favour of the individual approach. Karen Brady and Lord Sugar spoke about the impact of the ‘gruelling’ process on the candidates. Personally, I’m not surprised that after so many weeks the candidates are looking bewildered; but I think it perhaps has more to do with the fact they don’t know what’s coming next from Lord Sugar, than any task they are being asked to perform!

In this episode we also saw another side to Karen. Her psychic side! In the boardroom she stated that Susan had pointed out how to improve the process in the kitchen. However, Karen was not even in the car when Susan suggested it! Clearly, she must psychic powers to have known this; unless of course, it proves my point that it’s the producers who provide the main feedback to Lord Sugar! I’ll let you decide.

To start with, it did make me laugh when Lord Sugar confronted Susan about her feeling that he had supplied the candidates with, in his words, “a load of tut”. I remember thinking the same once!

In the boardroom we saw Lord Sugar criticise Helen for never having been self employed, telling her that “you don’t just spring out of bed one Monday morning and say ooh I fancy starting a business….you have to have an idea and more to the point you have to have experience.” For sure you need an idea, and I’m glad Lord Sugar cleared that one up for us! However, I thought it was wrong of Lord Sugar to assume that just because someone has been employed their whole career, they either do not have the ability or know-how to start a business. I also disagree that having experience is a must have. Yes experience would be advantageous, but there are plenty of businesses like my company Life’s Dream, that help and support people without experience to start their own business. In fact, because Life’s Dream gives people the opportunity to start their own business part time or around existing commitments and without the need for any kind of investment, most of our enquiries come from people who have been employed their whole career. And if anything, this proves to be an advantage because their desire and willingness to build their knowledge makes them extremely receptive to the training we provide to bridge any experience gap. Franchises are another example where people are able to start their own business with the help and support of the Franchisor to bridge any lack of experience or knowledge. So in short, yes experience is useful, but not having any is not really a hindrance if you have the right support structure available to you.

Finally, we get to the firing. Despite Lord Sugar repeatedly telling Tom that were he to appear in the boardroom again he would be fired, that there would be no more chances, Tom escapes and Melody is fired. Hmmm? Ditto everything I have said before about the lack of consistency in the boardroom…

In this episode we saw how difficult it is to pitch to major retailers. These major retailers source products from across the world to ensure that they purchase products that offer them the highest return in the shortest possible time. Imagine the responsibility on their shoulders for getting a decision wrong. I wonder if the person who chose to stock Lord Sugar’s Emailer plus is still in a job?! Only joking Lord Sugar!

Clearly, pitching to large retailers is an area Lord Sugar has a lot of experience in. No doubt he was speaking from experience when advising the candidates that “if what’s in the box is rubbish,” the packaging does not matter. In essence the lesson here is the same as it was in the pet food task; that first and foremost the product has to be right. Without the right product, you can do all the marketing in the world, but you are likely to fail. That’s not to say marketing is not important. If you have a good product but the marketing is totally wrong, you stand to fail just as fast; but with the right product you can work on and improve the marketing a lot easier than having to change a product that is flawed.

Many people feel that wining a contract with a major retailer would be a massive step to success and overall there is little you could disagree with, but it is certainly not the be all and end all if you fail to get a national retailer on your books. These retailers may buy volume quantities but they will also drastically squeeze the profit margins of anyone supplying to them because of their buying power. So it’s not always the pot of gold it seems – pretty much like the £250,000 on offer on The Apprentice! An alternative would be to target multiple smaller retailers who may not buy as much, but where the profit margins are higher than would be the case (per unit) when selling to major retailers. For example, take our end to end ecommerce platform. Not only does it let people set up and run their own online store for less than the daily cost of a bar of chocolate, but it also allows suppliers from across the world sell to retailers across the world – giving suppliers increased orders and buyers the benefit of reduced prices. Vendimal even lets buyers sell supplier products without having to buy them first – a great way to start a business with very little money.

On to the firing. From what we saw Zoe’s fate was sealed because Lord Sugar believed that her failure to use her experience by going to the bakery personally was the reason the team lost. Ultimately the underlying justification cannot be doubted, but given how random the firing decisions appear to be, you can’t help but wonder whether had she gone, and then lost because of the marketing, Lord Sugar would have gone down the road of “So you went for the easy route did you. I see. You had experience in this field and did not want to take the risk of taking on something new. This is a business you know. And people will need to do tasks they are not used to doing. You haven’t shown me you can do anything else and I have to start thinking about who I want to go into business with. I’ve come to the conclusion…Zoe you’re fired.” But he did not so this could be a historic moment – is that two or three decisions during the series where Lord Sugar appears to have made a decision based on what actually happened during a task? That could be an Apprentice record!

