The Young Apprentice-Hannah doesn't make the cut

Hannah was the third person to be fired on the Young Apprentice last night.

Lord Sugar told Hannah PM of team Atomic that it was ‘with regret’ that he was firing her, but because she brought the wrong people with her to the boardroom.

The team, now made up of boys and girls, were summoned to the boardroom after loosing to Connectic by £12 profit, in a flower arranging and selling task.

It was despite Atomic winning two out of three contracts organised by Lord Sugar for Daniel Gavin salon and the launch of the musical Ghost. And team Connectic having to discount the flowers for the corporate client contract they won, after delivering a less than sufficient bouquet.

Atomic’s fatal error, said Suagr, was that they sold their flowers too cheaply on their stall, just doubling their cost price, with a three tier pricing system of £3, £3 and £10, whereas Connectic tripled their cost price.

PM Hannah chose to take back with her to the boardroom Zara and Harry M. Zara because she failed to win the hotel contract as she went against Hannah when she said to quote £165. Zara quoted £300. Harry, Hannah said, wasn’t a team player, a complaint made last week too.

However, Alan Sugar said he didn’t know what Zara was doing in the boardroom and sent her back to the house.

‘It’s a toss up between Harry and Hannah’, he said.

‘Harry, on reflection hate to say it but being a salesman has saved you.’

Next week the team’s must pick two products to sell to the over 50s market.

Junior Apprentice-Mohamed walks the plank on ice-cream task

12 big headed arrogant teenagers wearing power suits, it must be the return of the Junior Apprentice.

On last night’s episode, the candidates were tasked with creating and selling their own frozen treats. Lord Sugar told them that it was basic task with the objective to sell, focusing on cost, sell, profits and margins. The winner? The team who made the biggest profit.

The 16 to 17-year-olds were split into boys vs girls, the boys, team Atomic, chose Harry Hitchins (Harry H) as project manager, for the girls, team Connectic, Hayley.

Their products? For the boys vanilla ice-cream and cookie ice-cream, plus watermelon and apple frozen yoghurt, with a pirate theme. Whereas the girls went for classic ice cream with a fruit twist, calling it Treat and Trim-treat the lips, trim the hips. ‘If only that was true’, said Sugar.

The boys made 60 litres of ice-cream, while the girls, who struggled with their maths, made 48 litres as they threw away 30 litres because they didn’t have enough fruit to include in it.

However, the girls made up for their error by increasing their prices, even charging 20p for a cone. The boys undercut their prices, £1.50 for one scoop and £2 for two.

No surprise then that the girls won the task with a profit of £708.34 to the boys £559.00.

While the girls enjoyed their treat of zorbing, PM Harry H, James and Mohammed faced Sugar’s wrath.

Lord Sugar told his advisers, Nick and Karen, that he thought Mohamed was a bit of a character and wants to take the credit for everything, with James not far behind, as the pair constantly argued over who came up with the pirate branding, each wanting to take the credit. Sugar told the trio-‘There are a few things I’m concerned with. Harry-as PM where was your strategic role?’

‘No-one else stepped up’, replied Harry H, who Sugar also criticised for not taking control of his team, in particular the mobile team whose sales weren’t great.

Sugar then turned his attention to Mohamed-‘Take it in the nicest way, but I don’t think you can be responsible for everything good in the task’, said Sugar. ‘What else did you do?’

Mohamed said he had brought the customers to the stall, however Sugar revealed he only £62 worth of ice-cream.

‘James you committed the most heinous of crimes from the start by suggesting ice-cream for only £1’, said Sugar.

Before coming to a decision who should leave the competition, Sugar told them it was a difficult decision as they have been chosen from thousands of people.

‘Mohammed you’re fired’, he said. As Mohamed left Sugar also issued a warning to James. ‘James watch it, because I’m watching you’, he said.

Next week the teams must design a product for the mother and baby market.

The Apprentice: Zoe is fired for crumbling under pressure.

Zoe was ordered to leave the competition last night having failed as PM of Logic to get any orders for the team’s biscuit BixMix, whereas Venture, whose PM was Helen, sold £800,000 units to Asda for their little stars biscuits for kids.

Zoe’s error? Not going to the factory to make the product and leaving Tom and Melody to it.

Lord Sugar told Zoe, ‘I’m looking for someone to go into business with. You can’t perform in a task, then you can’t perform with me.You’re fired.’

As Zoe, a food retailer, walked out of the boardroom, Lord Sugar told the remaining candidates, Melody and Tom, Susan was let off the hook, ‘I’m flexing my muscles, as someone who is meant to be an expert in this field has failed.You get it?’

