The Apprentice Episode 6: Rebecca Slater Fired

Medical rep Rebecca Slater,35, from Wigan became the sixth candidate to be fired in The Apprentice 2013 as she lost the corporate away day task with Team Evolve in episode 6.

The teams were summoned to the Guildhall to be briefed by Lord Sugar. The task was to put on an away day for two corporate clients.

The teams were similar to last week, with the exception of Myles Mordaunt who moved over to team Endeavour. There was no real explanation why Myles was moved other than to “change things around“.

Team Evolve

• Francesca MacDuff-Varley (Project Manager)
• Rebecca Slater
• Luisa Zissman
• Jordan Poulton 
• Jason Leech

Team Endeavour

• Leah Totton (Project Manager)
• Neil Clough 
• Natalie Panayi 
• Kurt Wilson
• Alex Mills
• Myles Mordaunt 

 

The teams had a budget of £5,000 for a motivational and training event including catering. The brainstorms for the teams focused on school sports and cake decoration rather than team building or business skills development. In team Endeavour there was a battle between Neil Clough who wanted a school theme and Leah the project manager who wanted a history themed event.

Lastminutetravel.com was the client for Evolve with Barclays the client for Endeavour.

Barclays wanted the away day to improve listening and communication skills so that managers would understand customers better and if the day went right there was the potential to roll it out to 35,000 managers. Leah didn’t start well as the team were late for the appointment. However, Leah picked up the seriousness with which Barclays treated the day and the business needs that had to be achieved. As a result Leah decided to change the theme to a military one. Meanwhile the sub-team of Alex, Neil and Kurt appeared to spend most of their time complaining about Leah’s approach. They come up with the idea of Sumo wrestling which Leah tried to resist. The boys had totally lost the point of the day from the clients perspective.

Neil was convinced that he could deliver a motivational pitch to end the day.

Luisa Zissman decided that she could offer some of the activities herself without involving a facilitator. Again the team toyed with not paying for a motivational speaker but in the end they engaged a professional speaker at a cost of £600.

Myles, Neil and Alex thought that a military theme meant shouting a lot. Neil’s ego was such that he felt he was saving the day whenever he opened his mouth. Leah used the Sumo wrestling equipment to facilitate a conflict resolution session as their outdoor events were disrupted by rain.

Meanwhile over at Team Evolve Rebecca and Jason were offering wine tasting whilst Francesca offered cake decoration. What these had to do with business skills defeats me. No one explained how wine tasting could be part of a school theme. Clearly I went to the wrong sort of school. The Team Evolve events were truly awful, although the professional motivational speaker, Adrian, was a hit.

Team Endeavour did attempt to put each of their events into the context of listening and communication and the entire team pulled together. Neil Clough did deliver with his motivational speech and Karren Brady reported that the client was “very impressed with him“. Alex also seemed to enjoy his military role.

The Results

When the team returned to the boardroom Leah was under fire for changing her mind on the theme. I thought this was a little unfair as she effectively overruled some bad decisions.

Team Endeavour spent £2,100 but the client wanted a refund of 25% on their £5,000 spend as the event was disrupted by rain. This gave a profit of  £1,579.

Team Evolve spent £2,650 but the client wanted a refund of £1,250 as there was total lack of business message. Their profit was £1,095.81. So it was a loss by just under £500.

Team Endeavour went off to a luxury spa to be pampered as Team Evolve had to pick over the reason for their loss.

Francesca MacDuff-Varley decided to take Luisa Zissman and Rebecca into the boardroom with her. Luisa was there because she was negative about corporate events which she thought were hollow talk and Rebecca because she pushed to hire an outside speaker at a cost of £600 and suggested the wine tasting which cost £300. I have to say that even if they had not spent this money and had a higher profit they deserved to lose as the event was truly awful.

Luisa was very critical about the amount spent on the task and defended her cupcake activity. Rebecca was very quiet during the boardroom and really didn’t get involved in defending herself.

Lord Sugar had big concerns about Luisa’s attitude but his instincts were telling him that it was Rebecca that should go. He did give Luisa a warning that “I have my eyes on you“. She will ignore this at her peril. It was a lucky escape for Francesca who really deserved to be fired for the lack of organisation on the task.

So it was goodbye to Rebecca Slater. Ten candidates remain and Lord Sugar’s search for his business partner continues.

See the latest Apprentice 2013 results.