The Apprentice UK: II

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4th episode: Sir Alan Sugar asked all his contestants to sell in retail environment. Selling is one of the most important aspect of business(stating the obvious). Because of the obvious reason i.e sales directly proportional to profit. One know how to sell in order to stay in the business. And to be honest, their is not one general formula for successful sales. People have to come up with different sales techniques all the time.

So coming back to challenge, Now the teams' task was to pick products form "Harrods" and sell them. Both the teams have designated areas with equal potential. Both the teams picked up almost similar kind of products. The products mainly consist of stuffed animals and accessories. Both teams have different strategies, however the same goals i.e to get the most customers and make more and more sales. what do you think? am I going to tell you what happened....oooo noway Jose...tune in BBC America and watch the show.

I like the way they are teaching the basics of business and good way to get motivation as well.
be back with more(To be Continued...)

Cheers
MS

The Apprentice UK

Since we were kids, generally people around us ask: "What do you want to be when you grow old?" I don't know about others, but what I have generally seen is that people tend to get attracted towards corporate culture, and corporate culture demands every candidate to have certain skills. The selection committee of corporation figures out if a person is suitable for a job or not by a job interview. Job interview- isn't it one of the most scary things in life? Especially for people who are aspiring to be in corporate culture. There are also interviews for different sectors as well, but the focus on this blog is towards corporate and business interviews.

Now, generally before getting a job a candidate need to go through several level of interviews. Ask any person, irrespective of whether they are from finance, HR, IT, R&D etc. how their job interview or interviews were. I am sure they will have a good story with juicy tidbits in it. However, if you ask the according stress level to get that job, mostly everybody will share the same experience, which was"stressful."Now lets talk about a job interview which takes 12 weeks in total to end. Job interview for 12 weeks means 12 rounds for a job interview. Yeah, this is the concept behind "The Apprentice."

People in the business sector generally know Donald Trump all over the world. He started the original show. His catch phase "you are fired" became so famous, which also made the show super-hit. Then the show progressed from Apprentice to Celebrity Apprentice. Martha Stewart also has a version of show and now there is a UK version of the show where the boss is Sir Alan Sugar.

Amazing idea, that is what I say, and good way to get the basic concepts on business. This season so far Sir Alan Sugar has fired 4 people so far (mind you its on BBC America so I might be a little inaccurate). I started watching the show form the second episode, so I missed the first task. However, the second task was pretty interesting. For those people who don't know what happens in the show :

1. There a two teams of highly qualified successful businessmen/ businesswomen.


2. Both the teams are given same task and both teams will pick project managers for that particular task .


3. Now, the winning depends on the nature of the task.


4. Finally, the winning team will get rewards and loosing teams get board-room bashing and one of them gets fired.

So, coming back to second task, it was very cool. Both the teams was suppose to create a product for a world's worst consumers-kids. This task was focused to see how people can handle themselves when they are dealing with one of the worst market segments, and also it will help an individual to learn how to focus on the specific segments by keeping aside their prejudices. That was one of the most important lessons. It is hard to get rid of prejudices, however IMHO this was the actual challenge for this task. So both the teams approached the task differently. Both the teams did research and created products. One team won and the other lost, and so one person from the loosing team was fired. But the lesson was important-to focus on the market segment. If you make houses for low income group and try to sell it to high income group do you think you can make money? IMHO I think no, unless high income group person is looking for investing to generate some sort of cash flow because all the market segments are driven by specific wants and specific needs.

On third week both the teams were given the task to buy certain items, and who ever buys all the items and saves more money will be the winner. So, this task was also important for the fact that in order to sell stuff you also need to know where to buy stuff from. The cheap but good quality stuff brings a lot more money into our pocket. So, now the funny part was both the teams were shopping in relatively expensive areas for this task. Then one guy, from one team took the team to less expensive areas and they got the good deals.

Its just basic stuff which we tend to forget.

To be continued.....


Cheers
MS

Brighter Side of Darkness

Imagine if you stranded in a dark room. A pitch dark room no trace of light and then suddenly you start noticing the little beeping noise coming from somewhere. Since you can not see it, you try to find the direction from where it is coming and start moving in that direction and keep looking for it till you find it. So in the above scenario the darkness is future and future translates to so many "possibilities". The little beeping noise is "opportunity" which we are trying to find.

Every time I look at future it is never clear. We never know where are we heading? The day I gained my consciousness. I was like an empty canvass. I had no idea who I was, who were those people around me where was I?It was a big question mark. But then after sometime I start recognizing people.And now what I am is because of my past, but what I will be, is still in dark.

Is it good or bad? Nobody knows but the best part about it, is the possibilities are numerous in the future. I am not quoting possibilities with negative or positive connotation. It can be any thing. The possibility of me getting a "Nobel Prize" is there in the future, the possibility of living a normal life is there, The possibility of me getting hammered is there too. So, all sorts of possibilities are floating in the sea of darkness.

Did it ever occur why people hate darkness? Because nobody can see in darkness which translates to not knowing what is hidden in the darkness. It might be good and it might be bad. Same applies for future too. We cannot see it and that is why it is scary. But the best part is we don't know for sure that what is in future is good or bad. The things which seems bad might be actually good or vice-versa.

But the best part about future is the foundation of it is always set in present. So, If somebody says our future in in our hand I think he/she is right. What is present today was future in past. And what we did in past has shaped our present. For example, I was watching "Celebrity Apprentice" last week. Dennis Rodman, the NBA Star, was there as the project manager of men's team. He was so unorganized and arrogant to other team mates. He was drinking constantly for the entire task. In the board room, Donald trump asked him why is he not a team player. He defended himself by saying he did win 5 championships by being a team player. Then Jesse G. James said that it was the past in which he was fabulous and in present he is alcoholic and if he don't take action to stop it now then I am foreseeing a dark future. Which makes sense. We (Whole world) is in such a big recession which is supposedly heading towards depression, is because of bad decisions in past. However, if we act now then there is a chance we can avoid the depression. Future is still dark as always but with the current situation we can predict what might be coming.

As in the Disney flick "Pocahontas" the old tree tell John Smith and Pocahontas that the small ripple in the water can turn into big waves. So, a small initiative for betterment now can be seen come back with many fold advantages in future. It actually applies in every field just think about it.

Cheers
Mragendra