Young Apprentice - Week Three Appraisal

The Young Apprentice this week threw up another big challenge for the young hopefuls, with Lord Sugar continuing to set tasks designed to take the vast majority out of their comfort zones.

Flowers were delivered to the Young Apprentice house, together with an explanation of the task set, as the boys (inevitably!) looked on fearfully.

Candidates were to be given a crash course in flower-arranging, then tasked with pitching to three clients and selling to the central London public on stalls. The teams, this time, were mixed up.

Team Kinetic

Harry and James, much to their relief, were whisked off to pitch to the three clients, a hotel needing an anniversary display, celebrity hairdressers requiring a new window display and a theatre looking for bouquets for a new production.

But their lack of passion, together with a confused idea of what the clients were after, led to unconvincing pitches. They were lucky to clinch one out of the three deals.

However, the other half of the team picked up flower-arranging skills quickly, so maybe all wasn’t lost.

Lizzie, team leader, priced their bouquets high, in an effort to make up for the lost deals. With all members of Kinetic managing to sell quickly to passers-by, a fair number of flowers were flogged... but would it be enough?

Team Atomic

Atomic managed a lot better to pitch their flowers, with Zara and Lewis proving vocal and eloquent in making their offers to the clients. The hairdressers and theatres were both pleased with the flowers they were presented, and the first half of the challenge was completely successfully.

Team captain Hannah was content to price flowers for the stall more moderately in comparison to Kinetic, and perhaps understandably so, as the team had triumphed on the pitches.

With Harry M managing to flog the most gruesome, yet weirdly expensive, of the flowers to a restaurant, it seemed the victory would be going to Atomic this week.

Pricing proves pivotal

Lord Sugar was more impressed by both teams’ internal cohesion this week, with all candidates happy with the way they had been led by the team leader.

One team had to fall short though, and surprisingly it was team Atomic who lost power.

Pricing strategies, like in week one’s ice cream challenge, proved to be the decisive factor, with Kinetic’s decision to price highly really paying off for the team, who had looked destined to fail.

Hannah was the fall victim of the team, as her loyalties to other team members led her to bring in probably the two most achieving of candidates in the task and thus contributing to her dismissal.

Kinetic therefore continued their winning won, now at three successive victories. Can it continue next week?

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