On this blog, we will be covering one of our favorite shows NBC’s hit TV show The Apprentice. We want to hear from you. Who are your favorites? Who would you like to see go next? Please try to keep it clean— our kids read this.

Team Gold Rush kept it simple and came up with a great billboard advertisement for grape nuts cereal.

On the other hand, team Synergy did not keep it simple. Their message was way to complex. In marketing a product you need to keep things simple. You need to appeal to the basic wants of people. Not only was Synergy’s message complex, it did not really appeal to most people’s basic desires.

The other thing one could learn from this is that it is important to consider the marketing platform when running a marketing campaign. While Synergy’s marketing campaign might have worked in a TV commercial, it was way too complex for a billboard.

I didn’t think that Dad did a great job as a leader.  He was a bit frazzled.  He had a hard time delegating to anyone other than Tarek.  He didn’t step up and make decisions when they needed to be made.

Speaking of Tarek…  he better not go back to the board room, or I think he will be going home.  How many second chances is he going to get?  I’d much rather see Lenny go before him, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.

I was glad to see team Synergy win, simply because I like Roxanne.  And because I wanted Andrea to SHUT UP!  I think in real life, I’d probably like Andrea, but I think she’s way too driven as an individual to play nicely as part of a group.

So, that’s the wrap for this week.  What did you think?  And who do you think will be The Apprentice?

In Monday’s show there were a lot of contestants talking but not listening. The worst offender was the project leader of “Gold Rush” (the losing team), Dan. He didn’t seem to listen to any of his people, until the very end of the task. And then he only listened to one person (Tarek), who gave him bad advice. Everyone else on the team disagreed with Tarek’s advice, but did Dan listen to his people?

 No!

The show was rather interesting, because not only did the leader of the losing team not listen to his people, the winning team (Synergy) had a listening problem as well. The people on Synergy weren’t listening to their leader. That is not surprising, because now that Brent is gone they have to find another scapegoat. The problem is that their target is in my opinion one of the best competitors on the show (Roxanne).

You have to listen to your people if you want to succeed in business. What if you don’t have people working for you?

Then you should listen to your friends, family, and better yet your customers. You don’t have to agree with them, but you should sincerely try to listen to them and understand the point they are making.

There is much more to listening than hearing!

Listening is hearing AND understanding.

It is important to listen to your people and to listen to your customers. Not doing so is bound to hurt your business.

Just wanted to let all of you apprentice fans know that this coming Monday (April 3) The Apprentice is at a special time: 10PM ET/PT.

Last night was no different. Bryce (The project leader) for Gold Rush, brought in the wrong people. He did not bring in the two people most responsible for the loss and worse than that he brought in Lee who was celebrating a religious holiday and was in no shape or form responsible for this loss. If you bring in the wrong people, you get fired. It’s pretty simple.

Now, sure Bryce might have gone home anyway, because the fact that his team was late to the meeting with the executives from Arby’s was really his doing (and Charmaine’s). But he might have made it through if he had brought in Charmaine and Tarek.

I think Charmaine must be playing this game really well behind the scenes.  This is not the first time that someone has gone home because they didn’t bring Charmaine into the boardroom.

 Pretty cool.

Getting back to Donald’s lesson, you have to command respect from your people. The way you do this is by treating them with respect. That does not mean you let them walk all over you, but you have to seriously listen to others and respect them. Bryce did pull his team together, and while he might have commanded respect from his people by doing so, he failed to command respect from his customer (the Arby’s execs), which ultimately lead to his firing.

In some ways I wish Bryce stayed, because he did a great job of helping them work together as a team by showing his team members respect, but he didn’t show respect for the customer nor do he show respect for Donald, so how could they in turn show respect for him?

Stay tuned…

Who do you think should have gone home Monday?

Bryce: 50% (3)
Lenny: 33% (2)
Lee: 17% (1)
nobody: 0% (0)
Total Votes : 6

Team Gold Rush started off on the wrong foot. Lenny got caught up in what he wanted to do, before meeting with the Ace Hardware execs. He failed to prepare any questions for the execs. Not only that, but he didn’t ask the Ace execs what they wanted. He just went full steam ahead with his plan. Boy was that a bad mistake.

Synergy had their own problems. The project leader Michael was very indecisive and it almost cost them. However, they did listen to the Ace Hardware execs and managed to make a room that was exactly what the execs at Ace were looking for.

It was pretty easy to pinpoint Lenny as the one that would be going home. Right before the boardroom, Lee was telling Lenny how he would stick up for Lenny. While it was admirable, I think Lee could have talked himself off the show in that boardroom. I get the feeling that Donald really likes Lee. He can probably see a little bit of himself in Lee.

Anyway, Lenny went home as expected and Gold Rush probably lost the weakest player they had left (which was good for them).

