Episode 8 The Apprentice: You're Fired

This is my boardroom. This is my money. The product sucks. You

screwed it up. Who's the waste of space? You're fired. You're fired.

APPLAUSE Good evening. Welcome to The

Apprentice: You're Fired. It's week eight in Lord Sugar's search for

his business partner. Half the candidates have gone. Tonight we

cast an eye over the rest left in the fight for the investment. If

you watched last week, you've seen strategy, strategy, strategy was

the way to succeed in business. This week's Catchphrase was more

honest about what is most important. The only time I saw Tom was in deep

trouble was when he lost Pure Evil. The loss of Pure Evil was a big

mistake. Lovely, thank you Pure Evil and I'll see you tomorrow,

take care. There you go, Pure Evil, that's all you need to win the

apprentice. As ever, we had a potent mix of people on the panel,

gallery owner Lawrence Alkin, comedian Sarah Millican and

financial guru Alvin Hall, welcome to You're Fired.

APPLAUSE Tonight's task of selling urban art

led to one candidate being given the brush off.

Laura, you think you're a good sales person. You're certainly a

very good talker. I am. certainly not totally convinced

that you should remain in the process. Laura, you're fired.

Take care. Please welcome Laura Hogg.

How are you? There's two things that immediately there, he went,

you're certainly a good talker and you went "yeah". And then take care.

No-one has ever said "Take care now. Safe home, you people look after

yourselves on the way home." I know it's just a situation where you

think oh, yeah, didn't know what to say. It's important. Take care now,

bye now. Like your aunt leaving now, don't be a stranger. I know.

think it was going to happen? think so, yeah. You see it all over

my face. I'd lost that bit of oomph in the boardroom. I knew I was

vulnerable. Yeah, I'm sure we'll talk about, it I didn't dot sales.

That's the thing. Let's remind ourselves what happened. Reading

some of the applications here, Laura claims sales is her best

skill. Yes. How are you doing? Enjoying it. Good stuff. How are

you getting on? Are you enjoying it? Yes, thank you. Good stuff.

test the water, let them have a lock around. Before you know it,

Adam's on them. I could do that for 180. I cannot take away anything

from Adam. He did a fantastic job. You'll probably admit that a lot of

it was blagging. I wouldn't say I blagged it. You reckon he was

blagging? He sold �2,280 worth, you sold �700. Yes, I can't pin point

what went wrong. Maybe you're not a good businessperson. Harsh. It's a

bit cruel. I looked at the sales process -- sales figures and you

were always second or third. This one you were fourth. You opened

yourself up to coming into the boardroom. I did. Why was it so

difficult to sell that night? if I'm honest with you, I did not

work smart on the night. It was very much like schmoozing the

customer. I was going around dooz a bit of schmoozing. By the time I

was getting round to it again, I would see somebody taking the money

and putting up the sold sign. It would be like oh, it's happened

again. It kept happening. I didn't work smart. I was leaving people

too long. As the night went on, my confidence was dipping. I knew I

was behind on sales. I knew that could be a problem. Were you

conscious of this thing, I can push, but I can't push. There's a limit

to how well I can... I think so. It's a very personal thing, art. I

thought I can't make somebody take this. So I'll suss it out. I'll put

out the feelers and you know, it's a practice you have to I think

about. I wasn't comfortable with forcing it on people. It's bridal

wear thaw normally sell. Yes. main part of sales is perfecting

the "oh" face, which presumably you only have to find 40 times a day

"That is lovely on you." You can't really do that with art "That

painting on you... I'm going to cry." Yeah. No, I actually am quite

honest with my brides. Really? Are you? That's so mean.

Just lie. Do you think you walk in that shop and it's all you. Yeah,

it's a special day regardless. I'd hate if somebody was honest with me.

I don't give a toss what anybody else thinks. I just want to be told

I look like a Princess. We do that. I'm fine. I usually have my little

boy in the shop who tells people they look like Cinderella. That

usually works. Really? That is fantastic. You should have taken

him along to the art place. I like the big monster. Lawrence, the

selling of art is a difficult, it's not a simple challenge to engage

people without forcing it down their throat. From what I saw in

the clips, she was going up to people, they weren't looking at art

and saying "Are you having a good time, enjoying yourself?" To me,

selling art is very difficult, it's body language, how you approach

people. You have to make sure that people are interested before you go

and engage them. Don't try to close before they even look at something.

The awkward thing, you collect art, buy art. Yes, all the time. That's

the key, you look all the time. It's not like customer walks on the

lot and he wants to buy some art. A lot of the time you're just looking.

