The Apprentice – You’re F/Hired
I’ve never watched a full series of UK TV programme The Apprentice before the 2011 series that has just ended, perhaps because previously the winner got a job but this year the prize was a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar into a business partnership. That made it more appealing to me because in my own small way I’m an entrepreneur and am interested in anything to do with entrepreneurship. I think that the change was a good move because we need entrepreneurs coming along with new products and business ideas to help get us out of recession.
Although I enjoyed watching the series I was disappointed with the shortage of real entrepreneurs amongst the competitors and felt that most of them would have been more suited to the old format where a job was on offer. Out of the 4 that got through to the final only 2 had run their own businesses Susan Ma and winner Tom Pellereau.
The business plans of all of the 4 finalists were disappointing to some extent, but at least third placed Susan stuck to what she knew and I’m sure will do really well in the future with her beauty business. Fourth place went to Irishman Jim Eastwood. He didn’t just kiss the blarney stone, he swallowed it! Non stop patter and cliches, maybe a great salesman but I doubt he’d sell to me. Second placed Helen Milligan was the favourite to win having led all the way through, but her Concierge idea was just an idea with no real substance behind it and trying to change to her second business plan of a bakery chain at the last minute wasn’t a good idea.
The winner Tom is an inventor, a nice guy who looks and acts like the stereotype mad professor. His idea was for a chair that helped with back problems. I’ll bet the appeal to Lord Sugar had a lot to do with the curved nailfile that Tom had invented and brought to market. Curved nailfile – I don’t get it. Anyway, like many who watched I wanted Tom to win and would love to see a fly on the wall programme of the partnership. At one point I half expected Lord Sugar to make Tom and Helen joint winners, Tom inventing and Helen doing what she’s best at organising.
Now that it’s all over I’m wondering what idea I would come up with if I had to produce a business plan to help win £250,000 prize, that should keep the brain cells working for a while.
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