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.

Tom wins The Apprentice

The dark horse of the competition, inventor Tom Pellereau was hired on last night’s final of The Apprentice.

Tom won a £250,000 fund to be invested into his own business, partnering with Lord Sugar, who made his decision based on the contestants’ business plans and feedback from four professionals, Margaret Mountford (lawyer and businesswoman), Matthew Riley (Yong Entrepenuer of the year 2007), Mike Suiter (owner of Shortlist Media) and Claude Littner (British business exec), who interviewed the candidates.

Lord Sugar was most taken with Tom’s business plan, an idea to sell a special chair to prevent back pain in the workforce, a big problem he said, and a service to check if people’s chairs cause them pain.

‘Maybe there is a thing about the chair, but you are me are wasting time talking to employees. The chair might work’, said Lord Sugar.

He continued to tell Tom that in his businesses, employee absenteeism is not down to back pain, and he could argue that by putting alcohol rub on people’s desk it would stop them catching the flu.

However, Sugar was more impressed with the fact the inventor had, in the past, designed a product, a curved nail file, which is now stocked in UK and US supermarkets.

‘Tom let me in on your secret’, he said. ‘How did you get into Walmart?'

‘I found out who the buyer was and created a beautiful parcel that I asked the receptionist to deliver to her. The buyer gave me half an hour and agreed to place an order’, replied Tom.

‘I didn’t know you had it in you’, said a shocked Sugar.

Runner up was Helen Louise Milligan, the favourite to win.

Lord Sugar said he was disappointed with her business plan, a concierge service for busy families and asked why she didn’t stick to what she knew, the bakery business.

‘Helen you need to have experience in the field. Concierge service is nothing to do with the business you’ve been in. Where was your head on this one?’

She told him that she had had two ideas, but obviously chose the wrong one, before putting in a last ditch attempt which back-fired, to outline her other plan to open a bespoke bakery.

Sugar implied that if it was a job he was offering, she would have won hands down.

In third place was Susan Ma. Her business idea was to sell organic beauty products worldwide, but her plan was majorly flawed, estimating a £4.5 turnover in her first year.

‘Do you know how much L’oreal and Lancome spend on getting people to by their products in shops? My money would be gone straight-away. I know about this business. You haven’t got a hope in hell’, said Lord Sugar.

‘Whilst it has always been my intention to go into the cosmetics industry, this time it’s not for me. I’m afraid to say you’re fired.’

The man with the gift of the gab and full of cliches, Jim Eastwood, came in last position after he tried to jump on the back of one of Lord Sugar’s companies, with a e-learning product for schools.

‘When did you come up with the idea Jim’, asked Sugar.

Jim said two weeks before the show started.

‘I’m worried you’re selling me and jumping on the back of my brand.’

Jim said he needed clout, but would do all the work himself. He went on to say, after Sugar said schools have no money to spend on things like this, that he intended for the business to be not for profit but realised that wasn’t appropriate.

Lord Sugar replied hastily that he had enough of those and does his bit, and wants a business that makes money in a tough economic climate.

‘Jim you’re a great salesperson, but struggled between salesman and business acumen. You wrote the plan to make me happy.’

‘Jim this was an opportunity to become my business partner. The opportunity is no longer open to you. You’re fired.

Afterwards on The Apprentice You’re Fired, Sugar admitted that him and Tom would be developing his line of curved nail files, rather than focus on the chair, outlined in his business plan. He suggested to Tom that they work with Susan, who is currently working in the business industry, when Lord Sugar admitted that he thought Susan would go far and is one to watch in the future.

It's takeaway for Natasha as Helen, Tom, Jim and Susan make the Apprentice final

Natasha, who has a degree in hospitality, was fired in last night’s semi-final of The apprentice, where the teams were tasked with starting their own fast food restaurant.

‘You have a degree in hospitality, understanding food and all that stuff’, said Sugar. ‘It was a long time ago’, replied Natasha, despite boasting to her team mates about her BA Hons at the beginning of the task and telling them she had run her own restaurant at uni.

‘You learnt fundamental things in your degree’, stated Sugar. Natasha said that she hadn’t been interested in the food side of things and honed in on the areas she liked.

‘It’s like doing a first aid degree and not being able to help someone (sick) in the street’, said Sugar. ‘I didn’t like doing resuscitation but had to do it.’

He added, ‘You started off as a house on fire, but I’ve found you lack lustre in the last few weeks. You’re fired.’

Lord Sugar told Karen and Nick that Natasha not being able to handle the process was a weakness and shown she couldn’t be his business partner.

Natasha, Jim (PM) and Susan went head to head in the boardroom after loosing the task with a miserable score of 4/10 for their Caracas Mexican restaurant. Whilst team Logic, Helen (PM) and Tom, earned 7/10 for their traditional British pie and mash takeaway called ‘Mypy’, putting the pair in Sunday’s final. Industry experts judged the teams on their customer service, standard of menu, their restaurant’s brand I-D and it’s potential longevity.

