The Apprentice Blog

The Apprentice Blog - Season 3

It's finally time - The Apprentice Season 3 starts Thursday January 20th @ 8:30pm, and we are ready to go with

The Apprentice Blog - Season 3

Check it out!

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THOUGHTS ASIDE

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First 1/2 - The Interviews

The first half of Episode 13 was made of up real job interviews with Trump's advisors

Norma Foerderer - VP Media Relations & Human Resources [though I seem to recall Trump saying she was his executive assistant]

Alan Wiselberg - Trump's CFO

Charlie Reese - Head of Acquisitions

Tom Downing - GM of Trump International Hotel and Tower

They sat down one on one with each of the remaining 4 candidates and grilled them:

What would you do Day 1?

How do you see the Trump Organisation?

What do you bring to the table, more than just charisma?

How do you explain your losing record?

How do you feel about hiring women?

What is one of your weaknesses?

How will you explain why you got this job?

This didn't look like a game, this was serious business primarily because these are the people who will have to work with who ever wins this 'game'. 

I would have liked to see more of this portion of the competition.  It's rare to get to see someone else interviewing at this level.

But the results were interesting:
Amy

Amy was a big focus of the debrief.  Trump was surprised by the unanimous response that there was no substance behind Amy's words.
Some quotes from the debrief

"like talking to a stepford wife.  I got bored talking to her"

"Amy irritated the hell out of me"

"... would get on my nerves"

Bill

Very little was said about Bill except that when 2 of the interviewers were asked who they would hire they said Bill.

Kwame

Not much was said about Kwame.  Though his likeability was pointed out.

Nick
The general concensus on Nick was that he was a Sales Man not a leader.
Some quotes from the debrief

"Nick is too slick for his own good"

Fired First:
Nick Warnock - "You're a sales man and not a leader" said Trump.

Fired First:
Amy Henry - Trump's message - My people need to be inspired by a leader before they can respect a leader.

Bill Rancic and Kwame Jackson are the final 2.

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THOUGHTS ASIDE

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You spin me right round baby...

Challenge: Create a promotion that will register gamblers. The winning team will be determined by most money spent at the casino by the teams registered gamblers.

Project Mgrs: Protégé - Kwame,, Versacorp - Amy,

Summary:

Corporate reshuffle time – Troy announces that Protégé will be poaching Bill to join them.

Protégé seemed one step ahead of Versacorp at all times.

Troy negotiated with Fitz Daniel Tabas Tepper, the 10 year old producer of the Fercos Brother’s Untamed Illusions to have show girls and a tiger help their cause.

Bill secured exclusive rights to the VIP checkin area, setup a show girl to walk the VIP’s to their registration, and spent his time focused on the VIPs.

Troy talked to the Taj Mahal’s staff and found a giant wheel perfect for spinning for prizes.

It looked like Versacorp was offering a range of prices, but the biggest was $1000 cash. Spinning the wheel would get you a ticket in the draw for $1000 cash.

Versacorp seemed less focused, starting with them sleeping on the bus while Protégé was setting up meetings.

Versacorp’s main draw to get registered gamblers was a draw for a car rental worth $300.

Katrina initiated the negotiation for the car rental with a dealership.

Versacorp hired a team of models to help draw gamblers to their registration booth.

Both Amy & Katrina sent the models to poach people from Protégé’s registration line and the VIP area. Both attempts were deflected.

Both teams were on microphones, calling out their promotion, and it looked like carnival hawkers in the middle of the Taj Mahal lobby… the "dueling banjos" musical accompaniment didn’t help.

Winners: Protégé with almost 776 less registered gamblers, but $123,159 spent. Versacorp had over 1337 registered gamblers, but they only spent $105,352.
Reward: A penthouse suite and $3,000 to gamble at the casino.

2 in Boardroom:
Amy & Katrina
Fired: Katrina

Boardroom antics:

None of the Trump team thought this was a good promotion and said so in no uncertain terms. Repeatedly saying that no one on the team did well in this challenge.

Trump asked point blank whose bad idea this was, and no one stepped up to answer him. I can see why Nick didn’t… but I think Katrina might think she came up with it… why else wouldn’t she point the finger? She’s never held back before.

