What Can The Apprentice Teach Us?
So, were you, like me gripped to the Apprentice final on Sunday night? I don’t know about you, but I was routing for Kate who I thought developed the best product and executed better than Yasmina. Why then, did Yasmina emerge as the ultimate winner?
Well, having given this some thought, I think Yasmina displayed some of the traits that we can all learn from when we run our businesses.
Firstly, she didn’t give up. Her chocolates ended up not tasting how she had hoped, but still she persevered and carried on through regardless. She explained this in the Boardroom by saying that her team only had 30 minutes with the chocolatier and she would have spent a week with them if she was doing this properly.
Also, even when she realised that her idea of selling chocolate to men wouldn’t work, she didn’t fall over and refuse to continue – she simply picked herself up, tweaked the idea and got on with it.
Secondly, she got on with things that pushed her comfort zone. Yasmina hated giving presentations to other people and yet, she stood up there and gave it her all. Yes, ok it wasn’t the best presentation in the world, yet she still gave it and got on with the task at hand despite not looking forward to it.
Thirdly, she showed her passion to want to succeed. She had already achieved by creating a successful restaurant, but she showed how much she really wanted to win which shone through in the final.
Also, she understood her target market, really doing her research and then pitching her prices at £5 rather than Kate’s over the top £13!
Finally, she understood her costings and was able to explain how she’d got to these and what profit the manufacturer would make from the sales. When Kate was asked the same question, she brushed over the answer and didn’t make it clear.
So, what skills have we got there?
Perseverance, tenacity, commitment to learning and growing, knowing your market, having a real passion to succeed and understanding your costs.
Although Kate developed a good product, that’s only half of the story and Yasmina displayed the skills necessary to win the Apprentice and be an excellent business woman in the process.
And these sound like skills that could be really useful in business, especially at this turbulent time – do you agree?
