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Apprentice - What an utter shambles

Guest post by: Andrew Rondeau

Article Overview: Be warned – this posting reveals who has been ‘fired’ from the sixth episode and the rest of the post is only my observation and opinion based upon 60 minutes of edited TV, nothing more.

Apprentice - What an utter shambles

What an utter shambles. Can I say that again? What an utter shambles. It feels good saying that and I am referring to the latest episode of The Apprentice.

Both teams were dreadful. I believe the ideas in this show were some of the worst ever, in the history of The Apprentice!

No common sense from any of the delegates.

There, I said it. What do you think?

The task: Create a new occasion for a greeting card and sell the idea and the cards to three top retailers.

Sir Alan (SAS) chose the Team Leaders. Kevin was one, Michael was the other.

Kevin’s team for an occasion card was ‘Save The Planet’, an environmental card.

So who is going to buy and send a card which is preaching about what you should do about the environment.

And then the best part of the show. Jenny who came up with the idea of the ‘Environment Greeting Card’, was so passionate about saving the planet and said, “I don’t buy cards because of the impact on the environment” (or similar words to that!). What? Did I hear that correctly? You, Jenny, thought of the environmental card idea and you wouldn’t buy one? Fire her on the spot, PLEASE.

Please, please let me know if you would buy one of these ‘Environment’ cards.

Raef in Michael’s team found a gap in the card market. Buy someone who is single a card.

Now, who is going to give someone a ‘singles’ card? Rub it in, why don’t you.

Everyone else gets a lovely valentines card, I get a ‘well done for being single’ card. Well, thanks a lot my friend – that has really cheered me up.

After the design of the cards, both teams had to pitch to the retailers to ‘sell’ their cards.

Kevin said he wanted to take ‘some kind of responsibility’ and decided he would do the pitch. It was a disaster. He should have picked the best person to do the pitch – that is taking responsibility.

When you manage a team, always, always, always use the strengths of the individuals around you.

Remove your own ego. Jenny or Claire should have delivered the pitch.

Raef did a decent pitch to his retailers and the singles card was slightly better than the environment card.

Therefore, Kevin’s team lost.

Not only did Kevin make the mistake of doing the pitch himself, he did not take Jenny into the Boardroom with him. A big mistake, which cost Kevin his life in The Apprentice. I am convinced SAS would have fired Jenny.

So who can win this years Apprentice?

Well no one really stands out and I think this year’s delegates are far worse than previous years delegates, don’t you?

Therefore, in my opinion, who could win:

Claire – strong, driven, creative, decision maker

Raef – respected, charismatic, confident, great talker

Lee – confident, easily builds relationships, gets things done

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Article Tags: apprentice, card idea, cards, common sense, delegates, disaster, ego, gap, greeting card, jenny, occasion card, sas, saving the planet, shambles, similar words, sir alan, taking responsibility, team leaders, valentines card



Related Forum Posts
The "Young" Apprentice - I think a cool new idea for "The Apprentice" would be to have all young contestants, rather than just selling sex (e.g. Season 6 in Los Angeles) or using celebrities for ratings. Maybe every applicant for the show would have to be between the ages of 15 to 18 or 18 to 22, since there've been seasons where younger contestants have been stereotyped and discriminated against for their age and limited business inexperience (e.g. Lee Bienstock in Season 5). So why not make the stomping ground fair? Why not have an Apprentice Season where only talented youngsters fight over a job with Trump? I mean, it gets kind of boring hearing the contestants say "I'm older and have more business experience than so and so.... and that's the reason you should hire me Mr. Trump." That's a ridiculous argument because many youths are smarter and more successful than people even twice their age.
Re: The Celebrity Apprentice - Episode 10 - [quote="litekepr":3ax40azh]I don't agree with Piers just calling his friends to buy things, but in sales you use what you have and he has a contact list. Its a shame they did so many of that sort of projects this season -- I don't think it added to the show in any real way. Maybe one or two weeks that would've been fun to watch - but not this often.[/quote:3ax40azh] Hi Shri, I agree with you that we can't fault Piers for using his connections to win, but I think this week's episode would've been so much better had they not been allowed to invite their contacts to purchase art. The Celebrity Apprentice contestants should've been restricted to only sell to people who randomly visited the gallery on that night (just like in the 1st season of "The Apprentice").
Re: The Celebrity Apprentice - Episode 5 - [quote="Tami Szabo":214vsguq]Vinny really shot himself in the foot by resigning and then saying something about Piers being a stronger leader. Really, this is about finding the best leader and Vinny just confessed he didn't think he was. He didn't really leave Donald Trump much room to fire Piers after that statement. On the bright side, I was very impressed with Carol as a leader. She is someone I would definitely want to work with. She was respectful of her team and seemed to really utilize the talents of each. I have to say she shone! I haven't watch The Apprentice in the past so it's great to see some "nice girl" do well after some of the previous episodes where nice girls got sent home without necessarily showing their true talents.[/quote:214vsguq] I think the major difference between this season of "The Apprentice" and the previous ones is the fact that Trump isn't looking for the best leader or person to hire. Being the winner of "The Celebrity Apprentice" is simply about doing whatever it takes to win the most amount of money for your respective charity (i.e. the last person standing has the honor of delivering a $250,000 bonus check to his/her designated charity). It's all about following the show, "Survivor's" tagline of "outwit, outplay and outlast" and that's why Piers is a strong contender.
Re: New Apprentice - will it be a bust? - [quote="Evan":12gjs7wz]Being a fan of the Apprentice I admit that the quality has decreased since the first season but I was sad to see that they canceled the show. I was excited to hear that the show would be making a comeback but it seems to be less and less focused on business tasks and more about bringing in celebrity guests. [/quote:12gjs7wz] I really enjoyed the first season of the apprentice and it has gone down each year since then. The commercialization hasn't helped his ratings -- maybe that should be an indicator to go back to the original premise. I'd like to see the left and right hand people in the board room not just be yes men and woman. If he had celebrities who actually had business experience, that would be one thing. But, haven't we seen enough reality shows flop even though they had past and present "celebrities"? I haven't missed an Apprentice episode yet, but that might change this year. Shri
Re: English TV Programme - I really like the Apprentice when it was running on SABC3 here in South Africa. It is the kind of programme that should be on our TV


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