Logic’s failure of the task was put down to their poor quality product. Feedback from the supermarkets they pitched to, Asda, Waitrose and Sainsburys, was that the team had no clear target audience, their packaging didn’t stand out and their snap and share biscuit, half chocolate, half digestive, was good in principal, but left one person with a plain biscuit and the other with chocolate.

‘You should have broken it horizontally so both get some of the chocolate’, advised Sugar.

Before making his decision, Lord Sugar told Tom he was like a broken record with his ‘should have, could have, would have done’ speech.

Tom replied that it was a learning process. ‘It’s not school’, said Sugar.

‘I’ve got over you being a charming, nice man, but you’re not authoritative. What should, could, would have done is no good to me.’

Previously Sugar’s advisor Karen said to him that all they hear from Tom is he’s learning. ‘At some point he’s got to get it right’.She also warned that Melody needs to be carefully watched as her interaction with the other candidates is not good.

This was proved when she and Zoe argued on Asda’s shop floor before the pitch, and their bitching to one another in the boardroom.

Sugar told Melody he was concerned about her arguments with colleagues and that it never seems to be her fault?

Next week the teams go back to basics and set up their own market stall a’ la Alan Sugar.

The Apprentice-Ellie and Vincent fired in double eviction

It’s a dog eat dog world said Lord Sugar as he fired both Ellie and Vincent on last night’s show where the teams were set the task of designing and creating their own dog or cat food, producing an advert and pitching their ideas to industry experts.

Lord Sugar told Ellie he couldn’t go into business with her as he hasn’t seen much of her and she only pipes up to save herself when in the boardroom but takes a back seat in tasks. ‘She’s been here five weeks and I haven’t seen anything from her.’

Vincent, he said, was too in awe of the other contestants and playing a risky game. He went on to say that Vincent had brought the wrong people into the boardroom and wanted to make an example of him by firing him. ‘I’ve had it with Vincent. I like straight talking people’, Sugar said to his advisers Karen and Nick.

Natasha, who PM Vincent also took into the boardroom, was saved by Lord Sugar as he said she had done her job and couldn’t understand why Vincent had put her in the bottom three over Jim, whose error in choosing a name for the team’s dog food of EveryDog was the reason why Logic lost the task.

Feedback from the industry experts, which Lord Sugar based his decision on, was that Logic’s brand was ‘totally flawed’ and the name of the food insulting to owners as they see their pets as special. Sugar also asked the team why they choose to create a dog food that all types of dogs can eat after at their focus group a vet said it would be impossible to create food for all dogs as they need different things. ‘Who came up with the name’, asked Lord Sugar. Jim said it was his idea but not the meaning behind it, despite earlier claiming it was him who should be credited with choosing EveryDog. Lord Sugar told him he didn’t like people that tried to squirm out of things. But Vincent, who lingered on Jim’s every word during the task, earning them the name of Batman and Robin, stuck up for him and let him return to the house blame free. On leaving the boardroom Jim asked Lord Sugar is he could be PM for the next task to prove himself. Sugar replied, ‘I’ve got your card marked son. I’ll decide when your team leader.’

The winning team Venture, who created a cat food called Catsize, were told their brand had an unique selling point, but their advert, featuring a voice over as the star Ruby the cat, wasn’t well executed, however the foil packaging was very sell-able. Lord Sugar rewarded the team with a tennis lesson.

The Apprentice- Felicity is fired

Logic’s PM Felicity was axed on last night’s show for, according to Lord Sugar, ‘A disastrous task and not being decisive.’

‘There’s no way I could have gone into business with her’, Sugar told his advisers Karen and Nick. ‘If you did you would have to make all the decisions’, replied Karen.

Last night’s task challenged the two teams, lead by Felicity and Zoe, to choose two beauty products/treatments to sell in Birmingham. Zoe’s team-Venture, choose a spray tan and cold pedicure, while Felicity’s team, Logic, also chose the spray tan, which they lost to the other team, so went with a blow dry bar and a hot shell massage.

Venture spent £734 on products and made £937, a profit of £203.01. Logic spent a massive £924, made £677, which is a loss of £246.28.

PM Felicity blamed the failure of the task on team mates Ellie and Natasha, who she took in to the boardroom with her. Ellie she said had sat back and not shown any enthusiasm, while Natasha she claimed failed to sell any treatments, just products.

Lord Sugar questioned Ellie, whose job in the task was to give treatments, about what she had done for the three hours she was upstairs in the team’s treatment rooms without any customers, and asked her why she hadn’t called her colleagues downstairs to see what was going on. ‘It’s a very serious issue’, he said. However Sugar decided to give Ellie the benefit of the doubt and told her in future to come forward.