But you also want to be seduced. I don't need Laura to ask me how am I

enjoying this party. I want her to say "What do you think of this

work? What attracts you to this? If you like this, come over to this."

It's part of the seduction. You didn't do that. It didn't take

great advantage of your skill set. You didn't connect well with it at

all. It was like you were on holiday in Spain. Was it just a

tough night? People were arriving randomly into this thing. That's it.

The sales happened very quickly. Within the first 20 minutes we

probably did half our sales, seriously. People were in, they

spotted it, they were done and dusted. Again, I think that was

something that I wasn't aware was going to happen. Again, just didn't

click onto the right people at the right moment. There's always the

sort of feeding frenzy because they want the best things. They know

what they want. They come in and buy. The rest of it is "How are you

darling? Do you like this piece? I have more in the back I could show

you? No. This artist doesn't thrill you? No. Can I put it in a clip

frame, that's what I want to know. No darling. Would you take it out

of the frame it was in and reframe it in a clip frame? Yeah, then I

could just buy the print. I wouldn't have to buy the frame.

Clip frames are really cheap and if you smash them you can replace them

easily. I'm sorry if I'm being practical about art. I apologise.

Lord Sugar said no-one was out of his comfort zone more than Adam.

Within 48 hours he went from philistine to fine art connoisseur.

One of the questions we was asked today was which medium does he use.

A medium to me is used o contact the other side. Am I getting it? I

got it. I wasn't certain the Adam dude completely knew what he was

talking about. It's the same, but it isn't the same. There's no need

to dress yourself up as an arty farty. Although there's two of

something, they're not always the same. Say that again? It was one of

them relationships that everything's right but it's gone

wrong. They're not always the same, that was my interpretation. Right.

Tom said no-one knows banksy's it ti -- identity. It's like the Stig

isn't he. You know what I mean? looking for the Turner Prize then,

no. More like the turnip prize then. APPLAUSE

You've worked with banksy haven't you? I've sold a lot of banky.

you met banksy? I believe I have at time but not knowing it. I think

it's the line, taking apart the whole Banksy myth in one sentence,

you mean like the Stig. Oh, yeah that's all that is. He was cutting

the deals though, that's the important thing. He did very well

in a one night sale, if I had a sale and nothing was going and hi

no commitment to the artist, at the end of the night I'd probably be

selling like him to clear it. could be a career for him, you

bring him in at the end of the night. Yeah that's great. Like the

terminator, just clear the room of art. All this art, oh, yeah, gone

in ten minutes. Walk away now and don't ask any questions, the walls

will be cleared. Sales, he does throw himself into these things.

Yeah, he does. You'd only buy from him one time. If he had something

you really want and it was a bargain price, you'd buy and say

boy, I got one over on him. Otherwise you'd never come back for

a second time. But his skill set has shown the ability to expand

incredibly over the past eight programmes. He's done really well

showing different sides of him. I would never believe he that ability.

It is astonishing. He has comfort zones, he has no comfort zones at

all. He likes people. Constantly outside comfort zones. He was

knocking them down by 50% I was half expecting a bag of oranges

going in as well. He is still working on the stuff from the

previous week's task that he could sell. You do want somebody, you can

make your impression of it, you don't need somebody telling you

what the painting is about. Yes you do. You want somebody to reaffirm

that what you think is good. you just want somebody to go "What

you're thinking right now, you're right." I couldn't put it better

than what you're thinking right now. You and this painting belong

together. And I assume you would be in touch with a medium when you

said that. You read my mind. you enjoying Adam? I wasn't so keen

on the meatball episode. He let himself down with a lot of value

tins of things. He didn't seem to know what quality food was. He

didn't care whether it was good quality or not. He let himself down

that week. He picked up this week. I was surprised that he could turn

his hand to this. I didn't think he would be able to. I was impressed.

We want to get you onto who should have and who you were competing

against. Tom has been sure footed, winning in week four, but he nearly

came acropper this week. We didn't get Pure Evil. Why didn't you get

Pure Evil? I'm a big fan of space invader, banksy, the West Coast...

Lecturing somebody and telling them how clever you are, winds people up

a bit. Is that Pure Evil? I'm going to sterling. I think he's mental

for going with them. What did do you then? I decided to roll the

dice and go with James. They were so big. People have got

big wallets and even bigger front rooms. If we sell one piece, we can

win it. You sold none of his stuff. The loss of Pure Evil and the

choosing of James, two massive, big flaws.

APPLAUSE Should you have spoken up about

going with James Jessop? The issue was we were getting a bit blinded

by what we were selling, a bit greedy. I think we were thinking if

we managed to sell one, we'll absolutely yeah romp home with the

win. Yeah, that just wasn't the right decision. I don't know what

it is, me and Tom didn't seem to have an issue with the size of them.

