The Apprentice Ep 4 "Pet Show" 28/10/2015

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stargazer61

30-10-2015

Originally Posted by Philip Wales:
“Most exhibitions I've attended/Exhibited at do tend to do most of their business towards the latter part of the morning or early afternoon. Mainly because the people who are first though the door usually have a set purchase in mind and will go straight there. Most people who arrive after doors open are usually casual buyers and want to have a look around.

So with the cat stands the team may have done the sales pitch bit, but the price was off putting and so people will then wonder around looking for a cheaper alternative. Again they failed to close.

And those stands were very over priced, for what is essentially a fence post with cord wrapped around it and a basket perched on top.”

Not sure if they were overpriced as such -the boxes were made of solid oak but they were very expensive. Most cat owners know that cats will play with something for a short while and then studiously and deliberately ignore it no matter how expensive or elaborate it is!!! A large, complex cat tower is probably on a good purchase for cats that are kept indoors......but, I agree, at a much cheaper price.

Aslan52

30-10-2015

Originally Posted by Philip Wales:
“He must take some of the blame as Project Manager (Sh•t always flows down hill) His main problem was, while he was busy selling, he allowed his other 2 sales people to basically do "sod all". He should of realised what was happening and had a team re-shuffle, not just let it go on and on.

If he'd had 2 sales people like himself on his team he would of won. It's better to allow those that aren't that great at selling, to sell the lower priced items that were more of a impulse buy, Ruth would of probably been ok (if she allowed the customer to speak).”

That would have merit in real life but TA is a competition and part of the strategy is to give competitors enough rope to hang themselves.

If Scott deserves any criticism it was that he was rather weak-willed when it came to choosing the products to begin with.

If I recall correctly his team made something like £500 less on the cheap products and around £1000 less on the expensive products.

In reality, everybody caused that task to fail.
He needed everybody to perform better than they did.
He needed the other sub-team to sell £500 more of the cheap items and he needed his own sub-team to match his own level of selling just to equal the other team.

If he'd brought back anybody from the "cheap item" team they might have argued that he chose a lousy product for them to sell but he didn't.

As it was, he simply brought back the other 2 people who were selling the same things he was selling. He sold 3 of those things. The other two sold 1 and none respectively.
In doing so he's demonstrated that there WAS a market for the items they were selling but the other two failed to capitalise on it.

Perhaps if Selina or Ruth had tried to point out that weak product choice was responsible for their overall failure he might have got some of the blame.
As it was, it just became a direct comparison between what he sold and what they sold and, on that basis, there was little for him to defend.

I'm not sure if he just got lucky or if he planned it that way but it worked out very well for him and left him in a position where he had little to defend.

dmwat

30-10-2015

Originally Posted by stargazer61:
“Not sure if they were overpriced as such -the boxes were made of solid oak but they were very expensive. Most cat owners know that cats will play with something for a short while and then studiously and deliberately ignore it no matter how expensive or elaborate it is!!! A large, complex cat tower is probably on a good purchase for cats that are kept indoors......but, I agree, at a much cheaper price.”

I think most cats would prefer the cardboard boxes it'll come packed in rather than the expensive tower

Philip Wales

30-10-2015

^^ he was very poor in choosing the products it started with "great I'm all for poop bags and balloons" and ended with " great I was thinking the same heat pads and cat toy" The trouble with his 2 cheaper products was they weren't that original I can't imagine they were the only vendor selling heat pads and the toy was ok, but looked like a failed child's toy.

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