Has anyone worked out the break even point. When no money changes hands.
20%(a+b)=a I think.
that means a+b=5a
b=4a
That mean again they had to sell 4 times as much as the agent to break even.

I agree with the algebra, but not he conclusion...

they needed the agency to sell x4 times as many tickets as them to break even on the deal

No.

To give an example:

Team sells £80

Agency sells £20

Total £100

20% of £100 = £20

So they break even.


Of course, one of the many things we don't know is whether or not the team were given advice as to the number of tickets the agency would tend to sell for a tour.

Without that information they are working double blind - no idea how many tickets they are likely to sell and no idea how many the agency might sell.

Sorry, I can't reply to this with the spoiler tag in place. There's nothing secret, though.


I think most people are suspecting the handing over of the cash was just for the camera.


You haven't. At least not in your equation.

It was syncage who got things the wrong way around. That's why I gave an example.

I meant since he gave so much cash back why does he get applauded for such a 'good' deal.
They must have sold at least 4 times as much as the agency. Even if he gave extra for the cameras. But if it wasnt just for the cameras and was true, I wasnt counting but it seemed a very lot of money. That can only mean the agency sold almost nothing. And Joanna and Chris sold a very lot. A pity they dont tell you how much.

Yes, it is a pity they didn't tell us that.

What I (and others) are suggesting happened is that the agency handed over the money for the tickets they sold off camera and then the team haded over the 20%.

If that was not the case and the amount the team handed over 20% of their sales less the value of 80% of the agency's sales then the agency would have sold very little in relation to the team (which would have meant that they sold way more than the other team) and Chris's deal was a total disaster, albeit not one that lost them the task.

Although the production team are not averse to pulling the wool over our eyes and indulging in some misdirection I can't believe they covered up that big an error.

I would do it like this:

a = Revenue from team
b = Revenue from agency

For the revenue to the agency to be equal under the two possibilities (20% global vs 35% of their sales):

0.2(a+b) = 0.35b
0.2a+0.2b = 0.35b
0.2a = 0.15b
a = 0.15/0.2 * b
a = 0.75b

Let T be the total revenue, so:
T = a + b -> a = T - b
T - b = 0.75b
T = 1.75b
b = T / 1.75 = 0.571T
a = T - 0.571T = 0.429T

So the break even revenue ratios are:

Team: 42.9%
Agency: 57.1%

So as a check, if they took £1000 total revenue, and the team did 42.9%, that is £429, and the agency 57.1%, that is £571, then:

35% agency commission gives the agency £199.85, and 20% global commission gives the agency £200, the difference being down to rounding errors.

Taking some figures from the programme:

Revenues:

Stuart: £834.30 profit and revenue (no costs)

Jo: £1099.33 -> global commission 20%, Revenue = 1099.33 * 1/0.8 = £1374.16

So at break even: 0.429 * 1374.16 = £589.51

So if Jo's team sold any more than £589.51 the global commission was a bad idea, and given Stuart's equally matched team sold £834.30 it probably wasn't a good deal, however it did win them the task since it doesn't matter by how much you win, so maybe shrewd in that sense!

I don't think it was shrewed, i think Chris was very lucky, that other team overpriced there tour. I can understand giving an Agency 20% of Ticket sales, that the Agency sell, but not 20% of everything they earned.

My mistake was that I didnt figure that the agency first gave them the money and then they returned it. What I wrote was that if it was the case what we saw on the show that chris was giving piles and piles of money to the agency they would have sold very little and therefore a very bad deal.

As it turns out he could've got away with just offering them 35% on the agency's sales - but that's only because Stuart's team had screwed up by offering them 20% and a ridiculous ticket price - Chris wasn't to know this. He recognised the importance of winning the agency and gave them a winning offer that wouldn't lose them much money because the agency sold the large majority of tickets and only got 20% as opposed to the 35% they were asking for.

Definately wasn't huge mistake.

How do you know the agency sold the large majority of tickets?

We don't.

In fact I doubt they did.

It would mean that their team sold far less that the others even with the bagginator frightening customers away.

I think that the logic of the 20% deal is pretty sound. If we assume that the Agency had already agreed the basis of its marketing strategy (and wouldn't simply do nothing and take 20% of team sales) then the logic is this:-

Chris estimates that team sales and agency sales will be roughly similar. On that basis, the overall sales will be twice what could be achieved by the team alone. At the same time, 20% is only slightly more than half 35% - but probably enough to sway the agency decision if Stuart had bid in at 35%. Perhaps he even reasons that 20% across the board will play better in the boardroom than, say, 40% on agency sales.

So, he's potentially doubled sales for a sacrifice of only 5% commission or thereabouts - now that looks shrewd.

Whether he was also setting up Jo by letting her challenge the deal remains to be seen.

I think he's a victim of "Posh Bloke Prejudice" aka the Boris Johnson effect - that very posh people often look/sound daft even if they are quite clever.

It was clear from Karen Brady's comment on the 'Final Five' show that wining the pitch basically won the task. We don't get enough footage however to judge whether Chris was lucky or shrewed. Maybe he just came up with the right number on the fly without much thinking. We don't know, but Karen and LS clearly gave him the credit, and they see more than we do.

To me 20% seems good, because on your own it is a very hard sell, and having something that looks like an 'official backing' boosts everything you say.

Don't forget that if they hadn't made the deal, the other team would have made a deal and they've have got more sales. That can make the deal worthwhile even if the agency sells less than the apparent break-even point.

