The TV Junkie

Image courtesy of http://www.pastdeadline.com

Don't be surprised. The title is referring to yours truly. Yes. I am a TV shows addict and I'm proud of it. (Oopps... shameless me). But seriously, I love all of them. From drama to comedy. From reality TV to talk show. You name it, I love it. :p ... Geez ... I know, it sounds quite pathetic and you may be thinking it's such a time and life consuming activity but somehow, I found a different life in it. Go figure.

I wouldn't want to list down what I'm watching as that would be too scary but I think I'd better jot down what I am discovering that's worth sharing from those that I've watched. And at 3AM I'm so eager to share about what I just finished watching - The Apprentice (UK). This show is modeled from the successful American version by Donald Trump (the real estate mogul) where people are fighting for "the" job to be his apprentice and throughout the "interviewing" process, they'll be given projects to manage. The winning team/candidate will be rewarded and the loser will be FIRED.


Image courtesy of http://newyork.corante.com

I love the US version from the start because I thought every projects will be interesting despite of the drama-rama between the contestants, there're always things to be learned. I guess NBC agreed with their fans and created a section in its website that says - Lessons Learned, even Trump University is part of this. How smart The Donald is. :p

So, when I stumbled upon The Apprentice (UK), I was quite apprehensive as the general notion of British show is either boring or have some different taste of joke. But, being a GREAT TV junkie, I kept on watching. Though there were times I cringed at the way they deliberated soooooooo much, as if they were required to write a 100 pages essay for every question they are asked. URGH.

As I watched more and more, I realize, I actually love the UK version more now, why? Not because I need to write 100 pages worth of essay now, but because the challenges given by Sir Alan Sugar (The UK version of Donald Trump) were actually much more interesting and challenging than the US version. They normally will require the contestants to get their hands really dirty into the process of the business, inside out, outside in. If the US version requires the team to sell as much ice cream as possible in a period of time, the UK version will make the team to go to the dairy farm, make their own ice cream, create their own original flavour, let the locals taste the ice cream, and then sell as much ice cream as possible. Not only the project has the intention to grill the teams involved, it also has the sincere intention to help the local dairy farm to expand their business to London. I just love that idea so much. It's a win-win-win-win situations:
1. Contestants had a challenging task to be closer to the prize
2. Dairy farms had more exposure
3. New customers had the chance to be pioneers with those unique flavours (imagine avocado + chili)
4. It made great TV
and another win
5. DD, the TV junkie is happy and learning something at the same time

The losing team this week was really a surprising one for me. The leader was doing quite a great job and they managed to secure larger deals compared to the other team. They had 6 appointments made the day before compared to the other team only had 2 appointments. The difference between their sales was approximately £200, but that small amount was brutal enough to get someone fired.

The losing team members were actually doing quite a great job and I was perplexed how the project manager was able to pull through this and actually chose 2 members to be brought to the boardroom with her. As more mouths spoken up, it's easier to see where things went wrong and here was the scenario:

• There were 6 members. 3 were in the production house, making ice cream. 3 were focusing on sales and setting up appointment for the next day.
• The sales team (consists of Lindi, Jennifer & Raef) was really doing quite well but they got a little bit cocky. From the sales team, Lindi was chosen to be the second-in-command.
• They managed to clinch 2 quite big deal - cinema chain and pub chain.
• Jennifer took the initiative to give an exclusive deal to the cinema chain. Which means the unique flavour of the ice cream will not be allowed to sell in other cinemas. This decision was taken by her without first consulting her sales manager (Lindi) or worse, the owner of the ice cream - the dairy farm!!
• Lindi on the other hand also gave a 3-month-exclusive deal to the pub chain without consulting the dairy farm.

Both decisions pertaining the exclusivity of the flavour had made Sir Alan so mad that if he had known this earlier, he would void the sales which will make the difference between the winning and losing team to be more than just £200.

So who do you think will be fired?
- The project manager who were being cornered by her team member
- Jennifer who had given away the exclusivity to the cinema chain without permission
- Lindi who was also given away the exclusivity to the pub chain though it's only for 3 months


Image courtesy of Wikipedia

The female candidates from Series Four in the boardroom.
Back row left to right: Lucinda, Shazia, Sara, Jenny.
Front row left to right: Claire, Helene, Lindi, Jennifer.

At this point, I was really thinking that Miss "Exclusive" Jennifer will be sent home. She made one of the major mistake for making her own decision just to secure the deal without thinking on behalf of the dairy farm, who'll eventually continue and delivery the business after the challenge. To my surprise, it was the second-in-command cum sales-manager Lindi that got the boot from Sir Alan. Reason, she was the sales manager. She should have stopped Jennifer from making the big mistake and shouldn't even have made the mistake herself. She was a very creative sales person out of all the candidates but because of this mistake, she was fired. :( I was quite sad and shocked to see her go but well, she did make the mistake.

I love how Sir Alan put it when it selling, even though bringing in money to the company is important and at times you may need to do whatever it takes to secure a deal. But, it doesn't mean you need to sell your company in order to clinch the deal. If the deal is bad, walk away. I guess this theory doesn't just apply to business, but in life you just have to say no when you know you are selling yourself short.

Sir Alan, you definitely got my eyes hooked on your version of Apprentice.


Image courtesy of http://www.telegraph.co.uk

The Apprentice - What Do You Learn?

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

I'm quite a big fan of The Apprentice since the day it started. And just recently, my friend asked me what do I learn from it and she's curious about it since I followed it almost every week. So, I said I'll put my learnings in to my blog. :p ... It gives me ample time to think and formulate what actually I've learned from that show I've spent 1 hour of every week of my life.

Well, The Apprentice has only reached the 5th season here in Singapore but I'm glad MediaCorp is airing it and let everyone has the chance to be entertained and learn the glimpse of business world ala Mr. Trump.

So what have I learned out of the 5 seasons so far ... I really feel like saying that it's quite an advantage for being a MAN haha ... but ... I shall refrain from saying that. (How can I dismiss the point that 4 out of 5 winners are male?)

Anyway, here's what I've learned:

1. When you lose the balance between emotion and logic, you'll tend to go haywire. That's been proven from so many episodes especially when there were women involved. It's so painful to watch their own ego and pride working forgetting they have important tasks at hand.
2. Choosing the right team member when you have the chance is really crucial. Now it's the final episode in Singapore I seriously amused by the Lee's selection of his team members. Let's see how he'll pull off all his tasks. For Sean, he's really spot-on his choices. I mean, Tammy is for the obvious reason :p ... And Andrea just caught my attention since the beginning. Though she may appear stubborn at times but never once I saw her raised up her voice to others even though she's in the board room. Calm and poised lady. No wonder at the age of 31 she's already a self-made multi millionaire. :)
3. Think out of the box. Think big! So many of the tasks won are by the members who thought big. Instead of selling at $1 to 100 people, how to sell $10 to 10 people may work better. Of course, provided you get the deal done and not just mere talk talk talk talk.
4. And my favourite of all, drawn from Mr. Trump. Marketing, Marketing, Marketing! The Apprentice is not just a TV show to entertain and to learn, but it's a media to market his lines of businesses. So ... one stone ... few birds. Now, I'm stuck with his Trump Ice, Trump Tower, Trump Cologne, Mar-A-Lago Club, Trump Taj Mahal, Trump Books, and many many many many more to come. Haha.
   

For more lessons that you can draw from The Apprentice, you can visit the following links:
The Apprentice - Season 2
The Apprentice - Season 3
The Apprentice - Season 4
The Apprentice - Season 5

For more on how the candidates look like for Season 5, you can check out this video. Enjoy!