I find the decision making of the manager at the hotel complete misrepresentation of how the sales process works. In normal business practice, a decision maker dosent buy from the first person he sees (referring to the 9 v 1 O'clock appointment) that was highly unusual, and in the real world just dosent happen.

Still better to catch people when fresh. First impressions count for a lot. If you make an effort (as Stu did) then it's human nature to respond positively.

It IS all about the early word-birm! It truly is.

Yes I agree, but if you were to look to buy something, would you buy the first item that you saw without comparing quality, prices, etc with anything else.

Ive been in sales 20 years. Never have I been to see a buyer and they have made their decision based only on my product.

i do wodner if some of this stuff is scripted by bbc showmakers

hope not

They were coming from a long way ( the uk!). They werent buying that much. Stella's product was a british product adapted for the German market. They had tasted her product and liked it. The other one was I think meant to be a German product of which they are not short. They may not have come back if they hadnt ordered on the spot. All adds up to going for it!

I was going to start a thread pointing out that the absolutely worst example of unprofessionalism in last night's programme was the guy making a decision without seeing both parties.

It was absolutely crazy and I suspect shenanigans from the production company.

Yes, it's best to get in first, but to make a concrete decision without seeing both products is just daft.

The second team could have had an identical product but better terms or simply better products.

Utterly unrealistic and, I suspect, the reason Sugar did not follow through in nailing Jamie who had given up the earlier slot.

To Jepson
We live in a different world.

Evidently.

In the world I live in, competent people do not make business (or any other) decisions without getting as much information as possible.

They certainly don't make two appointments to asses competing products and then burn their bridges after attending only one.

And even if they did, no professional business person would have gone ahead with the second meeting and admitted he'd already fixed a decision. He'd have politely tasted the product and then declined to purchase.

Jepson, your spot on

Its just not human nature to by the first product you see.

Incredibly unprofessional also

Yes, that's a very good point Kate. He'd say to them he was seeing somebody else later and make his decision then. It's like an interviewing process - why would an interviewer make his mind up after seeing the first candidate and offer them the job there and then!! It's no different and it's basic business to have a benchmark against a price quoted.

As Jamie said the early wird catches the birm

Or was it the early birm catches the word?

I agree and actually was a bit unprofessional of the manager not to cancel the meeting once he knew there was no chance of him buying anything rather than making them come all that way down.

And in fact you could argue that the 1pm slot was better because had the manager waited, they could have tried to convince him to go with their product rather than the other lot.

Like a previous poster said, when it comes to The Apprentice production company .......'I call shenanigans'

There's also the psychology of being the last to be seen making the lasting impression? being the last one up on stage/last in an interview etc. It's not necessarily true but if you're the last one to be interviewed, rather than the first, don't you feel better, especially if they are interviewing 6 that day?

Just thought it was complete misrepresentation of how the real sales process works. Its product, quality, price, T and C's etc.

What makes me slightly suspicious is that both teams had an appointment with the same hotel, even though Lord Sugar only set them up with the import/export company and Karstadt, the department store chain...so how and why did they both end up having the same potential customer?

Leaving alone that I have to agree what was said before, you would not simply buy the first product and even if so, he could have still trialled the 2nd one to see if those flavours sell better, as obviously they are looking for a product which is liked and therefore bought by their customers.

It was also very interesting to see that Karstadt only bought 140 Euros worth of crisps. Clearly, they don't care about the show's format (sell on that day so one candidate wins) but decided to go for a normal business strategy - buy a few packs, do some trials and then make a decision.

Exactly, 140 euros to Karstadt is nothing. They clearly are just going to trial it in one or two stores, pretty much like anything else and see how it goes.

That order showed they have no faith whatsever and it was a just a speculative punt on their part which wouldnt cost them anything if the German public hated them.

Some of you are taking this way too seriously.
When I buy a car for my business I do serious research. Only 104g CO2 emissions, if you're interested!
For other stuff (say stationery) I'll take a punt on the first thing I see and if someone were to come round and offer me something fairly reasonable I'd take it there and then without a lot of thought because I can't be wasting my valuable time on what (for me) are not major purchases.

For buying a pad of paper or a couple of pens, that would be fair enough.

For taking a decision on something that you would be presenting to your customers and which could reflect on the way they view your business and, more importantly, the bottom line, that would be a grotesquely irresponsible way to behave.

A few bags of crisps? Plus they were a 'prestige' brand. If they were good then make a decision. It was pennies in the scheme of things. Or should I say pfennige?

Really feel it was already set up. Marriott Hotels are a multi-national group. All the indoor things we see filmed have to have filming permission set up. You own a cafe, you can fill in the paper work when the camera crew turn up. A huge hotel chain? They'll be emails to corporate legal, PR and some layers of management. I'd say that one was arranged days in advance. Probably not directly with the guy we saw. He asks the production team, 'ok what do you want me to do here?' And he's asked to tell those who have the 1pm slot, no sorry, etc. The program makers have a nice simple reason for a firing for Sugar to use. There's still enough on both teams for him to happily remove.

That they also both tried a small cafe could be a coincidence or could be they had a list of filming friendly sites to choose from. Otherwise you might get a situation where you get too few filmable negotiation bits. Germans not being so aware of what the Apprentice is, compared to the UK.

Someone on the live thread said that there could be shenanigans in the design of the crisps. While the teams specify the names and presumably basic factors of the flavours, it's up to the flavour chemists at the company to actually make them. And what lost them the task seems to be that the crisps didn't taste so good. In my opinion, it's possible (not probable) that the flavours weren't created equal.

I almost think that, if it had been me, I would have left the crisps for him to try anyway.

But then again, I know nothing about sales.

In real life, you would do that. But this is the only day of selling so they don't want to waste samples on someone who has wasted their time. Also they aren't thinking about the real company that made them, at all.

Like with some chocolates last year, not enough time to try and get the flavours to work perhaps? Even in real life quite a few flavours don't work well (or you need to be told what flavour it is supposed to be).

It was more than a few bags of crisps he'd bought. It was 40* bags a day, 5 days a week for 6 months.

*I can't remember the exact number, but it was between 40 and 80.