The Apprentice

Last night, Donald Trump chose Stefani to be the sixth winner of the tv show The Apprentice.

James came in a close second. It was a pretty good season of the apprentice, but it seemed to lack a little something this year. I am not sure what it was, but it wasn’t quite as fun to watch as past seasons. Any idea?

You can read a good post show interview with The Apprentice: LA Winner Stefani Schaeffer over on Buddy TV. It was interesting to read her take on the editing of the show.

Anyway, I think she will do a really good job for Trump. What do you think?

What is your first impression of who will be The Apprentice?

* Tim: 5% (4)
* James: 50% (40)
* Heidi: 27% (22)
* Angela: 6% (5)
* Other: 11% (9)

Total Votes : 80

Take our new poll and let us know who you think will be the Season 6 Apprentice.

I was a bit surprised at the ending of the Apprentice Sunday night. I was expecting Donald to either fire Nicole or Nicole and Frank, but instead Donald is taking all four contestants (James, Stefani, Nicole, and Frank) into the final boardroom.

It was my personal opinion that James and Stefani did a better job with the final task.

James and Stefani did a great job of picking team members to help them out. Whereas, I wasn’t very impressed with Frank and Nicole’s picks, but it seemed to work out ok for them.

I thought Frank and Nicole’s commercial was a disaster. What mother wants to see a commercial about her kid going to the hospital? And then to top it off they make fun of the way a homeless person smells??? It just didn’t seem like a good idea to me.

On the other hand, I thought Stefani and James made a very funny commercial that showed the product off.

If I were choosing the Apprentice, I would probably have to flip a coin between Stefani and James. However, I am not sure that Frank is more qualified for the job (whatever it is), because of Frank’s background in Real Estate. I could totally see Frank winning. On the other hand, while Nicole is a perfectly fine person, I just don’t think Nicole is suited for the Trump organization.

I guess we will know soon enough if Donald Trump agrees with me…

Sunday night’s episode of the Apprentice was interesting, because they split up into three teams of two (James and Stefani, Heidi and Frank, Nicole and Kristine).

When my wife Jill and I saw the breakdown of the teams we both kind of looked at eachother and almost in unison said that if James and Stefani go home something is wrong with the Universe.

After the task, I really thought that Donald was going to fire two teams and let James and Stefani fight it out in the finals. Instead Trump decided to fire one player from each of the losing teams. I think that he definitely sent the right people home.

I am happy that the final four consists completely of people from Team Arrow. I liked Team Arrow a lot more than Team Kinetic, because they always seemed to be much more of a team and they always seemed to be having more fun.

Just a few more weeks and we will know who the season 6 apprentice winner is. I really expect either Stefani or James to be this season’s Apprentice. I can’t imagine Frank or Nicole working for Donald Trump, but anything is possible…

This week, James had to decide who from Arrow should go over to Kinetic. It was a hard decision, but I think James made the right choice. It wasn’t that Nicole was the weakest player, the problem was that Nicole’s strong point (creativity) was also the strong point of James and Tim. Whereas, Stefani has great organizational skills and Frank’s strength is working really hard.

Anyway, their task was to sell high priced Universal Studios Hollywood passes using a system called Adwalker.

Arrow used a lot of signage and were out in front of the park with tables set up and free water. They were in the right place!

On the other hand, team Kinetic were on roller skates trying to reach the people before they got into the park.

I think using roller skates wasn’t a bad idea, because at first Kientic was able to get people to sign up before they got to Arrow’s setup. However, Arrow used some good marketing tactics and turned things around. Kinetic was never able to adapt to Arrow’s strategy and wound up losing badly. I think if Kinetic had better sales people on their team they would have made it a closer battle, but team Arrow has the better sales people.

In the end, Angela went home. She didn’t do a good job of leading and that is what Donald Trump is looking for - a leader.

I think that James is a great leader. However, I think he might go home next week. Arrow really gets creative with their ideas. If Arrow’s next big idea doesn’t work out, then James will probably take the fall. I just have a hard time believing they will lose to Kinetic next week, but anything is possible…

Team Arrow won this week and Team Kinetic lost. I really thought the loss was due to Kristine’s poor management of the project, and I expect them to lose again. The only problem is that Nicole is going over to Team Kinetic and that may hurt Team Arrow.

I really think that both Muna and Kristine could have gone home for this task. Kristine stayed primarily because Heidi said she would rather keep Kristine, but, ummm, errr… she had a really, really hard time choosing!

