The Apprentice 2013 episode 3: the one with the poxy boxy and the sales orgasm

As you may have noticed from last week’s blog we’ve persuaded  Billie Graham of Cranberry Panda to give up her own free time to watch The Apprentice so you don’t have to…

We’re in week 2 episode 3 and I am slowly but surely going unquestionably insane. Even the most patient of saints would have struggled not to channel hop during this drivel. The only way I could survive this, was drunk – yet not too drunk so that I was still restrained and sedate when writing this for you beautiful beings. I selected a word that would probably be repeated a couple of times and would swig each time it was used. The nominated word was multifunctional. This soon proved to be ludicrously dangerous. 

The brief from Al was to invent a ‘revolutionary piece of furniture’ or as the other viewer and I quickly realised was to actually reinvent the box. This invention would be sold at a retail price of £75. The boys’ team designed a chair which folds down to a table called a ‘Foldo’ …because it folds! Brains of Britain this bunch; personally a ‘chable’ would have been wiser but what do I know? The girls’ team invented a box on wheels. A box with wheels you could eat your dinner off, they missed the memo that lap trays can be purchased down Walthamstow market for £3. However, I’ll give them credit where credit is due; their flat pack furniture didn’t need screws and as someone who painted their skirting boards using a make-up brush; this is my idea of DIY heaven. It still looked bloody awful. They called the box a ‘tidy slidy’ and mentioned it was multifunctional about 76 times, so I was absolutely plastered a mere 21 minutes into the episode. In my drunken state I decided that a flat pack coffin box for pets would have been the perfect idea.

The girls’ team sold 174 units but were completely destroyed by the boys’ team who sold 3216 units.
From what I can recall, the boys’ team won (again) and Al fired ‘useful’ Sophie who didn’t “design, sell or pitch.”
Quote of the episode goes to two people; Al and one of the boys.
Al: “Tidy slidy – poxy boxy is what I would have called it.”
Boy: “Let’s do a sales orgasm. The sales orgasm is where we get the potential buyer to say yes three times and you know they like the product.”
Stay Classy Al et al.

Business Lessons learned

1. You can make money from selling boxes: 174 boxes on wheels were sold for £75 each.
2. Someone out there is using ‘sales orgasm’ as their strategy…

Billie Graham is “Social Panda” at Cranberry Panda.  She says;  I have absolutely no authority, right or place to critique the Apprentice. My views are mine and the swear words are definitely Lou’s. I don’t just spend my days engrossed in Al’s show; I am also Social Panda at Cranberry Panda