Analysis of the Apprentice Season 5

Episode 1

Mr Trump selected Tarek and Allie as projects managers. Both of them selected their own team members and named themselves Synergy and Gold Rush respectively.

Task: Each team had to sign up new members for Sam's Club or get current members to upgrade their memberships to a higher level. Each team was given a Goodyear blimp to attract visitors to the store. The team that sold the largest number of new or upgraded memberships would win.

Result: Synergy, which offered massages and manicures at booths inside the store entrance, sold 43 memberships. Gold Rush, which distributed free tote bags, attracted only 40. Synergy won.

Why did Synergy win?

Synergy won as they were more aggressive than the other team, even though there were conflicts between Brent, one of the members, and the team.

1. Their plan was to give free manicures and massages outside the store as a means to sell people upgraded Sam’s Club memberships. Allie, as a project manager, managed to get everyone to agree with the plan and she rejected Brent’s idea to set up karaoke machine in a respectful manner.

2. Allie then ordered Stacy and Brent to coordinate the blimp while the rest of them worked at Sam’s Club to get people to upgrade their memberships. Allie made the right decision by separating Brent from the team as he might bring more troubles to them.

3. Although their idea wasn’t perfect, they were able to work on it aggressively. Allie, who didn’t consider herself superior to the others, worked as hard as the other members. Consequently, they won.

Why did Gold Rush lose?

Gold Rush lost due to Tarek’s failure to define a strong promotional idea for his team members to execute, as well as Summer’s failure to execute the task given to her.

1. The team’s idea was to offer free tote bags to customers who signed up for memberships. Lee, a team member who’s a business analyst, didn’t feel that giving out bags was a good idea and he felt that they needed to rely on their...