You saw that Adam and Jade when they saw them were like "what".

put that on your chimney-breast for example, where would you put your

clock? How about on your wrist. yeah. They should have put a clock

in one, that would have been better. A tea maker as well? Oh, that would

be lovely. How functional should it have been, a monster with a gap for

your telly? Now you're talking. the problem with picking something

like that, it's a one-night sale and a one-night sale you're

unlikely to find the serious collector. He's not urban art in

the way others are. No he's not. Also, on one night you're not going

to sell a big piece like that. It's highly unlikely. Did Tom came

across as a tiny bit arrogant at times. More than a little arrogant.

He went beyond that little boy going "I know that artist." He gave

a litany of everybody he knew. As an artist you're thinking, he

doesn't care about me, he cares about himself. You wonder if that

thing will trip him up later on. He's a little ahead of himself for

a 23-year-old. The way to deal with an artist, presumably, but as

performance really, if we met somebody and said you're a comic, I

know comedy, and listed other comics, you'd go - screw you. There

is literally one comic I wanted to hear you talk about and it is me.

Do you think it's the same? Somebody came up to me after a gig

and said you know who else I like you and Bernard Man. Really? Now I

don't even like me any more, now that you've compared me to Bernard

Manning. We always like to reveal unseen footage on this show. Thank

you for this. I used to be a magician. Really?

Yeah, magic, I actually was a runner up in Scottish young

magician of the year in 1998. There you go.

Well, well. We always remember the 1998 heats of Scottish young

magician of the year being a particularly hard fought one.

yes. That guy who won in '99 he had no idea how lucky he was. If only

we had footage of this and courtesy APPLAUSE

Wow. Let us hear what Lord Sugar and your former colleagues had to

say about you. This particular task lends itself very closely to what

Laura does for a day job. She's got a wedding dress business. She

hardly sold anything. Laura went and agreed, I presume, with Tom

buying the massive great big paintings for the wall. I felt that

my expertise and knowledge took over. She took the back seat. When

it came to sales she wasn't as strong. I felt Laura didn't really

shine in this task. She does a lot of talking but she doesn't do much

delivering. That's the reason why I fired Laura.

What is your reaction to that? know, fair enough. All valid points

in the sense of the sales suffered, hands up. I do disagree with

similar what I do in a day job. I don't sell monstrosities like that.

I hope not. What have you learned in general? What we achieved in the

task from day one to the day I was fired, what we were doing with such

tight time scales and under the level of stress, I've always been a

positive thinker, but truly I'm moving forward thinking whatever

you put your mind to you can really achieve, you can really get some

great results. We're at the halfway point as far as the number of

candidates is concerned. Eight have gone and eight remain. We thought

it was the ideal moment to assess those who are left and find out who

you would like to see becoming Lord Sugar's business partner. These are

Sugar's business partner. These are the candidates ready to race. The

positions are in at the moment relate to the number of tasks they

have won so far. The two that have won the most are Stephen and Nick.

And at the back here is Jade on three. I will get your opinion as

to how this will work. I will leave Adam for a second. Adam is going on

quite an interesting journey I think over the course of this show.

I want to see what people feel about that. Gabrielle, currently in

about joint fourth at the moment. However, how far do you think she's

going to go? Forward. I think she's a good person, but I don't think

she has the courage to leave bodies behind her along the way. I'm going

to pitch her here as a marker, well here. Happy with that? It's just a

marker! Right Jade, where do you think Jade will do? We don't think

Jade will do well? Stick her where she was. Jenna, strong candidate?

like Jenna. I'm going to pitch her here. Is that right? Here? All

right, Nick? Do we think Nick is a favourite? Nick a favourite? It's

that Justin Bieber hair cut. For that alone, do we think

probably among the front runners? OK grand. Now, Ricky Martin. At the

very start of this, I would have pitched him all the way back here.

But Ricky's good. He can talk, you know. He won't move forward or back.

I think he'll stay where he is. Really? O he's in the middle. He

jumps on everybody else's ideas. Even to here maybe? No, back.

fine. Stephen? BOO APPLAUSE

Well! We should have turned this into the mob from week one. Boo, no,

back. Tom? CHEERING

Would I be safe to say Tom here just to add the tension or even

forward? Really, Tom is the favourite of the room? What do you

think? When he answers a question, he talks, he ends the sentence and

he doesn't come back. He's really good at that. I think that's a

benefit. Everybody else overtalks each other. I've left one person

out. I have left one person out... He's my black sheep at the moment.

Frankly, as long as we keep him out of his comfort zones...

