The Apprentice: Ask and also you shall be ripped off – S16, ep 6

By Anna Jordan on Small Enterprise UK – Recommendation and Concepts for UK Small Companies and SMEs

Warning: spoilers forward

We’re straight on location at Penrhyn Fortress, a key landmark in northern Wales.

The candidates have already been briefed on this week’s guided tour job. The tricksy curveball is that, if prospects aren’t glad with the tour, they’ll ask for a refund and decrease our groups’ income.

Groups and excursions

Group Infinity + Karren: Kathryn (challenge supervisor), Amy, Aaron, Harpreet and Akeem.  

Group Various + Tim: Stephanie (challenge supervisor), Nick, Brittany, Sophie and Akshay

Amy geese out of taking on the place of challenge supervisor on the earliest alternative. So, as a result of Stephanie is challenge supervisor on the opposite group, Amy’s the one one who hasn’t but assumed the function. This leaves Kathryn to be PM for the second time.

The choice on the opposite group is incomparably breezy. Steph says she has hospitality expertise and the group say yeah.

Now, to pick the excursions. Various go for a Highland railway tour with a watercolour portray masterclass and whisky tasting. Worth: £75 per particular person (£65 if the salespeople are struggling).

Infinity have gone for ziplining, a slate mine tour and cheese tasting. Worth: £75 per particular person (£65 in the event that they’re struggling).

The negotiating recreation

Kathryn, Harpreet and Akeem go and negotiate with the tour operator, with Kathryn insisting on taking the lead and Harpreet reminding the group to not offend him. The tour operator states the RRP of £85. Kathryn plunges proper all the way down to £40. Let’s see how that goes.

The operator’s annoyance is palpable: ‘I’d ask you to stroll down these steps, cease insulting me and are available again up.’ He suggests £65 they usually agree on £62. To issue within the higher-than-expected value, the negotiating trio are pressured to push the ticket value as much as £90.

In the meantime in Snowdonia, Steph, Nick and Brittany undertake an analogous tactic. The rep begins with £55, Nick suggests £40. She is available in at £45. And it’s going, going, gone at £47.50.    

On the whisky negotiation, the whisky proprietor solutions Akshay and Sophie by saying they’ll count on one per cent fee on gross sales. Bar proprietor Sophie units out her phrases and asks for 25 per cent, however what quantity will he observe with – 20? 23? Six per cent, says the whisky man. They handle to push previous six per cent as much as the heady highs of seven per cent. ‘The look on their face says all of it’, says Tim. ‘They shouldn’t have requested for a suggestion first.’

Showtime!

Nick leads the railway tour in a method that’s oddly peppy and flat on the identical time. He hails ‘lovely agricultural views’ earlier than the digital camera pans to lacklustre sheep and tractor scenes. Tim describes it as being so dangerous it’s good. ‘Being a tour information is just not his forte,’ he laughs.

Harpreet and Kathryn attempt to drum up the identical pleasure over on the zipline. ‘Shane Ritchie [from EastEnders] has been on this zipline.’ A crowd of pressured wows reply like they’ve been proven a four-year-old’s self-choreographed dance routine.

The friends crash again to actuality as Akeem leads a miserable slate mine tour. Misbehaving miners ate alone, we’re instructed. However Akeem doesn’t know what they ate. Kathryn and Harpreet attempt to save him by coming in with ‘bread and soup’. Who is aware of if that is true? Cans of Baxter’s Potato & Leek have turned up in weirder locations.

Over on the whisky tasting session, Sophie is flexing her boozy data however Akshay worries the session will likely be too dry. Properly, a man is asleep. Nick, in the meantime, continues to provide new that means to the ‘See it. Say it. Sorted.’ railway slogan along with his very literal and methodical strategy to tour guiding. ‘Rocky, very very adventurous,’ he says whereas pointing at one thing rocky. Amy’s gone considerably extra… sensual (?) together with her cheese tasting presentation: ‘Cheese is to be checked out and smelled. It’s like a multi-sensory expertise between the smelling and tasting and the letting it dissolve in your mouth.’

One other promoting frenzy that includes cheese and whisky ensues within the final hour. It’s all optimistic till Group Various realise they’ve uncared for one factor: the tip jar.

Coaches

This boardroom session goes to be a troublesome one as a result of no one has notably excelled within the problem. Plus, there’s the small matter of doable refunds.

Lord Sugar says that Sophie and Akshay may have been like a Punch and Judy present on the waterfront as a result of they hate one another a lot. However in an actual intestine punch, Karren reveals that Group Infinity’s tour operator would have given them the tour at £50 a head had they pushed, exposing a weak spot in Kathryn’s negotiating group.

It’s Steph who seems to be uneasy as her rivals converse, nevertheless – have Group Various blown it? Let’s discover out with these closing tallies.

Group Infinity
Spent: £992
Made: £1195.85
Refunds: £0
Revenue: £203.85

Group Various
Spent: £760
Made: 1116.83
Refunds: £0
Revenue: £356.83

I want a whiff of offensive Stilton to carry me spherical. I can’t imagine Various received – I believed with the whisky negotiation and the tip jar incident that they’d’ve misplaced.

To rejoice their victory (and Akshay’s first win of the collection!) the group head to the Royal Suite on the Corinthia Resort for some champagne. It’s not simply Akshay’s first win – it’s Harpreet’s first loss over at La Cabana Cafe, the place a struggle of salespeople vs negotiators is being waged. Aaron and Amy are the casualties, returning to the boardroom with Kathryn.

By avoiding the firing line she’s discovered herself proper in it. Amy is requested to depart.

Subsequent week: Pods

The groups will likely be tasked with designing, branding and pitching their very own electrical driverless POD autos. Be part of us subsequent time for the recap.

Watch the entire episode on BBC iPlayer

Compensate for the remainder of the collection:

The Apprentice: Hardly a cruise for the candidates – collection 16 episode 1 overview

The Apprentice: Oops, they did it once more – S16, ep 2

The Apprentice: Shaken and stirred with lots of zingers – S16, ep 3

The Apprentice: For goodness’ hake – S16, ep 4

The Apprentice: Gaming, blaming, shaming – S16 ep 5

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