The Secret Reseller on....The Apprentice 2022
There may not be a candidate from the channel to cheer on this year, but Dave the Dealer gives his verdict on episodes 1 and 2 of the popular BBC One show anyway
Every year since 2005, when Tim Campbell was crowned its first winner, my good lady and I have sat down to enjoy everyone's favourite annual dose of business schadenfreude, The Apprentice.
The question of whether this corporate contest - which sees a dozen or so candidates duke it out for a £250,000 investment from the UK's 121st richest person - is good or bad for business has divided critics for the last 17 years.
Well, as a business owner and renowned change maker myself, I think it's inspirational - if only in the sense that it's a template for what NOT to do in the world of business.
Although to be fair, The Apprentice has reinforced many of the business principles we teach new starters here at DODGI. Always sell at a higher price than you buy, treat your vendors and suppliers with respect and, if you sense you're in corporate peril, throw your weakest team member under the bus.
At the request of my friends at CRN, and as a third installment in my very ocassional blog since my return from semi-retirement (see my first effort here and second here), here I chronicle the first two episodes (so consider this your spoiler alert).
Meet the candidates
In a nod to The Apprentice's two-year hiatus from our screens, Lord Sugar kicked off his opening boardroom address (flanked by Karen Brady, as well as Tim Campbell himself) by assuring this year's 16 candidates that he is "glad to be back".
The world of business is "tougher than ever", he informed them (brushing aside the inconvenient truth that the world's ten richest men have seen their collective wealth double during the pandemic).
This year's crop of hopefuls include an ex milkman, a day nursery owner, a pharmacist and a former rugby pro.
In lieu of a representative from the IT channel to cheer on this year, my personal favourite is Nick, a qualified accountant who is as creative with language as the more disreputable members of his profession are said to be with books.
The likeable finance manager's knack of coining new words - including ‘likeish' - combined with his stated mission of shaking up the drinks industry with his line of flavoured water - makes it impossible not to root for the softly spoken 31-year-old. His plan to beat the competition by "killing them with kindness" makes me wonder whether he's ever seen the show, however.
Flush with success
Unfortunately, my early favourite found himself on the losing side in each of the first two episodes.
If the golden rule of business is to learn from your mistakes, then the boys' team committed a cardinal sin by losing not one, but two, tasks on the grounds that their core proposition resembled poo.
The boys' green and brown logo in week one was described by Karen as "half man, half rotten banana", with Lord Sugar himself quipping that Dyno-Rod would have to be called out to dispose of it.
The experts assembled to help judge the task - which was to design a marketing campaign for a new cruise line - also expressed concern that the boys' logo made no reference to the brand name itself. The girls' curiously named ‘Bouji Cruise' campaign - which it has to be said wouldn't have troubled Saatchi & Saatchi - won by default.
History repeated itself in task two, which was to design an electric toothbrush for 6-8 year olds.
The Freudian associations thrown up by the boys' decision to - for a second week - design a brown, log-shaped product were not lost on Lord Sugar.
"I'm thinking about getting a psychiatrist for you lot, because you seem to be obsessed with turds," he joshed, before breaking the news that they'd lost again.
Down the pan
Although Sir Alan warned candidates that the pandemic hasn't resulted in him "going soft", it was perhaps significant that he prefaced his first ‘You're Fired' of the series with a ‘with regret' (something he normally reserves for later episodes).
Nevertheless, protocol demanded that a member of the losing team be cruelly jettisoned from the process.
Harry Mahmood, a pleasant, sparky regional operations manager with the narrowest possible view of success ("you'll see me again on the Fortune 500 and UK's richest people"), was the first to go. This was despite him being the only person to call out the logo for what it was ("it's basically slime, or a bogey - that's what they are going to say to us", he warned, but to no avail).
Next in the firing line was the former rugby player, who seemed far too nice to be involved in a nasty process like this (resolutely taking any criticism thrown his way on the chin, rather than passing the buck).
As business maxims go, ‘don't make your next product resemble a turd', is unusual. But it is also evidently the clearest piece of advice I can offer the boys' team for week 3 (if you're reading this, boys, feel free to give me a call).
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