Eight weeks in and I have become both bored and frustrated with the consistent inconsistency in the boardroom.  The candidates may be better off playing the lottery than trying to determine what the rules of the game are.  On the one had Lord Sugar states at the beginning of each episode that he is “not looking for a bloody sales person.  [He wants] someone with a brain.”  Yet here he is again analysing the level of people’s sales as an indication of their performance.  Holding Tom’s sale book up in the air he criticises Tom saying “No sales Tom….No sales Tom.”

Then we have Karen Brady criticising Melody Hossaini for individualism, asking Melody “did you not understand this was a team effort.”  Has Karen not been listening to Lord Sugar or is she confused with the whole process too?  You can’t blame her really, she can only go by what Lord Sugar says, and that seems to change by the week.  One week they are criticising the “we we we” i.e. team approach, and next they are criticising someone for not taking the “we we we” approach.  Board stop yo-yoing around and make up your minds about what it is that you are looking for.  This level of inconsistency would never stand up in the real world.

Finally, having made selling a mandatory requirement in this task from the outset with the sales book, Lord Sugar decides not to fire the only person in the final with zero sales! Instead he chose to fire Leon on gut instinct.  It’s comical!

At the beginning of the episode Lord Sugar stated the reason for sending the candidates to Paris was that he did not want “any new business of [his] restricted to the UK market alone”.  That’s ambitious given the prize on offer may be nowhere near a £250,000 cash injection.  But more importantly, he seemed to be unaware of what it takes to sell internationally in today’s global marketplace.  I say this because selling internationally is what my businesses do day in day out, and I therefore have real experience in knowing exactly what is required to be successful in the global marketplace.  It is fact that when selling internationally buyers are three times more likely to buy from businesses that sell to them in their native language, as opposed to selling to them in a language that is foreign to them.  This is not only validated by my own experience, but has also been shown to be fact by respected market research companies such as Plunkett Research and Forrester Research.  Clearly, Lord Sugar was unaware of this; had he been aware, he would not have criticised Leon for letting Melody use her French language skills to sell to the French and therefore would probably not have fired him either.

Further when criticising Leon, Lord Sugar gave the example of when he first started out in business and had to communicate with suppliers from China, Korea and Japan without knowing their language.  I feel it’s a bit of a misleading example because buying from a seller (which Lord Sugar was doing) and selling to a customer (which the candidates were doing) are two different worlds.  In Lord Sugar’s case, when he started out, the reliance would have been on the supplier’s from China, Japan and Korea being able to converse with Lord Sugar in English.  And you can bet they did a good job of communicating with him in his native language because he ended up buying from them! In short, it’s the ability of the seller to be able to communicate effectively with the buyer that increases sales.

So all in all, did we learn much from Lord Sugar today?  In my opinion it is impossible to decipher any lesson with such inconsistency being displayed in the boardroom.  What we can conclude fairly however, is that if candidates are being judged on a task,  the very least you would expect is for Lord Sugar to understand the principles of selling internationally in today’s market and therefore not criticise candidates without merit.

Given Lord Sugar’s previous misconceived stereotype of technically able people, it came as little surprise that Glen was fired.  In fact it was plainly inevitable.  In a previous episode Lord Sugar had wrongly stated that it was a very rare animal for a technical person to become a business person.  Today Lord Sugar went one step further by stating that he had “never yet come across an engineer that can turn his hands to business. “  Really?!  What about Bill Gates (Founder of Microsoft), Paul Allen (Founder of Microsoft) Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle), James Dyson (Dyson) to name just a few –  all previously engineers who are now multibillionaires!  Is Lord Sugar really trying to tell the millions of The Apprentice viewers that he has never heard of these people?!  And what about the thousands of other engineers or technicians who have their own small to medium sized businesses?  Again, surely someone who was previously an Enterprise Tsar would know this?  What kind of a statement does this make to those people who are technically able, who watch the show, and are thinking about starting their own business?