In the boardroom Sugar asked team Venture where their business plan was. Susan admitted they didn’t have one and hadn’t though about profit margins, proven when Jim’s sums failed to total up, coming out with a figure of 4,000 rather than 400, after an industry expert asked how much money they expected to make over a lunchtime.

Sugar also criticised the teams for slow service after waiting ten minutes for his ‘fast food’. PM Jim, who the girls ganged up on, blamed it on the equipment.

Lord Sugar wasn’t convinced and told Jim he had the manner, which some call charisma, which sometimes is a good trait in business, but it has its downfall. He added that he liked Jim’s spirit and was putting him through to the final.

Susan, he said, didn’t get on with too may people, which could be down to her being ruthless.

‘Not many people have a good word to say about you, but you’ve achieved a lot. Susan you’re in the final’, he said.

Helen, Tom, Jim and Susan face a grilling in Sunday’s final when they hand over and are questioned about their business plans.

To market with Melody, the eleventh apprentice to be fired.

Mouthy Melody set herself up for failure on .last night’s The Apprentice nominating herself as Logic’s PM for the investment task.

Lord Sugar said it was with regret that he was letting her go, but earlier had confessed he found it difficult to understand what she does (work).

‘There’s a woman with exceptional ability, but it’s a cruel process here’, he told Melody’s remaining team-mates Helen and Tom.

Logic faced Lord Sugar in the boardroom after loosing to Venture by less than £30 in a task where they had objects to sell at a profit and reinvest their money by buying other products to sell. A challenge which Sugar called ‘smell to sell.’

‘It’s not a great win’, Lord Sugar told Venture, whose PM Natasha failed to do much re-investing.

‘You had no balls, no guts, you didn’t reinvest’, shouted Sugar as he took away the team’s treat, a helicopter ride to Sandown.

‘Which of you three brain surgeons let this happen?’, Sugar asked Melody, Tom and Helen, whop up to now had a perfect record.

Tom and Melody said the blame lay with Helen, who wasted time making a four hour round trip to a linen wholesalers to purchase duvet covers for a retailer at only £3 profit per unit. The retailer ordered 30.

Lord Sugar told Helen, who asked Melody if she could take over as PM half-way through the task, and became obsessed with selling the goods to retailers, ‘That’s very unusual. Never happened before someone saying they want to take over control.’

He also said that she had made a big mistake focusing on selling to retailers as they can just go to the wholesaler themselves.

Whereas Tom, he said, an innovator and innovator, was right up his alley, a product man, but over the ten weeks he had only said there was a problem with a task when it was too late.

What saved Tom was the sales he made, selling nodding dogs and umbrellas to the public, when it wasn’t his thing.

Helen was saved by her impressive track record, having never lost before.

In next week's programme, the teams have to come up with and open their own fast food restaurants.

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- Glenn is fired

Lord Sugar last night told Glenn he had a problem grasping his unique selling point and a social club was not a business.

‘I’ve never come across an engineer that can turn their hand to business. You’re fired’, he said.

Glenn’s team- Venture, failed the task as they did not secure enough advertising space in their freemium magazine for the over sixties called ‘HIP Replacement’, which subsequently saw PM Jim, Glen and Susan go head to head in the boardroom after Zoe was sent back to the contestants’ house.

Sugar saved Jim as he said he had seen a ‘glimmer’ in him he like, despite calling the contestant deflective and manipulative, and placing the blame on him for the failure of the task, which Sugar put down to not negotiating with their first client Carat on rate card prices. A huge mistake for a launch of a new mag, claimed Sugar. He said to Jim the penny obviously dropped afterwards as he offered reduced prices to the two other agencies-Mediacom and Maxus, with Medicom spending £16.850 and Maxus £12,000 on advertising. Carat placed no orders for ad space.

Susan also narrowly escaped being fired with her past successes being her saving grace. ‘You need to show me you can do what you say on paper’, Sugar told the 21-year-old. He warned Susan that she needs to voice her opinions more rather than be a mouse, as describer by Jim, after she said she had told the PM to drop his prices and advised against the title HIP Replacement.

‘That name was bad’, confessed Sugar. It back fired. You read it as exactly what it means. ‘Out with the old, in with the new’, is even worse, like out with the old hip in with the new one.’

The features are also condescending he told them. The technology article about phones tells readers how to make a phone call, are you taking the piss? I’m in that age group and I know how to dial a number. And the cover, he said, was like Viz with old people wearing cardigans, so much for the sixties being the new thirties, as the mag’s strapline reads.

However, Sugar claimed that he was surprised the team had lost as they choose a good niche market, the over sixties, whereas the winners Logic, who secured £9,00 of ads with Maxus, £7,500 with Mediacom and a whopping £60,000, the whole magazine, from Carat, created a tacky lads mag-Covered, that had no USP and was described by advertisers as stuck in the nineties. It doesn’t reflect today’s male they argued.

‘Who would want to advertise next to a feature called Blow Your Load’, said Sugar, who couldn’t understand how the team secured a win.

Next week the contestants must use the French language skills to buy objects in Paris, phrase books at the ready.