The Apprentice Episode Four – Lawyer’s summary

Hare today, dog tomorrow 

The Apprentice - Series 11, Episode 4, 29 October

BBC The Apprentice Episode 4

Chloe Harrold's column for The HR Director continues at www.thehrdirector.com Look out for her next column next week.

This week we saw the candidates at the London Pet Show. If only I had gone this year I would have been able to see their selling skills in action first hand! As it happens I didn't miss much and it’s safe to say that I probably would have bought a cat tower just to stop Ruth Whiteley talking.

Lord Sugar set a simple task: “pick the right products and sell them”. 

We were told that almost half of all UK homes have a pet and it’s a £4billion+ market. Scott Saunders was voted PM on the strength of his dog ownership and sales skills and experience. Confident that he wouldn't be “losing this task”, sadly it went downhill for Saunders and his team. As PM, Saunders couldn't make a decision on which product to select, didn't secure the balloons because of a lack of enthusiasm (but let’s be honest, who is more enthusiastic than David Stevenson?) and ultimately his team lost the task.

Concentrating on the big ticket cat tower items Selina Waterman-Smith made one sale but had to ask Saunders to work out the pricing for her. Saunders made three sales and Whiteley failed to secure a single one. This would have come as no surprise to anyone who watched the excruciating process of Whiteley trying to sell. Cue more wise words from Lord Sugar who described Whiteley’s sales technique as: “talk, talk, talk, talk, talk”.

As a sales trainer by profession, this should have been Whiteley’s chance to shine and based on that performance, her exit was entirely deserved. Putting aside the many reasons why The Apprentice can’t be directly compared to an employment situation (they’re not employees of Lord Sugar, yet, and they certainly don’t have two years service) if it was, I’m confident that would have been a fair dismissal.

An employee who is performing poorly needs to be set targets, given time to improve, provided with guidance and perhaps even additional support but, a sales person who can’t make sales? That’s serious underperformance.Waterman-Smith also received strong criticism and found herself back in the boardroom. Lord Sugar has given her a final chance though and, if we compare this to a final written warning, she could be gone next week if she finds herself on the losing team. Watch this space.