This week saw the 13 remaining candidates told to set up
their own DIY business and try to make a profit from basic jobs. This involved the two teams
providing quotes for two jobs set up by Lord Sugar, handyman tasks for a
football club and a theatre, as well as to try and drum up their own business from
flyers and knocking on doors. For sales professionals this episode was particularly
interesting as the key to success in the task involved negotiation to try and
get the best deals possible, as well as generating business in the first place.
Lord Sugar has shown just how much he values sales skills in his future
business partner, firing Dan in the first week for his failure to sell. So how
did the candidates get on?
Awful Negotiating
Throughout the whole of the episode I’m sure sales professionals
across the country were shaking their head with astonishment as to how bad all
of the candidates were at trying to secure a good deal. The biggest mistakes made
by the teams from a negotiating perspective came when offering a quote for
redecorating the dressing rooms for a theatre in London. One of the first rules
of negotiation is to know what price you’re offering for a service and to try
and stick to it. Team Connectus did not seem convincing at all when initially
offering £777 for the refurbishment, only ten seconds later changing their
price to £877. Comically, Brett tried to cover up this mistake by suggesting
just how good a service they were offering, before mincing his words telling the
theatre manager ‘I am an expertise in my field’. Not the most impressive pitch.
Team Versatile had the opportunity to capitalise on the
other team’s price mishaps offering an initial £560 for the theatre
refurbishment job. Astonishingly, after some of the worst negotiating in the
world the team ended up doing the job for only £375! Negotiation is about
creating a ‘win-win’ for both parties, not just for price but for the service
offering as well. The negotiation led by Richard ended up discounting the price
by £200, whilst the service still included the same amount of hours of work to
complete. A good strategy may have been to change the service: offer cheaper
materials to try and regain some profit margin, or to remove a part of the job
to reduce the amount of hours needed to complete the project. In the end the
team spent a large amount of their time on this task for not a huge amount of
money, a key reason why they lost the task.
Generating Business
Quite often the key to securing a large volume of sales is
to manage your time effectively. The balance between prospecting for business
and actually securing deals needs to be right, wasting your time on one sales
channel can really hinder your efforts. Yet again the candidates were not good
business examples, with Team Connectus wasting a whole day on ‘market research’
to try and find out the best areas to clean windows! With only three days to
generate sales what a waste of time this was! Somehow Team Versatile seemed to
match their dismal efforts by missing the deadline to print fliers, talk about
a rookie error…
If your name isn’t out there it’s going to be very hard to try
and gain new business. From both a sales and business perspective this week’s
apprentice is not a very good model to follow!
Throughout the whole of the episode I’m sure sales professionals
across the country were shaking their head with astonishment as to how bad all
of the candidates were at trying to secure a good deal. The biggest mistakes made
by the teams from a negotiating perspective came when offering a quote for
redecorating the dressing rooms for a theatre in London. One of the first rules
of negotiation is to know what price you’re offering for a service and to try
and stick to it. Team Connectus did not seem convincing at all when initially
offering £777 for the refurbishment, only ten seconds later changing their
price to £877. Comically, Brett tried to cover up this mistake by suggesting
just how good a service they were offering, before mincing his words telling the
theatre manager ‘I am an expertise in my field’. Not the most impressive pitch.
Quite often the key to securing a large volume of sales is
to manage your time effectively. The balance between prospecting for business
and actually securing deals needs to be right, wasting your time on one sales
channel can really hinder your efforts. Yet again the candidates were not good
business examples, with Team Connectus wasting a whole day on ‘market research’
to try and find out the best areas to clean windows! With only three days to
generate sales what a waste of time this was! Somehow Team Versatile seemed to
match their dismal efforts by missing the deadline to print fliers, talk about
a rookie error… 
In the Scottish Labour Party conference in Perth yesterday,
Corbyn stated that he wants the “sunshine of socialism” to beat the “narrow,
nasty politics” of David Cameron’s Conservative Party. One of his most
controversial policies is to increase the top rate of income tax to something
above 50%, with rumours that the tax band could go as high as 75%. Surprisingly
and as much of a change this would be, a recent YouGuv poll found that 56% of
the public would be in favour of the policy, suggesting that Corbyn’s policies
are not as out-of-touch with the British public as many people would argue. On
the other hand, for many the Labour Leader is simply unelectable, too radical
and too old at 66 to stand a chance in the 2020 election. I wasn’t surprised to
find out that the bookies doubt his chances as well, an average of the top
betting sites put him at 8/1 to be the next Prime Minister after Cameron. 
Undoubtedly however, there is a certain charisma about
Corbyn which will help him win people over to support his socialist cause. For
many young people and those that have become disillusioned with previous
politicians, he comes across as someone standing up for those in need and a
breath of fresh air against the spin in today’s politics. After promising a
‘new politics’ free of personal attacks, the David Cameron ‘pig-gate’ saga can
probably be seen as bad timing for the Labour spokesman as previous leaders
would surely have loved to get one-up on the current Prime Minister. Whether he
can sell socialism to the British public remains to be seen, but I’m sure many
business owners would like their sales staff to possess some of the
communication qualities the Labour leader has. 