To Natasha, who Karen warned him was all talk, Lord Sugar asked why she had only been selling the products rather than the treatments. In which she replied that there was no strategy to sell treatments, Felicity claimed this was not true. ‘You didn’t catch on to the fact that the idea of the task was to sell treatments (the money maker)’, said Sugar. ‘I’m not looking for a receiver. I’m looking for someone that does something.

But it wasn’t only the loosing team who got a telling off. Lord Sugar told Venture that their profit was exactly great, particularly as they had Susan on their team, who sells beauty products for a living. Susan agreed with him, however the rest of the team blamed her for their poor result, with Zoe claiming that she had trusted Susan’s word in the amount of products they should buy. But Susan denied that it was her fault.

Next week the teams have to design and make a new brand of dog food. Don’t they say never work with children or animals?

The Apprentice: Gavin is the third person to be fired

It was third time unlucky for Gavin Winstanley last night, after Alan Sugar decided he wouldn’t be returning to the boardroom again.

The salesman, who nominated himself as PM for Logic, now made up of male and female contestants, was fired for not taking charge of the task, which saw the team only loose by £8, but secure just six out of the ten items from a shopping list for the Savoy Hotel. They spent a total of £1,389.20, from a possible £2,000, minus a fine of £312.68 for their missing items.

‘According to Karen you set guidelines but no-one took any notice, why’, said Alan to Gavin? ‘I don’t know’, he replied. ‘Your resume says you’re a good manager of people, you’re words not mine’, claimed Sugar.  The business mind also brought up the fact that the team, under Gavin’s guidance, had wasted three hours after the brief at the hotel faffing about, rather than going out to source items, some which they failed to identify, believing, at one point, that a cloche was a mini greenhouse.

‘Because the task was out of hand, Gavin you’re fired’, said Lord Sugar.

Zoe and Vincent, who Gavin took to the boardroom with him, had a lucky escape. Despite Vincent being blamed for the failure of the task, having sourced items but not picked them up, and for his despicable management style, which saw him undermine his team mates, something which Alan said he didn’t like, he was sent back to the house. Whereas Zoe, who failed to make any negotiations and said the problem was logistics, not having time to travel from one location to another, was told by Sugar to do more. ‘I’ll be watching’, he said.

Team Venture, who were treated to a circus style performance at a London bar for winning the task, got nine out of ten goods from the list, and spent a total of £1,381.69. However, they paid over the odds for most items, buying tea for £400, originally priced at £999. The problem? Going to expensive stores in pricey areas. We wanted the best quality for the hotel, reasoned Susan, the PM.

‘Where are your brains’, said Lord Sugar. ‘How can tea be worth £999, it must have given you a clue when they accepted £400?’

Next week, the teams must become beauticians in a race to sell treatments to the unsuspecting public.

The Apprentice-Edward the accountant is the first to be fired

Accountant Edward got squeezed out of the competition after loosing the fruit and veg task to the girls' team.

The project manager's downfall, according to Lord Sugar, was that, despite doing simple maths as his day job he didn't want to use his accountancy skills, and kept his plan in his head rather than sharing it with his teammates. 'That's nonsense', said Sugar. 'There's no shame in being an accountant. Many men in business start off as accountants.' Although, Edward assured him he was more than his day job and his only fault was  that he became too ambitious in the task. 'I admire your enthusiasm, but you had no expertise. You said on your resume you are Lord Sugar's dream candidate, but you're a nightmare', claimed Alan Sugar.

Leon and Gavin joined Edward in the boardroom, for the reason that the accountant simply didn't like Gavin, and that Leon had broken the juicer and cost the team the task, supposedly, as they were unable to make enough stock to sell.

In the first episode of the new series of The Apprentice, the girl's team Venture, and the boy's team Logic were given £250 to buy and sell fruit and vegetables to the public.Those who made the most profit won.

The girls, led by Melody, chose to make pots of fruit salad at £2 each to sell to workers for breakfast, and a vegetable pasta for lunch. While their pasta wasn't very popular, having missed the lunchtime rush, city workers in Canary Wharf went mad for their fruit salad. The boys made orange juice and tomato soup, although, much like the girls, missed breakfast time, and only began to start to sell their OJ at 11am to female workers in offices.

Venture, despite only spending £170 of their money to buy produce at New Covent Garden Market, took home a tidy sum of £592.00 plus the money left over, while the boys only took £432.13. 1-0 to the girls!