Katrina was on the attack pretty early on, pointing out what she suggested and why it would have worked better; then moving on to point out the relationship between Nick & Amy.

Amy handled the boardroom very well. Her decisions were well defended and she handled Trump’s schoolyard “your boyfriend” comment without getting flustered.

but she doesn’t seem to be able to count. She said “I’ve lead my teams to 4 wins”… but she’s only lead twice, and this time to a lose. So, what gives?

In the end it seemed to come down to past performance.

Protégé gossip:

If Kwame was the project manager, why did Troy announce they wanted Bill to join them?

Bill was a good choice – but it would have been nice to hear what Troy thought of picking Bill, since I believe it was Troy who made the “he’s a snake” comment in an earlier episode.

Versacorp gossip:

Well, there is no question that Amy can handle the boardroom. No waffling when she said “Bill’s my strongest competition.” After that comment, there is no question in my mind as to why the relationship starts to “wilt”

It should be interesting to see Nick & Amy’s working relationship now Amy has essentially told him he’s not a threat to her in the game.

The official detailed summary of this episode at NBC's Official Site

So the question is Will Troy & Kwame’s relationship work against them? Or more precisely, how soon until it works against them?

A ticket to ride

Challenge:

Manage a fleet of pedicabs for a single 8 hour shift, generating more revenue than the other team.

Project Mgrs: Protégé - Troy , Versacorp - Bill.

Preview: A Look Back (working title)

Donald Trump takes a look back at the previous 10 weeks and discusses some of the decisions he's made. Also, he'll show some never before scene footage.

Airs 03-18-2004 at 9PM

So the question is...
Do you think there will be a group finale after the final 2 hour live episode, similar to the Survivor rehash shows?

Ice, Ice Baby

Challenge:

”Brand” and sell Trump Ice, Trump’s new bottle water product. The objective is to sell more, in terms of sales dollars, not cases moved. Trump suggested selling by the case, the pallet or the truck load. Luckily not by the bottle this time

2 days to sell as much as they can.

Project Mgrs: Protégé - Heidi - , Versacorp - Ereka
It’s nice to see that Heidi finally got an opportunity to lead. Ereka, funnily enough, is leading another beverage challenge.

A hit to the head, a hit to the heart, and a hit to the ego.

Project Mgrs: Katrina– Versacorp, Troy - Protégé
These choices, while solid, certainly surprised me. Katrina was an obvious choice since she is the real estate expert. However, since each team had a member who hadn’t led, it seemed obvious that they would be on deck whether they were qualified or not. But good call on the “not”, since Heidi had the family issue to deal with and Tammy, well… Tammy is Tammy.

Nice Girls finish last

Summary:

Each team was given contact details for 5 celebrities

The challenge was to meet with the celebrities, pitch them and get a celebrity experiences to auction off at the Sotheby's celebrity auction for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation

For the first time, it was obvious the teams could drop the Trump name since at one point Regis actually said "Trump would have 10 ideas to fire off at me"... right before Tammy suggested that he auction off a vacation weekend with Regis - at his own cost.

Project Mgrs: Omarosa – Protégé, Bill - Versacorp,

Business 501 - Stand up for yourself

With the giving up, backstabbing, and poor decision making this week's business lessons from The Apprentice are pretty clear.

Trump’s tip of the day – Stand up for yourself, because no one else will.
- Sure Kristi’s team failed, and her leadership was a big part of that. But Donald has already demonstrated his willingness to keep a Project Manager around even if they failed, if they have shown potential, and step up in the boardroom.
- Kristi was fired because she didn't stand up for herself.

Ain't no fleas on us

Summary:

before anything there was a team reshuffle

• New Protégé - Kristi, Jessie, Heidi, Omarosa, Kwame, Troy
  
• New Versacorp - Nick, Bill, Amy, Erica, Katrina, Tammy

$1000 to get merchandise to sell at flea markets

Protégé decided (very late in the day) to buy merchandise from Chinatown to resell

Versacorp decided to make customized teeshirts and jewellery

Project Mgrs: Nick - Versacorp, Kristi - Protégé