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What can the Apprentice teach us?

Written by: Helen Dowling

Article Overview: So, were you, like me gripped to the Apprentice final on Sunday night? I don’t know about you, but I was routing for Kate who I thought developed the best product and executed better than Yasmina. Why then, did Yasmina emerge as the ultimate winner?

What can the Apprentice teach us?

So, were you, like me gripped to the Apprentice final on Sunday night? I don't know about you, but I was routing for Kate who I thought developed the best product and executed better than Yasmina. Why then, did Yasmina emerge as the ultimate winner?

Well, having given this some thought, I think Yasmina displayed some of the traits that we can all learn from when we run our businesses.

Firstly, she didn't give up. Her chocolates ended up not tasting how she had hoped, but still she persevered and carried on through regardless. She explained this in the Boardroom by saying that her team only had 30 minutes with the chocolatier and she would have spent a week with them if she was doing this properly.

Also, even when she realised that her idea of selling chocolate to men wouldn't work, she didn't fall over and refuse to continue - she simply picked herself up, tweaked the idea and got on with it.

Secondly, she got on with things that pushed her comfort zone. Yasmina hated giving presentations to other people and yet, she stood up there and gave it her all. Yes, ok it wasn't the best presentation in the world, yet she still gave it and got on with the task at hand despite not looking forward to it.

Thirdly, she showed her passion to want to succeed. She had already achieved by creating a successful restaurant, but she showed how much she really wanted to win which shone through in the final.

Also, she understood her target market, really doing her research and then pitching her prices at £5 rather than Kate's over the top £13!

Finally, she understood her costings and was able to explain how she'd got to these and what profit the manufacturer would make from the sales. When Kate was asked the same question, she brushed over the answer and didn't make it clear.

So, what skills have we got there?

Perseverance, tenacity, commitment to learning and growing, knowing your market, having a real passion to succeed and understanding your costs.

Although Kate developed a good product, that's only half of the story and Yasmina displayed the skills necessary to win the Apprentice and be an excellent business woman in the process.

And these sound like skills that could be really useful in business, especially at this turbulent time - do you agree?

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Article Tags: 30 minutes, apprentice, boardroom, chocolate, chocolates, chocolatier, comfort zone, giving presentations, nbsp, passion, successful restaurant, target market, yasmina



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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