There are 9 billion bicycles in the world. But The Apprentice can't sell even 1

[dillite]

It's a fact. It's a truth we won't deny at 9pm tonight.

I’m just catching up with this episode.

Surely it’s the same task as last week, ie. design a product and sell.

I like Thomas. He’s a breath of fresh air in there, more Del Boy.

Lottie is entertaining. I’d like her to be pm to see how she does as pm.

She’s not a librarian. You need qualifications for that.

I enjoyed that episode but again you'll never get a consensus on design. It takes one experienced designer months to plan etc. And yes, why no mention of costs so they could work out margins. The point that Lottie could have increased sales if she'd dropped the unit price; duh, obviously. Need to remind myself it's not Dragon's Den.

Lottie does half an hour at the junior prep library a week at Roedean, which is a favour to her mum from the sub-bursar's assistant who used Lottie's mum as a reference for her own job application in the first place.

I never understand why people buy from men like Thomas, yet they seem to quite happily. Deks Boys immediately make me refuse to buy, or even listen, even if Iiked what they were selling!!

If Lottie isn't a librarian, what does she do? Or is she someone born into money (she gives off this impression in spades)

Works in a school library (but not as the librarian).

I would class her as a library assistant, not a librarian, especially if it’s only 30 minutes per week. Some newspaper articles suggest she organises events, so why doesn’t she call herself an event planner? She does seem to have done it all. You can see the others getting esperated by her, but that type of person often does well in life.

So if the sales are theoretical, and there was no calculation of the profit margin, then Thomas' team could have won by simply increasing the price of their bike. I did note there as about £500 difference in the starting price of both bikes but nobody explained why that was.

Apologies if this has been said already but...

Even if Lottie, or one of the other 19/20 year olds, do get into the final two, given that SA always takes into account their past business experience in various ways, surely that means there is pretty much no likelihood of him choosing their business start up as he'll say that they've not demonstrated that they have the business experience yet. Which is true of course.

Aisha's voice. Fucking hell.

I also noticed that no one gave Aisha a hug, that made me sad!

The business plan thing renders this entire process a nonsense. Someone can be absolutely brilliant all the way through, but still lose out if Sugar and his mates don't like their business plan. Logic dictates that they shouldn't get through to the programme if their business plan is that crap, but in practice they will always be reprieved if they are thought to make good television.

Yes, there was that guy a few years ago who did well all the way through until his 'business plan' turned out to be four pages, two of which were covered in pictures of tiny ships.

Yes, there was that guy a few years ago who did well all the way through until his 'business plan' turned out to be four pages, two of which were covered in pictures of tiny ships.

Solomon! Yes he was good, and if i remember rightly, quite a decent guy - not aggressive or bossy like a lot of them are. His interview with Claude was one of the most hilarious things ever though! Apprentice legend.

Conversely, there was the inventor type who was virtually never in a winning team who won the series.

Solomon, yes! Great guy!

There was another candidate who came a cropper because it transpired he didn't actually own the business he was pitching - the interview was excruciating, I recall.

I’ve watched every season from the first but I’m not sure how long I can keep going - spent most of last nights episode watching from behind a cushion. It’s jusy agonising. And what kind of business task let’s people (hypothetically) sell a product for whatever they want with no mention of profit margins? It’s bizarre.

I miss the old stuff. Sniff.

ScreamingCosArgosHaveNoRavens
I thought that as well, I thought there was bigger winning sales in that property episode.

Just checked, and it was series 11 with Richard , Vana etc. But whilst they sold multi million pound apartments, their 'winning' amount was thier commission, not the proce of the apartments.
Love that episode.

The thing that offends me is that Suralan always bangs on about sows, and granted thats important but he forgets there are other aspects. There is always one or more great salespeople that could sell ice to eskimos, but sometimes they are a bit one dimensional, and not gifted at creative tasks for example . One task really wound me up -they were selling burgers and he was bigging up the person that made the most sales/sows and quite dismissive of another contestant who had made very few sales, ignoring the fact the 2nd guy had been working like a dog in the kitchen(or possibly a street kiosk) actually making loads of burgers. ..for the others to sell!

I’m guessing Lottie won’t win - is the decision still made just before the final episode airs? I know they used to record alternate endings.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50181015

Ah, I'd forgotten it was commission they counted in the apartments task, thanks minou123.

I was just going to post the Lottie link too.

I really can't see her winning, because she'd be awful to work with (based on the way she's been in the tasks). Suralan has to pick someone he isn't going to want to kill after five minutes in the same office together.

Suralan has to pick someone he isn't going to want to kill after five minutes in the same office together

Excellent. First ever series where there are no winners.

Sorry if I'm a bad person for saying so, but Aisha is Orville the duck to Thomas's Cuddles the monkey

Does Suralan write all his own gags or only some of them? About 20% of them are genuinely very funny but the other 80% are pitiful.

Karen always seems an extremely negative person - I kind of hope that it's just put on for TV as, otherwise, she must live a very sad life (all of her money notwithstanding).