Gerry’s Big Decision made its debut last night on Channel 4. It got rave reviews in the Daily Telegraph TV supplement and was a sort of ‘Dragons Den’ meets the ‘Apprentice’ meets ‘The secret Millionaire’.

Business guru Sir Gerry Robinson, ex-head of (amongst others) Granada TV and Coca Cola (Europe) seems to be spending his retirement doing TV shows on ‘dysfunctional business’

(His  “I’ll show them whose Boss” was followed by the superb “Can Gerry fix the NHS”).

Last nights episode (the first in a 3 part series), featured, two independent Breweries who were days away from closing their doors.

Both parties stood to lose everything they had including the houses they lived in.

As one party put it “We will just lock up, put a chain around the gate, put the keys through the letter box and walk away.”

The Breweries were to be visited by Gerry and after he had looked around and talked to the owners and his usual tactic of going straight to talk to employees, he would make the decision of whether or not to invest (supposedly using his own money) in one or both Breweries to save them from going under.

The first Brewery owned by the establisher and his partner of 4 years, had actually stopped brewing when Gerry arrived. They had run out of hops and were unable to afford any more.
The head brewer cracked

“We couldn’t actually organise a ‘piss up in a brewery’ because we’d have nothing to drink.”

The second Brewery jointly established by a husband and wife team had a problem with their ‘management control’ systems. The owner did not actually know which of his award winning beers were making money and which of the least profitable to drop.

In both cases there was a management problem which, after thinking it over and having discussion with all concerned, Gerry suggested that the ladies of both establishments take charge for a temporary period of time.

At the first brewery this was met with disdain by the aforementioned Head brewer with

“Is that the best you can come up with?”

To say that to such a man with such distinguished business mind as Sir Gerry was disrespectful to say the least and he said to him

“If you worked for me, you would probably get a slap for that”

and went on to explore the possibility that  the guy might possibly want the business to fail.

His answer to this was that “turning up every day expecting the gates to be locked and you be out of a job might be likely to make you a bit cynical”

As it turned out, both women were very adept at the job and quickly diagnosed some of the problems.

The first Breweries biggest problem seemed to be in sales. It had been generally understood that the sales rep. was up to the job but he was in fact trying to sell the beer too far away – making logistics a problem and his selling technique meant that he probably required some in-house training.

He totally misunderstood the request from a re-seller, to take a look at the brewery and its beer, believing it to be a request for a tourist visit.

“Yes give us a few weeks notice and there will be a small charge.”

Fortunately the new manager had chosen to shadow him and actually made the pitch.

Finally at the end of the programme Sir Gerry had to make his big decision. Which would he choose to save?

In fact he chose both Breweries and left with as a majority shareholder in both businesses.

The voice over at the end told how well they were doing.

Good TV – with no shouting and stamping around by anyone as in The Apprentice.

Next week – Pies and Pasties….

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Blog post originally from Sharp End Training

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A bit of a hum-drum episode last night.

A variation on the “buy from wholesalers-sell to the public” task which has been repeated at least once in each series. This variation was baby and mum-to-be related and the “pitch” was at the Earls Court baby show.

It’s hard to say which of the products was the “least worst” and they included

• A cardboard box cot
• A pair of high heeled shoes for babies that can’t actually walk
• A handmade wooden rocking horse selling at £1500 or more
• A “scrum cap”  to stop toddlers hurting themselves (how long before these are compulsary at nursery schools?)
• A blow up paddling birthing pool

Suralan promoted the two parents as Project Managers – Lorraine and James

Unfortunately, Lorraine allowed herself to be “sold” to with the one hand collapsable pushchair which she spent the rest of the task wrestling with. However, the idea of one “big ticket” item and one “impulse” item (the skull cap) was sound.

Unfortunately, James and his chums were brow beaten by Debra into going for the rocking horse and the birthing pool. These seemed like the “odd couple”.

We, the viewer, had learnt earlier that only 2.2% (not 2%!) of women actually use birthing pools so based on that logic, only 2 out of 100 visitors were likely to be a prospect anyway…

As for the rocking horse, the logic seemed to be that they only needed to sell one for it to be a good choice.

There is an old saying that says

“If you need to know the price, then you can’t afford it”

Well, they showed the price and still nobody bought it.

Victory to Lorraine’s team and their treat was to have an audience with the cartoonist Gerald Scarf and have a caricature drawn.

And so, as Suralan pointed out, it was fourth time up in the boardroom for Ben, Debra and James.

Either of them (or all of them) could have gone and it is hard to see any of them surviving much further.

The ultimate winner must still surely come from Kate, Howard, Lorraine or Yasmina but next week, one of my favourites – the shopping channel task and one slip there could spell disaster.

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As the Apprentice moves on in weeks, so the tempo rises. There are fewer cars to take the candidates around from to place. Everyone has a seat in the boardroom and there is no place to hide.

And that includes Margate…

A creative task this week where the teams had to re brand the town of Margate, produce a poster and leaflet campaign and make presentations to marketing and tourism experts and residents and officials of the town itself.

Both teams seemed to ignore the existing work done to regenerate the town

Further details here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margate#Tourism

The choices of the teams were the traditional family bucket and spade holiday and promoting Margate as a gay alternative to Brighton.

