The Apprentice Season 1 Episode 8

Task:

Sell Trump Ice.

On a side note, as much as I respect Donald Trump, I thought the branding on the water was a bit pretentious, especially since the label has a big picture of Donald Trump on the bottle. If the water is that pure, I think if someone asked me why I was drinking Trump Ice, and I tried to tell them that it was really pure water, it would have nothing to do with the label, branding, or the name of the product. Whoever thought of the "Trump Ice" branding should be fired. They had a great opportunity to promote a new line of water on the show, but they messed it up with the branding.

Rights:

Focus on selling to distributors.

Wrongs:

• Nick was too in your face with the sales, without trying to learn about the customer's first. This isn't like pitching to an audience on the home shopping network. You are pitching to a particular customer, and they all have different reasons to buy. There are salesmen, and there are consultants. nick is a salesman.


• Never look frazzled in front of your troops. When you're the leader, you out of everyone in your team need to hold your composure. The leader needs to be one to control the composure of any teammates that get frazzled, and never the other way around.


• Omarosa was overpitching the water abouthow good the water tasted. For something that has no taste, it doesn't take long to figure out that you're just full of it.

What I would have done as project manager:

I would have focused a lot more time and energy researching how I can sell the most to distributors. Try to find out how wide their distribution is and how much water they sell. And who they sell to. So that I can make the distributors visualize who they can distribute their water to, and have some numbers to quote them on what they'll be making from this deal. Don't just say we'll sell you this much water, you figure out what to do with it. Distributors don't care about how pure the water is. They just care about how cheap they can get it, and how fast they can distribute it.

Restaurants on the other hand had a hard time with the storage of their water. They said they didn't have a place to store a whole palate of water. Here are 2 great comebacks to that objection.

1. The great thing about water is that they come in individually wrapped cases, and you can store the water just about anywhere. Its not going to spoil. You can always find the room for a case of water here and there. Maybe even put it in a space you never got to use, but now you'll have a use for that space (added-value).

2. I would reframe his objection to assume he had said "I would buy if I only had the space", then I would tell him what I can do is sell him the equivalent of the palate to a water, but delivered in seperate shipments during the month. Then I would have said, but the minimum of to do seperate shipments is 2 palates, which is shipment of water for the next 2-4 months. And remind him its not a matter of the water that is not going to be sold. The restaurant will always need water, and its just a matter of time before the restaurant goes through them. What is important is that he is getting a better quality of water for cheaper than his current suppliers, which is a win/win situation for the restaurant and his customers.

Lessons:

Know when someone is busting your balls. And if they've dished it out to you where you are in a lose/lose situation, you need to call them out on it.

If you are called out for "protecting" your friends from the boardroom, I would call out Mr. Trump and say "you are putting me in a lose/lose situation here Mr. Trump. If I bring her in, you are going to say I brought her in because you told me so. If I don't bring her in, you're going to say I didn't bring her in because we're friends. Then say I'm not bringing her for this reason, (have a solid reason that I have prepared). Now if you don't mind Mr Trump, let's put a nail in that coffin and move on."