LAUGHTER Always out of his comfort zones.

Would I say he's looking as if he could do very well in this? Really?

As well as Nick? No. There? Still interesting, would I be right in

saying those four stand out more than the others? That's the

prediction then. Don't you feel Lord Sugar has a special place in

his heart for Adam that he identifies with Adam more than

anybody else. The market trader. Yes, you can see it. It's a

bromance. APPLAUSE

That is roughly how the crowd that Is that will work ou. That's how we

think the ending will be. You heard think the ending will be. You heard

it here first. Gabrielle was the winning project

manager this week, but almost blew it when she basically missed an

open goal. Do you have any other questions for us? I think that's it.

They have missed vital questions, the most vital of all is "What's

your budget". Here you find a piece like this for �500, their budget

was actually �10,000. That's news to me actually. I just witnessed a

master class in how not to treat a corporate client, you invite them

to an event. When they turn up, you ignore them. You don't introduce

the rest of your team. Would you like a glass of wine or anything?

We were hoping for a gin and tonic. I wish. You forget to say goodbye

when they are leaving. Did they buy anything in the end? No. Zero?

have acted as curator for corporate clients? Yes. How bad was this?

budget question was one of the basic questions you have to ask.

Find out where they want to put, where they have places they want to

put pieces. That's obvious. They were the two obvious questions.

was shocking to me, as I was watching that. I could barely not

want to grab her and shake her to say, you have the artist in the

gallery. Wait till the corporate client comes in and then have the

artist do a work with the corporate client there and say, we can do a

piece like this for your space and have the client connect with the

artist. It was a mindless easy thing to do. I think she was just

focused on making everybody happy. Were you shocked? Especially when

in the boardroom when she said she didn't ask that question on purpose,

it was so obviously back pedalling. No, no, I didn't want to know. I

didn't care about them at all. Even I knew that was quite a basic

question. And the fact that Stephen went "Oh, that's news to us" As if

it was west from him. Don't tell Stephen all this. He should have

asked her to ask the question. That's the part that was

astonishing. They all stood there and looked like, oh, OK. We got

everything that we need. Nobody mentioned the money. Stephen is one

for coming up with ideas, like many great artists he's oven

misunderstood. How are you? What I want to do is talk to you about an

idea I've had. OK. What I was thinking is maybe Nathan does his

live art out the back. Nobody actually sees Nathan? What do you

think? See you later guys. Take care.

He said it was way out of the box. It was way, way out of the box and

into another box called "crap". It's a trick yiling one. I just

think, he was trying, but he really didn't know what he was doing. Any

idea that sort of inventive that echoes somebody else must be neat.

He was just clueless. How offended would an artist be by that? They

would be pretty offended. You might as well have it on the other side

of town. You might as well not do it at all. Anybody would be

offended, can I take you out to dinner, but I want you behind a

wall. It's in the a compliment. you sure you're not just printing

these off the internet. The guy is downloading jpegs and put them in

clip oort and going oh, yeah he did them back there, you can't see him

though. What have you thought of Stephen through the series? To be

truthful, I don't like Stephen. There's something about the way he

holds his mouth when he starts to talk that puts me completely off.

You can tell the half truth is forming. You can see it coming. I

just don't trust him. I think he's a wanna bee. I can't see him

getting near the final. Hose all mouth. I think he comes up with

suggestions because he wants people to listen to them. None of them

have been good so far. People are starting to shut down on him I

think. To the vote now. Do you think Lord Sugar was right to fire

Laura? Yes, on the balance of things yes, he was. Sarah? I didn't

think it was fair that Laura's team lost, but given that they did, I

think he was right, sorry flower. think you have an amazing ability

to learn new information, but you underperformed on this and you

should have been fired. Let's turch to the audience here. If you agree

with -- let's turn to the audience here. If you agree hold up fired if

you disagree hold up hired. Yes that's fired. People have a bad day.

Bad day at the office. That's unfortunate. It's a tight

competition. We wanted to give you something to remind you of your

time here. You know, it might not look like, yeah, it is actually you,

but we've gone via a number of different artists to create what we

feel is the look that best represents...

LAUGHTER I love it.

Don't put it up in the bride's changing room. It's a bad vibe.

Eight wonderful weeks, here are your highlights. Let's go.

So what was I going to say? I've got the sales ability. Please come

and take this furniture off of me. I have the presentation skills. I

have the work edgic. I'm a go getter, a risk taker. I've got the

guts. Is there any way along a bath we could set like a screen. Why has

nobody thought of this sooner. Great girl. Loved her as a roommate.

Lovely, funny. Woo-hoo. Give me a penny and it's yours. Ladies and