Lord Sugar made a reference to my favourite British sitcom, Only Fools and Horses.  He wondered whether Glen “was… one of those people who thought Only Fools and Horses was a business documentary.”  Well in my opinion you can learn just as much from Only Fools and Horses as you can from The Apprentice.  They both show you what not to do in business.  You would probably follow Lord Sugar’s logic in the boardroom as you would follow Del Boys’.  The only difference being it is explicitly clear in Only Fools and Horses, and requires just that little tad of thought on The Apprentice.  What’s more the rest of the similarities are clear; they are both meant for entertainment, ridicule business logic and have a heavy reliance on Sell, Sell, Sell.

In all this analysis of what Lord Sugar says one of two things is clear.  Either we do not see the real Lord Sugar, or his reasoning and judgement is flawed.  I say this because we do not see the kind of logical decisions or opinions you would expect of someone who has been as successful as he has.  For me it has to be the former because his decision making is blatantly inconsistent and has clearly had to be warped to make the right decisions for the benefit of The Apprentice as a show, which is totally different to making real business logical decisions or statements.

On a final note, given the way Lord Sugar handed the responsibility of team Leader to Natasha at the beginning of the show, I think we can safely predict that Natasha will be fired when Lord Sugar next has her in the final three of the boardroom.  Watch that space and let’s watch the justification for the firing especially if her performance on the task does not merit her being fired.

This week’s task.  Setting up a junk removal business. Collecting rubbish. Disposing of it and making as much money as possible.  Helen Louise Milligan was team leader for Logic.  Zoe Beresford was team leader for Venture.  Logic win by £6.  Zoe Beresford, Edna Agbarha and Susan Ma end up as the final three in the boardroom.  Edna Agbarha is fired.

This is my sixth week of watching The Apprentice and I’m struggling to keep the interest going.  However, I’ll try to persevere with my battle to see whether Lord Sugar can teach us any valuable business lessons whilst on the show for as long as I can.

For me, it was fairly obvious that once Edna Agbarha was in the final three, she would be fired.  I come to that conclusion simply based on the opinion that Lord Sugar does not respect education as a whole, and it seems he always has a point to prove whenever he comes across someone with a good education.  In this case his justification was that he did not think he and Edna would gel in business. Not sure where the criterion of one’s performance on a task went in that decision? I do wonder how many missed opportunities his attitude towards education has cost him.  I agree education is not the be all and end all, but it certainly deserves more respect that Lord Sugar gives it.

Furthermore, Lord Sugar was wrong to belittle Edna’s efforts in arranging the appointments that had earned her team their revenue, claiming it was simple to make a few random phone calls and arrange a few appointments.  Ask any sales person and they will tell you that one of the hardest parts of selling is cold calling/getting appointments from scratch.  You can’t tell me Lord Sugar doesn’t know that.  I am sure he does which makes you think that he was just lining Edna up to be fired.  However, if it is a fact that has missed his radar, then perhaps he should have replied in the affirmative when Nick Hewer asked him if he needed training from Edna!

It was certainly right to commend Zoe Beresford for stepping forward as Team Leader and also for admitting her mistakes.  Time and time again I come across people from all walks of life, and at all levels of the corporate ladder, that will not admit to making mistakes or are too afraid to make the right decisions because of a fear of failure.  If these people were able to put aside their fears, or spent more time learning from their mistakes as opposed to covering up their backsides, their companies or businesses would be in a much more favourable position.  In this respect, behaviour or characteristics that show this positive attitude should always be highlighted to help inspire others to do the same.

On the flip side I do think Lord Sugar could help the candidates and viewers learn more by clarifying some of his more vague criticism of the candidates.  When he fails to I do get the impression it is a superficial criticism with no real substance.   Only by being told what one’s weaknesses are, can one understand and attempt to improve them.  In this example, Lord Sugar told Susan Ma “I’ve seen a few things that you are good at.  But there are a lot of things I am not happy at all with.”   Well, ok.  But, why not tell her what he was unhappy with so that she could attempt to improve on those weaknesses in the next task?  Good constructive feedback is essential to improving the performance of employees and it should be no different for candidates on The Apprentice.

In conclusion on today’s episode, I have come to the conclusion that rubbish was the perfect theme for The Apprentice!

It was only last week at the beginning of the Beauty Treatment task that Lord Sugar stated all firing decisions will be based solely on a candidate’s performance during a particular task.  Yet in this task he fired Ellie Reed because he had not heard enough from her over the five weeks and he needed to start thinking about who he was going to go into business with?  From my experience I can pretty much guarantee that this was a firing for the ‘benefit’ of the show.  It’s always the case that if you are not an ‘in the face’ candidate, and therefore are not likely to get much TV time, it does not matter how much ability you have, you simply will not progress.  And let’s not forget it’s the producers who provide the real feedback to Lord Sugar.

