The Apprentice Live Thread

Vanity

[mnehring]

Something that was useful at the MBA Association I would like to recreate here is a live thread (completely vanity) on The Apprentice. This is for only those who actually enjoy the business aspect of the program and would like to analize the actions of the members.

[mnehring]

Comment away..

[johniegrad]

analize the actions of the members

Whoo boy!! You gonna take some hits on this!!

[mnehring]

Too much to drink and growing up in the UK... lol... thanks for the catch.. one of these days FreeRepublic will add an edit feature..

[JennysCool]

"Analize? You're FIRED!"

[mnehring]

see #3.. apparently no one cares about the Apprentice.. last time I try to start a thread on this one....

[JennysCool]

Aww, don't feel bad! Just kidding!

Bet some fans'll be along directly!

[ClearCase_guy]

Saying too much in the boardroom is always a mistake. Be concise. Be surgical. Stay out of other people's fights.

[freedumb2003]

Looks like they didn't pick for looks this time.

[buckeyesrule]

Summer rerally blew it. The MENSA guy was about to be fired and Summer had to open her mouth. Very stupid. I like the blonde manager was the winning team. The black girl earily reminds me of Amorosa.

[kingu]

Still another 25 minutes away from it airing in our time zone; looking semi-forward to it. The Apprentice UK season 2 just started last week; again, still impressed with their production quality and setup.

First task was a trip with 500 pounds to the green grocer and then a free booth at a local veg market. Both teams had interesting approaches, one was against the plan they agreed to the night before, and in the end, they paid for it.

[A knight without armor]

I'm sorry I missed it. It started tonight (Monday)???


My schedule has :

DATE / TIME:
March 1: 8:00PM, 11:00PM
March 5: 9:00PM
March 6: 12:00AM

[kingu]

I think that both teams discounted their most valuable asset - business education and experience. Only one team styled one of their members as a business consultant, while the rest focused on upgrades on membership. Really what they should have focused on was that experience and offered a one day business clinic for those who upgraded their memberships. One person on closing the upgrade, one floater to get the big box moms who shop for their families and aren't interested in business, and the rest to focus on those who want to improve their businesses.

That'd get me in the door, that'd likely get an upgraded membership from me, and I would have gotten real value out of that upgrade, even if their advice was junk. Someone to bounce ideas off of is worth a hundred dollar price tag.

The giveaway of bags? Useless. Most Sam's Clubs already offer these bags for upgrades, and they just handed them out. Synergy actually used their blimp to advertise something other than an image ad, but both teams were failures in my opinion. 40 - 43 memberships? Blind luck determined which team would win, not business sense.

And manicures and massages? Hello? If you're looking for business folks, they're not likely to waste time doing that when they could be making money. Again, totally aimed at the big box moms.

The only question in my mind is what day of the week they did this; a Saturday? Then they made the right decision. A weekday? A waste of space.

So far, I'm unimpressed with either team. Some footwork would have made a real difference vs the phone/blimp reliance. Why am I a member of Sam's Club? Because someone from Sam's Club walked into my business, waited until I wasn't busy, and made a reasonably professional sales pitch.

Oh, and the liberals must have been oh so pleased to support Walmart. :) Good job, Trump, and to Sam's Club, for getting together and supporting one of the good guys.

[AxelPaulsenJr]

Summer should have been fired. She did squat, made one phone call and gave up. Her team lost by three new memberships, a few more calls could have been the difference.

[ClearCase_guy]

Probably a dead thread, but I don't want to start a new one.

I think the teams are weak this season. Brent is not good, but he knows what he is there for. Pepi and Stacy seemed to act like back-biting college students: "Let's all gang up on Brent! No one likes him!"

It's a 15-week job interview. Seems like some folks don't even try to make a good impression. Brent knows enough to make the effort.

[buckeyesrule]

****Pepi and Stacy seemed to act like back-biting college students: "Let's all gang up on Brent! No one likes him!"****

It kinda back-fired tonight. Stacy was a fake.

[ClearCase_guy]

I also thought that (in a small way) Brent showed some class. He went out into the hall to Stacy about what he perceived as her bad behavior. That was reasonably private and (somewhat) non-confrontational.

Stacy's response? She marched back into the room and, in front of everyone, verbally attacked him about what she perceived as his bad behavior and tried to turn everyone against him.

Bitch.

[kingu]

I also thought that (in a small way) Brent showed some class. He went out into the hall to Stacy about what he perceived as her bad behavior. That was reasonably private and (somewhat) non-confrontational.

Yeah, he identified a problem he had with a team member who was constantly cutting him off, he went to her, outside the group, and tried to deal with it. Likely not in the best manner, but rather than dealing with it herself, she went running to the group and wasted their time.

Add on the strike for the poor location choice and she was a gonner.

As to Pepi's leadership.. Noon? They got all their team out at noon, whereas the other team was out in full force at 9am? Three hours difference, plus the activity the night before, they were dead in the water before they started. Grouped up on a single corner rather than spreading out.. It seems like that entire team loves those cameras and will do anything to keep within their range rather than trying to complete the task.

And once again, I think that Apprentice UK wipes the board with their task - Trump has his folks do text messaging, Sir Alan Sugar has his photograph and produce a charity calendar. In 72 hours, both teams in the UK had to design, photograph (kittens on one side, babies on the other), produce and then sell their calendars to Virgin Megastores, Harrods and Calendar Club on a wholesale basis.

That's a monstrous task, and I hope some of the folks here in the US production team are paying attention, because while the hour long infomercial is entertaining, I'd much rather see them actually produce real business tasks.

And as for both teams, an absolute critique: Why didn't either team either propose or actually go to the college campuses, art school campuses, etc - locations with a large population of folks who do text messaging on a large scale, and more likely to not only text themselves, but get others to do so as well. The club lines was about as close to a good idea as I saw, the ticket line was a fair fall back, but neither team played towards those who are most likely to open their phones and type in a message.

[Tall_Texan]

I really have nobody in this game I'm very keen on yet and they aren't even a very telegenic group. Probably the guys who will go furthest are the ones who are barely on the radar right now because the producers haven't introduced us to them yet.

Could somebody buy these people a comb? It's a job interview with one of the richest employers in the world and these folks show up with their hair flying everywhere and what appear to be ill-fitting clothes. Now, I'm no fashion plate but, geez, I'm not trying to win a six-figure job either.

[Tall_Texan]

I'll add more after Monday's show. There's one player it would be fun to feed to the sharks - that is if any shark is able to wrap its jaws around him.

[Tall_Texan]

Three bimbos dumped so far and Charmaine could be the next to go. Trump would have canned her if Theresa had called her back into the boardroom rather than trying to blame the men.

Lenny, the Russian, is funny ("I wish her brains were as big as her boobs") while Brent is just annoying. I'm really disappointed in the overall cast so far. It's a real dim group.