Lord Sugar sets The Apprentice 2012 candidates a challenging task tonight, as he asks them to invest £150 seed money to make a profit.
Lord Sugar takes the candidates to Essex for the day, and explains: “I’ve given Karren and Nick £150, you’ve got to choose items to spend your £150 on and then you’ve got Essex as your selling arena.
“This task is all about smelling what’s selling. Now, you’ll find out that some of the stuff you’ve purchased might not shift, OK that’s business. They might be a slow mover but you’ve got to recognise what the fast movers are, because here’s the deal.
“Once you’ve sold out, or got close to selling out, I want you back here to replenish your stock. You’ve got until tomorrow night, I’m going to count how much cash you’ve got left together with your stock and that will become your total assets.”
Lord Sugar mixes the teams up a bit before making a statement directed at Jade, “some people who haven’t been Project Managers might want to put themselves forward.”
On Sterling, Nick is picked to head up the team and they candidates quickly decide where to sell and what to sell, selecting a range of household products for the market and beauty products for the shopping centre. Selecting fake tan as one of their products, the team are positive about their ability to sell it, relying on Jenna’s expertise and Ricky’s belief that, “Essex do love tan!”
Their positivity about the fake tan proves well founded when the tan sells easily at the shopping centre. Observing proceedings, Nick Hewer comments, “the fake tan is shifting very rapidly… soon everybody in Essex will have one.”
After selling out of the fake tan, Nick makes the decision to reinvest all of their earnings in to buying more cans and sends Ricky and Stephen back to the warehouse to make the purchase. With no stock left at the shopping centre, Nick suffers a blow when Ricky and Stephen deliver the bad news that they are stuck in traffic on their way to the warehouse to replenish the stock. It’s a further knock when they finally arrive at the warehouse only to discover that there are only a limited amount of tins of fake tan left.
On Phoenix, and Jade steps forward as Project Manager, as the only candidate left in the process who hasn’t already taken on the role.
Jade is confident about her leadership style, stating, “I’m a born leader,” but struggles with making decisions early on when she cannot settle on where in Essex they should sell their products. She eventually makes a decision, however the team has wasted so long deliberating that they only have ten minutes left to select their stock. Watching over the team, Karren Brady observes, “Jade’s in a bit of a mess. At the moment it’s a bit of a bun fight with lots of opinions. They’ve had to rush their product selection because they are running out of time.”
After selecting a mixed bag of products, Jade decides to split the stock almost equally, dismissing Azhar’s suggestion that they take more products to the location that is further away. With Jade and Adam based at the market, the rest of the team try to sell at the shopping centre, however they struggle to shift the wide variety of products. A frustrated Laura explains, “It’s hard to switch from product to product. One minute you’re selling a toy, next minute you’re selling a speaker, next minute you’re selling a beauty product.”
Azhar rings Jade to ask her to run through the team’s strategy, which doesn’t go down well with Jade, “Azhar is doing my head in. He just goes on about strategy.” A concerned Azhar is left with doubts over Jade’s leadership skills, “Jade’s not too concerned about strategy, but strategy is the most important part of any business. Without strategy you’re running blind into the dark”.
With the shopping centre sub-team noticing the popularity of the toy insects they suggest to Jade that they reinvest their profits in more of them, however Jade opts to select a variety of products again. Karren comments, “A key part to this task is to smell what sells and they haven’t done that. I hope it doesn’t end up costing them.” When Azhar makes another call to Jade about the strategy, it’s the final straw for Jade who exclaims, “He is so annoying!”
Which team will impress Lord Sugar and who will he not feel is worth the investment? Tune in to find out who will be next to hear Lord Sugar’s immortal words: You’re Fired!
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