It also came it came as no surprise to me that Vincent Disneur was fired.  Sure it was well staged from an entertainment point of view, but I think it’s always been clear that Lord Sugar does not like people who to him appear, as Del Boy would say…debonair!  The justification for firing Vincent Disneur was that he seemed to be over reliant on Jim Eastwood, but surely if you know someone in your team has particular strengths you should rightly be able to rely on those without being penalised.  It doesn’t mean that you are in awe of that person.  It just means, that as a manager, you are able to identify and therefore utilise the different strengths of your team.  Anyone in a real business environment would say the same; clearly The Apprentice and Lord Sugar don’t see it that way.

In terms of which team should have won, I can understand why Lord Sugar chose Venture.  Although the weaker advert, according to the experts their product Catsize was consistent, well targeted and very well thought through from start to finish.  This compared to Logic, who the experts felt had the better advert but whose concept of “one food for every dog” was fundamentally flawed because individual owners might be insulted by the product.  You can’t doubt the logic (pun not intended).  There is not much that you can do to a product or service that does not meet the needs or wants of its intended target.  However if the product or service does meet the needs of its intended market, the marketing can be improved.  The fundamental is having a viable product.  From that perspective, the right team won.

This task was about the best pitch and advertisement – not necessarily about the product that can be most profitable, so it was fundamental that the marketing strategy be correct.  Perhaps if Logic had targeted their Every Dog product at places likes Vets, charitable animal hospitals, and other similar places where many dogs are cared for at the same time, and where it may not be viable or cost effective for these organisations to buy different foods for each dog, their pitch may have been more successful.  Perhaps, the market would have been much smaller, but the marketing strategy would have been viable and hence the pitch.

The other valuable lesson is the benefit of using focus groups.  Provided they are appropriately selected to represent an adequate cross section of your target market, they can provide valuable information about your target market.  They can help anyone thinking of either launching new products or services or looking to improve their existing offerings.  They are easy to put together and only in rare circumstances would a business would go against the advice of a focus group.  However, that said, I know of several entrepreneurs who have gone against the thoughts of their target market and done extremely well by building a demand for their product or service. James Caan is one that is famed for saying that he achieved his success through “observing the masses and doing the opposite”.  It’s not an easy choice because it takes time and effort to educate users to create demand – but nothing is impossible if you have the ability, desire and belief in what you are doing.

We start with Lord Sugar warning the candidates by referring to the previous big hitter, candidate name, for being fired for failing the task. The warning is that all firing decisions will be based solely on a candidate’s performance during a particular task. Personally, I thought that was the whole reason for the ‘gruelling’ 12 week interview so not sure why he had to re-state it? However, I do know from my own experience, that when it suited Lord Sugar, he would choose to ignore that particular requirement and find some other reason to fire someone if he was unable to fire them for a performance related issue. For example, a CV or experience not matching what he is looking for, or from what I have heard in the past, firing a lawyer candidate (apparently) because he ‘did not need a lawyer’. Not sure what she was doing on the show in the first place then? Perhaps one of the producers told him off for not following the rules? Then again, they’re a timid lot, so perhaps not!!

But it’s about the only aspect of this episode that raises a real issue that a lot of employed people find in the work place; that, in many cases people progress up the ranks, not because of their ability or performance, but because their face fits or because they spend more time schmoozing up to seniors, than doing the job they are paid for. Schmoozing is something that I cannot stand and probably one of the reasons I was fired by Lord Sugar, because I said it like it was. However, nobody can doubt it takes place in the workplace, and of course it is wrong. So can anything be done about it? Not much if it happens on The Apprentice. But in the real world, yes. Whilst the employee has some options, much of the power and responsibility lies with the employer. The employer has the greatest interest in ensuring that this type of thing does not go on within their workforce, because ultimately, the promotion of lesser able persons will affect the performance of the business at some stage.

As an employer myself, my businesses employ a whole host of measures to not only ensure that the risk to my businesses, of high performing individuals not being recognised, is minimised; but also to help empower those employees who, with some assistance, can become high performing individuals. These measures cover everything from independently audited 360 degree performance reviews and regular performance feedback to things like performance development, training and cross-training. All my employees can also chat to me directly– even anonymously. That can sometimes bring up an interesting conversation or two! Nothing ever works perfectly but I can guarantee one thing, if someone is promoted without merit, the business knows about it very quickly because it is in our interest to know. It all helps create an environment where everyone is allowed to excel and one where we ensure progress is based simply on one factor: performance.