After week seven’s victory, all of the members of Synergy confronted Michael and told him what a horrible job he did. When Donald announced the task and that one member of Synergy would need to join Gold Rush, Michael jumped at the chance and volunteered to join them. It was a really smart move on Michael’s part, because he knew if he stayed on Gold Rush he would have been a target in every boardroom (not that team Synergy ever goes to the boardroom).

Leslie became project lead for Gold Rush, and Andrea became project lead for Synergy.

When I saw that Andrea was going to be project lead for Synergy I really thought Gold Rush had a great chance to win. I don’t know why I doubted team Gold Rush’s ability to lose, but I really thought they had a great chance.

Andrea didn’t let me down, by being the polar opposite of Michael (domineering). She didn’t listen to her people and that could have been really, really bad. The problem is that Leslie (the project lead for Gold Rush) didn’t listen to her customers and one of her people.

Anyway, Andrea chose to giveaway a baseball as the promotional item. No one on her team liked that idea, neither did Donald and co. but it didn’t matter. They priced the sandwhiches to sell at 4 dollars a piece. Also, Sean had a great idea to pass out fliers the night before and tell people to come back for the exciting new sandwhich. That really paid off for them as well.

On the other hand team Gold Rush came up with a great promotional item (a free cooler), but…

Well, Lee went and talked to the manager of the 7-Eleven. He convinced the manager to take ALL the sandwhiches off the shelf and put only the P’EatZZa sandwiches. That was brilliant!While he was there he also asked the manager what was a good price to set for the sandwhich, he said 4-5 dollars. That evening the team discusses price points. I am not sure who suggested 7.99 but it wasn’t Lee. He then speaks out and says that 7.99 is too high, how about 6.99 (assuming they wouldn’t go for 4-5 dollars). Leslie says no way! Lee tells them that the manager of the store told him it should be cheaper. Leslie still doesn’t care (what the customer wants), she chooses to go with this random number of 7.99.

The next day, both teams do a decent job selling the P’EatZZa sandwiches. At the beginning of the day Lee overhears two of the workers complaining that the price (7.99) is too high. He tells Leslie, but Leslie and Charmaine get on his case and say 7.99 is a good price. At one point Lee is missing for about 45 mintues. It turns out he is out on the street trying to make a mega deal. He almost does with a chance at selling 1000 sandwhiches, but it doesn’t work out. Leslie gets on his case about not being there, but if the deal had gone through she would have been cheering him on because it would have meant a huge win for them.

At this point, (in our living room) Jill and I are talking about how we think Leslie is going to make a huge mistake and bring Lee into the boardroom, after performing way above anyone else on this task including members of the losing team. Now back to the show…

In the boardroom, Donald and co. make it clear that the reason they lost the task was the price point. Lee was the only one who had said the price point was too high (he did so twice), but the rest of the team (who defended the price point) insist that Lee is to blame for the Loss. Knowing that Leslie is going to bring in Lee, Donald says to Leslie, you can bring in 1 or 2 people to the boardroom with you, you SHOULD bring in 2. Leslie brings in just 1, Lee.

Fatal boardroom mistake, when Donald tells you that you should bring in two people, bring in two people.

I thought that Lee almost talked himself into going home. He broke the boardroom rule of “don’t talk too much”. But Leslie didn’t listen to Donald. If you aren’t going to listen to him how in the world can he hire you?

Also, her decision about the price lost them this task, so Leslie went home and on her birthday of all days…

BTW - I kind of like Lee, I am not sure if it is because he has a lot of energy and is very creative or if it is because he remind me a little bit of Scott Baio.

So at this point in the game who do you think is going to be the next apprentice?

Despite being indecisive Michael’s team won the task in Week 7. The reason he won is because they followed Donald’s business lesson for week 8, “Know your Customer”.

However, being indecisive drove the rest of Michael’s team crazy! They just couldn’t stand it.

Once you have gone over all the options and you get a pretty clear idea of what is the best thing to do, you need to “JUST DO IT”. Don’t keep going back and forth about your decision. You have to be decisive in business.

You don’t want to overanalyze things. Being indecisive is actually a problem I struggle with, and when you have this problem you just have to look over the facts and make quick decisions. You aren’t always going to be right, but everyone makes mistakes and the longer you agonize over a decision the less fun you are to be around and the more stressful every decision becomes. Eventually you will just stop making decisions altogether. And that is no way to run a business.

There could have been other business lessons like “listen to your people”, “listen to your boss” (Donald), “make sure the price is right”…

The thing is that the Project Lead of Gold Rush (Leslie) made the fatal flaw of not knowing her customer. She knew the customers were college kids, and yet insisted they would pay 7.99 for a sandwich??? Ummm, I don’t think I would pay 7.99 for a sandwhich from 7 Eleven, why would a college student?

Anyway, you have to know your customer to succeed in any business. It’s as simple as that.

From reading through the news on his website it seems like Kwame has become quite the public speaker.