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.

Bon Voyage: Leon is fired

Leon was sent packing on last night's The Apprentice by Lord Sugar for failing to do anything in the Parisian task but draw pictures to describe products to French retailers as he couldn't speak the language.
 
'All I've heard from you is that you don't speak French. When I first set up I did business with the Japanese and Koreans. I didn't speak the language then and I still don't. The majority of places you went they spoke English.'

'Leon I don't know what you were doing. If you wanted to be an artists you should have gone to Monmarte.

'I'm going with my gut instinct, Leon you're fired.'

Tom, PM of Logic, Melody and Leon all went to the boardroom for a last ditch attempt to save themselves from being fired. Their other team mate, Natasha, was allowed back to the house.

'Natasha you're a very lucky lady', said Sugar.

The team's biggest failure, Lord Sugar said, was their poor pitch to La Redoute, an appointment he had set up for the teams to sell their British made products, and only offering ten units of a teapot light when the company are the biggest retailer in France. La Redoute put in no orders.

Logic's independent sales didn't fair much better, having only sold 11,705 euros worth of their two products, a pop up cress postcard and a teapot light. Venture made 14,699 euros from the sale of their products, a carseat backpack and universal grip. La Redoute also put in an order of 214,000 euros worth of the backpack, thanks to an outstanding pitch from Helen.

'It's not just a loose, it's an anniliation', said Sugar. Venture have set a new record for this boardroom.'

Lord Sugar told PM Tom, who made no sales and originally wanted to sell the backpack, that he should have stuck to his guns and that Melody walked over him and Leon.

'I'm struggling to see how you can stay in the process', he told Tom.

Whereas Melody, who used her french language skills to her advantage, Lord Sugar said he likes, despite being ruthless and not sharing the appointments she made to sell their products with her team mates.

'Melody you hijacked the process but did lots of selling. I like your hunger for bulldozing and taking the lion's share, these people let you do that so good for you.'

Next week the remaining contestants are given the task of creating a new biscuit.

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!