Anyway, next week’s episode looks like a soap opera with Nicole going over to team Kinetic. I think James is making the right decision, because I do think Nicole is the weakest player on that team and her relationship with Tim may be causing issues. However, Nicole’s idea and knowledge of soap operas ultimately gave them the victory in this week’s task, so maybe it’s not such a good idea to let her go to Team Kinetic. We shall find out next week…

Surya Yalamanchili went home last night on the Apprentice and I was very glad to see it happen. It’s not that Surya is a bad guy or anything, but I don’t think I would like being managed by him and Team Arrow certainly didn’t like it.

I think Team Arrow is very talented, but James has been the one with the best ideas and he really needs to come through for them to get back to winning.

As for Team Kinetic, Kristine from Team Kinetic deals with putting on sporting events for a living. If Team Kinetic had lost, they should probably all have gone home.

Anyway, next week looks interesting. So far, I am most impressed with James, and Heidi, but it’s really hard to tell who the best candidate is yet. Who is you favorite candidate left?

I am a bit under the weather today, so I am going to give you my quick notes on the show:

1. Team Arrow won
No thanks to their team leader Suryah. They pretty much won because of the marketing ideas that the team came up with.
2. Kinetic lost
Kinetic lost because Aimee has a hard time as a leader and Dereck and Jenn didn’t mention the demographics for the mall.

All in all, it was a good episode, no surprises. Apparently, next time the Apprentice airs there will be a double firing. Sounds like fun…

This past Sunday, when the task was announced I was thinking, “Why do they have to harvest the honey?” I mean it’s not like that is a skill they will ever use again. The answer is pretty simple though…

It makes for good television (or so the producers think).

Anyway, in this week’s apprentice I really thought that the leadership was horrible for both teams. If it wasn’t for the great ideas that some of the Kinetic team members came up with, I think that Arrow would have won. It was no surprise that Aaron went home.

The best idea that anyone had was for Angela to don her Olympic gear and sell as an Olympic Athelete. Why haven’t they done that before? I really can’t see Kinetic losing if they continue to exploit Angela’s Olympic accomplishments. Talk about an unfair advantage…

Team Arrow finally won!

It’s kind of funny that it’s their first time to win, since Tim and James are at the top of my list to be the next apprentice.

Surya spent one day outdoors, how lucky is that?

Heidi and Kristine were even luckier than Surya. Either Heidi or Kristine should have gone home, but Marissa did a terrible job in the board room. Heidi did a terrible job of marketing and not putting anyone in charge of sales was also a big mistake.

On the other hand, Kristine’s idea of mixing fruit with chicken in a fast food dish was a horrible decision. It reminded me of the mass marketing mistake that Carey made. In the fast food industry you are trying to appeal to a large audience, adding fruit to the dish made it nearly impossible for them to win. That coupled with poor marketing and no sales plan guaranteed their loss.

Next week is the SuperBowl, so the next Apprentice will air in two weeks.

If you are looking for a good recap of last night’s episode of the apprentice, go check out Yahoo’s recap by clicking here.

You know what?

I was hoping to write one or two business lessons from last night’s show, but there were just so many mistakes I don’t know where to begin.

Last night, the winning team Kinetic got to take the day off and have a relaxing day at the hotel, while the losing team “Arrow” had to split up into two teams and compete against eachother.

Michelle lead one team and Aaron lead the other team.

Aaron’s team did a fantastic job and did just about everything right.

On the other hand, Michelle’s team came up with a horrible idea, had all sorts of planning and marketing issues, and just did a miserable job.

Before Donald could fire anyone, Michelle quit. Michelle would have been fired, if she had not quit. It’s kind of too bad, because I enjoy watching the boardrooms. In the boardrooms, I learn about some of the things that Donald Trump looks for in a leader. However, I think last night’s board room might have been pretty quick.

The funniest thing about the episode is that I think if James had been on Michelle’s team, that Michelle’s team would have won. James came up with almost all of the winning teams ideas. I think if James hadn’t come up with all those great ideas, they might have been doing a tour of all the places famous people died (Aaron’s suggestion), YIKES!

I can see why the team has been losing. I think they have a chance of winning next week if James becomes their project leader, of if they let James come up with all the ideas.

What did you think of last night’s show?

Buddy TV did an interview with fired apprentice wannabe Carey Sherrel.

Carey answered a question that I have been wanting someone to ask:

How big of a disadvantage was it for your team to compete against people who had been getting pampered inside the mansion?