For example, if the team sells £1000 and the agency sells £150, the agency gets £1150*20% = £230, so the team pays them £80 net. The team end up with £920 themselves. It seems like they are worse off, below the break-even point.

But if the other team had the agency for the standard deal of 35% of what the agency does, the agency would have given them £150*65% = £97.50. If the other team also made £1000 themselves, their total is £1097.50 so Chris would have lost anyway, despite keeping his full £1000. In fact, he's lost by more. (And it gets worse if the agency agrees to 25% instead of 35%.)

So even with Chris's deal, it's easier to win with the agency doing 15% then without the agency deal. The agency has to do very badly before he is better off without them.

We happen to know that Stuart messed up the negotiation and Chris didn't need to be so generous. However, Chris didn't know. He probably figured Stuart offer them a very generous deal, eg 50% of their sales or more. In that context, offering them 20% of the total, because it was so unusual, was more likely to out-flank whatever Stuart did.

That's a good summary.

If only we really knew what he was thinking.

I meant to go back and check but I'm pretty sure he said twice that he thought getting the deal was important to ensure the other team didn't.

If that's the case and he had some clue as to how well the agency would do (I wish we knew what information they were given in the briefing) then it really does qualify as a shrewd move. I just wonder why he didn't explain himself better. Or maybe he did and it was edited out to make room for the squabbles.

Chris twiggs that getting the contract is significant but we don't know who else did. Stuart is the only one we know who seemed not to - but he stayed.

If Chris had any data to realise that the contract is vital, surely the other team would have it too? If they both knew it, it wasn't shrewd to work from that knowledge - it was stupid not to. If Chris has no data he has no guide to varying the standard contract. Did he ask the agency or someone else what the sales prospects were - who else wouldn't apart from the overconfident Baggs?

Even if Chris spots the need for the agency, he offers a contract that has a point where it loses his team money, where there are better bids with less risk available and when his solution offers a disincentive to the agency to actually send anyone on his tours.

Its pretty debateable whether that contract shows shrewdness. It looks like he just comes up with a figure or mispeaks or agrees something unintentionally - the alternative requires him to be able to have a feel for the answer to a sum involving sales data, probabilities and risks, or to work it out. There's no evidence he could do that, or explain it to Joanna and his team if he could.

Ironically, the contract does become shrewder if he realises he and his team can't sell well enough themselves. In the event, for the contract to make more money than the standard one would have , or an enhanced offer might have, his team may have had to perform at about Stuart's level of sales if CaptMcMallister's figures apply. Looking at the totals achieved , it looks like either the agency did little and they might have been below the point where the contract was costing more than necessary or the agency did a lot, and allowing for Jaimie's tips, sold little.

That makes the boardroom even sillier. Stuart can't sell and doesn't get the contract. If he had sold anything like as much as Liz they would have won. Stella gets less in tips than Jaimie. Joanna and Chris may sell at Stuarts level. LIz actually does her job more effectively and sells more than anyone, possibly by a big margin,... and goes.

Chris goes on and makes the final for no obvious reason. Stuart gets saved in the boardroom after talking complete nonsense one week, and is then sacked the next when one word is queried. Not his Lordship's finest week.

The question for me is does he know why? When asked, he usually says something about it being in an important location, which is true but not the point in my opinion.


Liz sells £505. Stuart sells £260. Add £245 to his to make them the same, and their total goes from £834 to £1079. The other team got £1099, so it still wouldn't be quite enough to win, by about £20. But it is much closer, and it would have been Jamie's versus Stella's tips which then decided it.


Well, it has never been enough to be a good salesperson. It now seems like Stella had been performing well on previous tasks but not making the edit. She was usually paired with Joanna, and we couldn't tell which of them was making the contribution, but if we trust the show I guess we now have to say it was Stella.

Stuart's team sells 834-30 - that includes £9 something for Stella's tips from memory?? If Stuart sells £260, Liz sells about 565.Twice that and they win? Have I got a wrong number there?

Can't say what Stella has been doing what we haven't seen but we have not seen what other people were doing right either. We have seen Joanna and Laura doing better and getting the point more when out with her. On the other hand, not sure what business acumen Chris has shown if you do discount Chris's shrewdness with the tour contract. Buying truffles he managed to get them for half what Stella did but there's all those losses, the presentations and Germanator in his record too.

If Baggs had spent more time on planning/strategy than he did on trying to steal customers and terrorise pregnant retailers he might have made more sales. Had his team won Sugar would have had a completely different view of the merits of that 20% of everything deal....

The fact that he got away with it was down purely to luck rather than judgement. He should have been fired for what was a massive error.

If he had some idea that the agency would sell a significant proportion of the tickets then it could easily have been a shrewd move because he had no way of knowing that the bagginator would cock up the pricing. As far as he knew the other team might have made some vary attractive offer and so he pitched something that was almost guaranteed to be better.

Of course, we're never going to know.

It's amusing that people are still posting very definite statements that he was shrewd/lucky when the data required to make that call is simply unavailable.

Where does the £565 for Liz come from? The figure I have written down is £505. In the boardroom they said Stuart had half Liz's figure, but they were being very approximate. Stella's tips were £8.50, and presumably they got other income from some unknown sources. I think they had teeshirts or souvenirs or something. A lot went on we didn't see.

On Your Hired, Chris said that the agency sold about £700 of tickets, so over twice as much as Joanna and Chris's combined £340.

Which makes it a bad deal for the agency. They got 20% * £1100, or £220, and they'd have done better with their standard 35% * £700, or £245.

It also makes Liz's £505 sales look even more impressive.