Winner of 2016’s The Apprentice, Alana Spencer, reveals how Lord Sugar admires when people admit their shortcomings as it shows their willingness to learn and grow
First and foremost, I loved this task. I want to speak about Thomas, who won the heart of the nation last night. What an amazing person Thomas is.
This week, the teams had to organise a corporate event on a train and in The Apprentice, we quite often see corporate events as one of the tasks. When I was in there, we had to organise an event where we had to sell tickets, book an act, organise the food and the entertainment, wear silly costumes, and all that. This week it was Lottie versus Ryan-Mark as project managers. These two seemed quite close during this season, so it was quite interesting to see the two go face-to-face against each other.
This is the first week we’ve seen Lottie project manager of a team. However, I think she has put herself up for the role a lot but she hasn’t been voted in by her teammates – which I think says a lot about her character. But she was appointed by Lord Sugar this week. I think it was about time really, we need to see what she’s made off in terms of her leadership. I don’t think that she surprised anyone when she became very forthcoming about how she wanted the event to be run. She had a very clear idea of how she wanted the task to go. Lottie has a lot of experience in the hospitality industry and I think she wanted to shine in this task. Things like wanting to carry three plates in one hand…I think it was definitely an opportunity for her to show off a little bit.
This was a profit-oriented task, so it was all about which team could make the most profit. And in a way I think the wrong team lost, the other team put on a much better event overall. Although the losing team made a couple of big mistakes, such as the mess up with the food, they did put on a better event and the guests seemed happier overall. But on The Apprentice, tasks are judged according to how much profits the teams make. It could have even been a 15p difference between the groups, but ultimately, the losing team made less profit.
After watching the boardroom scenes, I think the winning team spent more money, they must’ve bought more alcohol than Carina’s team did. Though Carina was criticised heavily for buying loads of booze, it sounds like her purchases were in line with the other team and not extremely far off.
I was not a fan of Lottie’s decision to remove Carina as sub-team leader on the second day. Acts like that are a real jeopardy to team morale, and there was no need for it. Especially as the group were in the kitchen on the second day of the task. Carina has a bakery business so she is used to being in kitchen environments and to knock her confidence on a day where the team could really do with her was a terrible decision to make. And I think watching the end, Lottie knew that was the wrong thing to do.
For the losing team had booked entertainment when they shouldn’t. And actually, I think Thomas’ act of throwing himself into the lion’s den was the best thing he could have done because sadly, he really did make a fundamental mistake. I guess he was just saying he was a better negotiator than he came across in this instance. He said he will be able to get the entertainment for free, then made a deal for £230. So, he did make a big mistake. Marianne was blamed for forgetting to ask about dietary requirements in the catering, but I don’t think it was just her fault. There were three of them in that meeting. Anyone of them could have asked about dietary requirements. To say it was completely Marianne’s fault was actually ridiculous.
Ryan-Mark had left the show. It’s a shame because I have really enjoyed watching him throughout the season. He’s got into The Apprentice as one of the big characters in the show. I think he has business acumen but he was definitely put in there because he is great production value, but I think actually he has proved that he is maybe a bit more than that. Although it’s definitely his time to go, I have really enjoyed watching him. And I think he’s going to have quite a bright future ahead of him because he was more than just a character. He definitely has brains.
Thomas basically admitted that he should have been in the boardroom over Pamela and did not shirk the responsibility of spending money on a music act. I think Lord Sugar, Karen and Claude like it when people say they’ve messed up and show willingness to learn from it. And although he wasn’t necessarily saying that, what he was saying was that Pamela absolutely hadn’t done anything wrong therefore he was happy to go back into the boardroom. And that would not have gone unnoticed by Lord sugar. I think actually as I said that was what saved him from getting fired.
Touching on the fruit salad situation and how hilarious that was… A customer on Marianne’s event was gluten intolerant and nothing on the menu was gluten-free, leaving the them with no choice but to make a fruit salad. No wonder the customer asked for a refund for that, it was all quite ridiculous. I don’t quite understand why they couldn’t put a proper salad together or something savoury, I’m sure they would have been able to whip up something decent if they tried harder.