It’s a big disadvantage. When we first got there it was very koom bay ah-ish; pulling out the guitar by the bonfire and whatnot. But after sitting in the heat all day and not being able to do things, and just sitting in the backyard, you become disgruntled and irritable. We had some fun moments, but after awhile it was like “I really don’t want to be here right now. I really want to be inside with the air conditioner.”

I would imagine that living in tents is going to make it much harder to win against the team living in the mansion and sure enough Carey says it is.

I found this quote real interesting:

What are your plans for the future?

I am, oddly enough, launching a swimwear line. Blue Motion Squared, BlueMotionSquared.com; it’s launching February 1. It will be board shorts, by the way, just so everybody knows. And I’m kind of challenging Trump on this. If the short is a loser, it’s a loser, but I will definitely be showing my quarterly earnings to Trump.

Ummm… dude none of the buyers would buy your swimsuit. In fact, one of them wrote that it was unsellable. I guess if he markets them to a certain community he might sell some, but I don’t expect to see them any major outlets.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to see what other twists “The Apprentice” has in store for us next week.

Well, this is the second week in a row that Donald hasn’t given a weekly business tip. I am starting to wonder if those are a thing of the past.

This week each team’s task was to design 3 men’s swimsuits and 3 women’s swimsuits for a fashion show. The team that made the most from orders of their swimsuits would win, but there was a new twist…

The winning team doesn’t compete in next week’s competition!

It was fairly obvious early on that Carey’s swimsuit design was a make or break design, and I was fairly sure it would be a “break” design. Sure enough, they lost again– this time because of the horrible design of Carey’s swimsuit. I really thought that the project leader (Nicole) should have recognized how horrible it was. In fact, I probably would have fired both Nicole and Carey, but that’s just me.

While there are many lessons from this episode, the two main lessons I got were:

1. If you are trying to sell to a mass market, make a product that will appeal to the masses. The losing team made a product that only 1 percent of the population “might” be interested in buying. That just didn’t cut it. If you are going after a niche market, then you have to target that niche. But if you only have six products, and you’re targeting a mass market, then you can’t afford to “waste” one of your product choices on a niche market.

2. If you are running a business, don’t let someone else push a bad idea down your throat.
There were several people who were unsure of Carey’s idea, but he pushed the idea hard. You can’t let that happen in business, unless you want to fail. Don’t mistake a passionate idea for a good idea. Know your market research and stick to it, no matter how excited someone might be about their pet project.

Buddy TV has an excellent interview with Martin Han Clarke who was the first person to be fired from the Apprentice this season. I found Martin’s final words very interesting:

Don’t forget to come visit GiveHimAChanceTrump.com, where you can vote me in at the end of the season.

Interesting that you can vote someone back in at the end of the season. Quite frankly, I don’t expect it to make a difference in the final results of the show, but I guess anything is possible.

I am still on vacation in Florida, but I did finally get around to watching Sunday’s episode of The Apprentice last night. While Donald didn’t have a business tip this week, I have come up with two of my own that I will explain at the end this post. First, a couple thoughts on this week’s show…

I really, really enjoyed watching it. If you are looking for a recap check out Yahoo’s official Apprentice page which has an excellent recap of the Apprentice Season 6 episode 1. In fact, Yahoo’s official Season 6 Apprentice page is loaded with great Apprentice information.

I thoroughly enjoyed the plot twists. It will be interesting to see how living in a tent is going to affect the performance of the losing team. The winning project manager gets a HUGE advantage in the competition because they get a behind the scenes look at how the board room works. That has got to be a great advantage when they reach the board room.

Now for the two business lessons:

1. You Can’t Sell Without Customers
The losing team was so disorganized. They lost because they didn’t have big signs saying “Car Wash”. How basic is that?

2. Always Upsell
The winning team worked really hard and they barely beat the losing team. The losing team was so disorganized and took forever to get customers, but they did one thing right… they upsold their customers. Instead of just selling 10 dollar car washes, they tried to upsell everyone on detailing. The upsell almost won it for them. The winning team would have won in a land slide if they had concentrated more on upsells, instead of pure volume.

I think the losing team has a good chance of winning next week as long as the project manager from this week (Frank) doesn’t get involved in the decision making. They had a lot of strong members. The ones who stood out the most were James and Tim.

Other than the project lead, Heidi, you didn’t really get to see enough of the other team to tell whether anyone stands out as a frontrunner. Donald really seems to like Angela, the Olympic gold medalist from women’s ice hockey. He almost seems a little starstruck. But if you read her bio, you can tell why he might be.

Lastly, go check out Ivanka’s blog, it’s a pretty interesting read.