During the interviews I thought Leah showed how she's not a business woman when she started saying how Alan sugars money would be used for paying her 30k a year, or what ever it was, and then didn't she say a load of other things like a cleaner, some one to do her ironing, bills??

I can't quote exactly I just remember her listing a load of things that were completely irrelevant to the business. And I know this isn't dragons den, but I'm certain she would have got ripped to shreds on dragons den had she said that.

The cleaner was presumably for the clinic, she was illustrating how much she has researched about her business.

..all the figures she listed off were expenses she'd have to actually, you know, run the place. None of it was for her personally.

Places like that have to be sparkling so fresh crisp linen is a must have and it takes time to wash/starch/iron/fold the amount she'd need daily so its going to be a contracted out job...pickup monday night and drop off wednesday morning etc, the same with a cleaner...you'll run a mile if the woman you saw with a mop when you entered suddenly turns up with a needle and wants to fill your face

Although Leah did say that she'd clean herself if employing a cleaner would stretch the budget too far.

I wouldn't get out of bed for my cleaner. She just hoovers up around me.

This is my attempt at a transcript from iplayer. E&OE.

Claude: What is your anticipated profit [in] year one?
Leah: £265,000.
Claude: You're never going to do that.
Leah: I will.
Claude: £260,000 in year one?
Leah: My rent will be £30.000 a year. A receptionist -- to begin with, I'm paying her £16,000 a year. I'll have a cleaner for £8,000 -- to tell you the truth, I'll probably do that myself for the first year if need be.

[ cut to Jordan playing with a Rubik's cube ]

Leah: which includes everything bar electricity which will cost you maybe under £2,000 a year. Now, I'm going to pay someone who will probably be a nurse practitioner trained in aesthetic medicine to come in as a clinical manager.

[ cut to Jordan playing with a Rubik's cube ]

Leah: After the two month shadowing period which will be the end of my four month period, I will then leave the clinic. She will also have doctors who are trained in aesthetic medicine or nurses who are trained in aesthetic medicine to come in and do one 5-hour clinic per week...

Claude (interrrupting): You speak very quickly don't you?
Leah: Sorry.
Claude: God! You're a fast talker.
Leah: No, I want to get everything in. I've so much I need to explain because I'm the combination of business flair with a successful -- a really successful -- medical career. For a £300 treatment, you'll make approximately £149 gross profit.
Claude: That's very interesting, very interesting.

She was obviously talking about the business.


Quite.

Claude was trying to pin her down on her business plan, which she admitted was pretty rubbish. She then reeled off the list of expenses as though that determines anything much.

I'll assume that most people who are criticising haven't written a business plan themselves?

By listing all the things she did, she demonstrated that she had actually done her research thoroughly down to even the smallest detail. This shows a good understanding of how her proposed business would work, and a decent grasp of what her costs would likely be. This only serves to give her projections (turnover/ profit etc) more credence.

What do you mean "as though that determines anything much"? Claude shot her down on her projected profit for Year 1, and stated that there was no way she would make that. In order to justify her projections, she stated how much profit she would make per treatment (and presumably, how much that would translate to in a year - there's probably some of it cut while we saw Jordan faffing about with the Rubik's Cube) and then how much she would be spending on each of the key expenses. I'm guessing (since she didn't get called up on it) that this worked out as the exact amount she had written on her business plan as her projected profit. Far from her reeled-off list of expenses not "determining anything much" as you said, it actually showed how well she knows her business plan, how much research she has put into it, and how clearly she has thought through all aspects of it to come to her expected profit. I think 'reeling through' that list of expenses, is what actually set her up as a front-runner in the competition.

Claude actually looked quite impressed by that, and we all know how hard it is to impress Claude.

Yes, he did - it showed Leah's ability to recall detail (she has a photographic memory) but more importantly that she had put some proper effort into working through the details of her business plan, to demonstrate that her £265k year 1 profit projection wasn't pie in the sky. That was impressive.

It was the only time on The Apprentice that I've actually thought that someone was presenting an actual coherent business plan, rather than a dream slathered in power-point slides.