The Apprentice: Episode Ten

Well, it was down to five. This time they had to sell products on a TV shopping channel.

Firstly all had to audition, so the best sales people could do the TV presenting, that turned out to be James for First Forte and Miriam for Impact. It was odd to see natural salespeople like Saira and Paul out of their depth. Non sales people then had to do the product selection, without input from the sales person. Miriam was team leader for Impact so had to relinquish control to the boys (Tim and Paul) to choose the product. Saira went on her own, as there was only her and James in the team. She asked lots of appropriate questions about the best way to sell products. Tim and Paul's strategy was to cheat Saira out of her favourite products by pretending they wanted them too, so thereby having to negotiate. They were pretty full of themselves at the end of it.

On the day, Miriam did a fab selling job and everyone was impressed. James also did well, it a different way. Saira in the producer's chair prompted him by saying "This is selling out fast in this size", " 20% of stock has been sold".

In the end Impact sold just over £2000, whilst First Forte did over £5000. So Saira and James (without their vile Wolf Spirit fleece and foam mattress) got a trip to Skibo castle, whilst Miriam, Paul and Tim had to go back to the boardroom.

Sir Alan had said he liked Miriam's presenting, but refused to accept that it was the boys' product choice that let them down, and regarded Miriam as having made a 'fatal error' in not giving the guys better instruction in the production room. Thus he fired her. I was very shocked at this, and it looked like Sir Alan had already made up his mind about the final four.