Both teams opted to divide in half and send an “away team” of two to Margate and two to remain in London.

Not sure why Ben continually made the frame shape with his thumbs and forefingers. I don’t think I have ever seen a “real” photographer do that… His attempts at “maunfactured” fun on the beach in red braces and shirt and tie made me laugh out loud.

Anyway, that’s not half as much trouble as the other team were having.

Without a creative bone between them (maybe apart from Howard), they created a poster and leaflet that looked like a group of GCSE Business Studies students had it using Microsoft Publisher (1995 version!).

And to not finish it – and then say it was to sell advertising space to local businesses – is probably the most buttock clenching embarrassing thing I have seen on The Apprentice for at least errr… two weeks….

In the end Mona did appear a bit of a lightweight and I am suprised Suralan didn’t fire both her and the waspish Deborah.

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The apprentice always takes a bit of time to get going and by week 7, most of the lightweights have been fired and possible winners start to emerge. A couple more weeks and then the dreaded interviews with Suralan’s next layer of Lieutenants (after Nick & Margaret).

New task last night where Suralan obviously expected them all to do some selling in the style of door to door salespeople.

Three classic apprentice mistakes

Picking the “cat playhouse” as a product to pitch (which looked to me like a decorated cardboard box). I didn’t hear how much it was sold for but most self respecting children would prefer to do the decorating themselves.

Completely ignoring the fact that a couple of appointments were already lined up and not picking a product to match. As I posted last week with the cost of employing a mac designer or whatever, these things don’t just drop from the sky and I think we could all tell how frustrated Suralan was with the teams.

Not knowing the price of a competitors product. The body sleeping bag, looked, on the face of it, a decent product but it was obviously up against the traditional model. Not know how much one of those cost was a classic apprentice mistake.

Philip fired

And so the “laws of the apprentice” were proved again. Being a loudmouth and throwing weight around means that your comeuppance will come sooner rather than later and so it was last night.

Nick & Margaret involved

The dry wit of Nick & Margaret has been observed in many places but maybe it is due to the nature of the candidates that they are more involved in the boardroom.

An out take?

During Philip’s taxi ride home. I don’t know when the taxi ride was supposed to be in the cycle of the “firing” but when he immediately left the boardroom and sat cross legged, he had light brown shoes on – but when he walked to the taxi, they had changed to dark grey.

Ultimate winner

No idea – possibly Yasmina?

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Well it had to happen. Noorul Choudhury was fired last night from The Apprentice episode 6.

After a couple of weeks under performing, he got the boot last night.

The task was actually a spin of one of my favourite tasks. In previous series, the candidates had been required to source and buy as cheaply as possible a series of random items ranging from a goldfish bowl to a tyre for a high performance sports car.

In this task though, the task was to sell a series of random items ranging from a poster of footballer, a cheap mountain bike right through to an original James Bond novel and persian rug.

Of course some of the items were junk and there were several “gems” in the pack.

Of course this task would favour those who maybe stop and think a little before diving in to sell with all guns blazing. (Like err.. Philip)

Can’t help feeling though that these sort of tasks are somehow contrived in the scoring system at the end.

In this case it was value of the things sold OVER the valuation (by who?) take away the value of things sold UNDER valuation to give (in both cases) a loss.

Can’t help feeling also that walking up to a complete stranger in the street who wants to buy a rug regardless of colour is a bit of a set up also…

Oh, and I also predicted that Suralan would mix the teams up after last weeks one sided event.

As for Noorul, it seems that he confirms my view about editing.

And Ben, he continues to be portrayed as a serial bully. He just continues to throw his weight around but when it comes down to it he “didn’t know” what James had been doing on the task and I am sure that he twice called Suralan just “Sir” in the style of a naughty school boy.

Surprised he didn’t fire both of them…

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Well, forget analysing the management skills of the Apprentice candidates this week and just watch a classic episode full of people falling out and shouting at each other…

A variation of the “creative task” with a TV ad, character and cereal box needed in two days.

All should appeal to health conscious parents AND kids wanting fun and adventure at breakfast time.

Marketing whiz Kimberley should really have walked this and their “Pants Man” character (box printed on only 1 side and as Suralan called it in colours that would normally found on the household cleaning aisle) was doomed to failure.

The boardroom excuse of “we didn’t have enough time” is surely one from GCSE Business Studies than the cutting edge of UK business talent.

I think that if the candidates were actually paying the going hourly rate for the professionals who help them (voice over artists, mac operators etc they would be much more likely to focus on the job in hand rather than spend time allocating blame for events that have not or might not happen.

Although it is still very early, the winner must surely come from the winning team on Wednesday – the other team (and I always lose track of the team names…) seems so dysfunctional so as not to be effective.

Even last weeks villain Ben seemed to get along well.

The editing (which we have discussed before) even tried to show upset in the winning team – by showing the voice over being replaced after only one listen.

I can’t help feeling though that the standard of candidate is lower than in recent years and I don’t think Suralan would have allowed shouting and bawling at each other in previous years.

Can’t wait for next week (and how long before Suralan mixes the teams up again…)

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