One other thought whilst watching the boardroom. Lord Sugar had told the candidates that the beauty industry is an industry he would have loved to have penetrated, had he not been in the technology industry. Amstrad’s anti wrinkle machine called Integra, a product labelled as belonging to “Amstrad’s new Internet Based Health and Beauty division”, was clearly an attempt at entering the industry. It was the project that Tim Campbell, winner of the first series of The Apprentice, was made responsible for re-launching. I did not hear much about it afterwards, so I am not sure how successful the re-launch was, but it does show that the Beauty industry is clearly one that entices Lord Sugar.

As was saw on The Apprentice, it is an industry where the profit margins are exceptionally high and one that offers individuals a great opportunity to start a business with a low cost base and high return. So I would not be surprised if Lord Sugar makes another attempt, at some point, to re-enter the Beauty industry. Maybe not with the Integra, but perhaps with An Apprentice as a partner! And with the kind of profits a successful venture in this industry would create who could blame him for trying third time? So, what do you think it could be? AMSnail Bar? AMSairdressing? AMSTan?

This task brought back memories from the first series when we had an identical task of having to buy 10 items for the lowest possible price and myself and Saira Khan (runner up of the first series) negotiated (some would rightly say begged!) for a free Freeview box worth £100. The rules appear to have been exactly the same for this task.

Having been through this same task, I can tell you that it was made clear to us that in addition to being penalised for any items we did not find, we would also be penalised for any items we bought at the full retail price. In other words, we had to negotiate a discount with the seller no matter how small it was. I can pretty much guarantee that the same requirement was present in this task. Therefore buying products at the full advertised price was simply not an option for the candidates. That’s why we saw them continually push for discounts even when it seemed they were bashing their heads against a brick wall. However, as viewers of the program we were not aware of this rule, I have no doubt that many were ridiculing the candidates for taking time to negotiate penny discounts. The ridicule appearing to be validated for us by the voiceover who remarked “8 minutes haggling 40 pence off the price”. Clearly nothing has changed with the misleading nature of the edit, but great entertainment all the same!

Now I could go on about various things that went on in the boardroom but there was not a great deal to comment on really. The candidates argued amongst each other over who should be fired, and I have already said that due to knowing how far the producers misrepresent what really happened, it would be unfair and hypocritical for me to comment on any of the candidates.

But what I do want to talk about is Lord Sugar’s supposed humorous one liner to Vincent. I was absolutely appalled and disgusted that someone of Lord Sugar’s position and experience found it acceptable to make a joke regarding someone’s origin by suggesting that Vincent ‘s ability to waffle was because of his Belgian origin. Whilst many people may have found it a humorous one liner, I could not believe my ears; and it has nothing to do with me not having a sense of humour. At a time when organisations have done so much to try to remove racial overtones from the workplace…here we have a peer of the House of Lords, someone who was once an Enterprise Tsar, making a joke at the expense of someone’s racial background? It is not a harmless joke and Vincent may have been too afraid to say anything, but let me say it for him. Lord Sugar should know better. Far better. Had that occurred in the workplace Vincent could have a right to make a claim under various race relation laws that prevent these kinds of comments. It clearly violated his dignity, was a joke made at the expense of his race/nationality, is not acceptable in the workplace and sure as hell is not acceptable on the TV in front of millions of viewers. And this was after last week’s episode where Lord Sugar spoke about the offensiveness of Slangatang! Hellooo!! You also have to wonder why the producers decided to broadcast it. Were they simply as impressed with it as Lord Sugar appeared to be or was it a complete lack of judgement on their part as well? May be they were doing it in the public interest to highlight that this type of incident can happen at all levels – even with a peer of the House of Lords? Can’t imagine it’s the latter because they would not have thought that far ahead.

When asked about the issue, unbelievably the BBC responded that they thought it was “a recognised and traditional part of British humour to make jokes about foreigners”. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is a belief or ideology that all members of each racial group possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, so are they saying they think British people are traditionally racist?! If it’s a traditional part of being British, shall we teach this tradition to our children? And this is the BBC?!

Was it really just a harmless joke Lord Sugar? What do you think?

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