A Dose of Reality: The Apprentice Season 6 - Episode 01: "It's about the haves and the have nots"

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A Dose of Reality: The Apprentice Season 6 - Episode 01: "It's about the haves and the have nots"
by Andrea Maclam
Published: January 8, 2007

I'm willing to bet that the candidates were beside themselves with excitement when chosen for this round of The Donald's incredibly successful career-making reality show. Trading the snowy, rainy streets of Manhattan for the sun-kissed beaches of Los Angeles probably seemed like a dream to them all. A twist will have them re-thinking that dream, but I digress. Allow me to start at the beginning.

Once upon a time there was a very powerful man named Donald Trump. Donald was looking for a new apprentice to oversee the construction on his new hotel, located in Chicago. From thousands of candidates, eighteen successful, well educated, and hungry people were chosen.

Flown to California to meet with their potential new employer, they met Mr. Trump in the driveway of an elegant mansion, where he proceeded to take care of some housekeeping. He introduced them to Ivanka, and mentioned that the spot to his right in the boardroom would be reserved for a special guest. (My guess is that it's NOT Carolyn). Their first "unofficial" task? To assemble a large tent in the backyard of that gorgeous house.

The group worked as a team, with two clear leaders taking the helm - Heidi, a Sales Manager whose company has several military and government contracts, and Frank, a real estate developer with an incredibly annoying, loud voice (which, incidentally, was pointed out by Mr. Trump from the mansion next door). Heidi initially took charge, as she had been camping several times in her life, and had working knowledge of how to put a tent together. Frank, on the other hand, hated seeing someone else in charge, and had to attempt a takeover by speaking louder than anyone else.

With the tent assembled, everyone walked to the mansion next door, which Mr. Trump had informed them was where he would be residing, and where the boardroom would be. In the boardroom, he chose Heidi and Frank as project managers, who then proceeded to pick their teams:

Kinetic Corp: Heidi, Muna, Kristine, Derek, Marisa, Angela, Surya, Jenn, and Aimee.

Arrow Corp: Frank, Nicole, Michelle, James, Carey, Tim, Martin, Aaron and Stefani.

After teams had been chosen, two twists for this season were revealed. The first was that the spot to his right would be filled each week by the winning project manager. The second was that the PM continued to be the PM for as long as the team was winning.

With all that being said, the teams were assigned their first official project. They were driven to two local car washes. The goal? To be the team with the most sales capital. Car washes are a huge deal in L.A. - they are a $250 million a year industry.

Both teams hustled, but off the start, Frank abandoned his team to head off to Kinko's with Aaron to get fliers printed off. In what was an incredibly rushed strategy session, the team decided that they would concentrate on upselling the customers once they were there. With no props or directives, Arrow tried their best to flag down customers and direct them to their location. They had members within a two block radius - but I have to ask - if you were flagged down on the street by someone with no sign and no visible reason, would you stop? Neither did a lot of people. The salesmen were working to upsell every customer to a larger, more expensive package, including personal detailing. While James and Tim were upselling consistently, Martin, still in his tie, was merely accepting the answer NO. All in all, what started out to be a disaster, turned out to be an okay day of sales. Their total : $2345.54.

Over at Kinetics location, in a heavily-populated "gay" community, once being dropped off, the team immediately assessed the situation, and decided that they were going to go for quantity, not upselling. Their strategy? Offer a free lunch with the purchase of a basic car wash. The lunch? Supplied by the hot dog vendor at the end of the driveway. The ladies dropped to their knees, and showed resourcefulness by tearing up boxes and making cardboard signs to advertise their special. They also showed marketing savvy by hiring two local boys to take their shirts off and hold up their signs.

They were relying on quantity sales, but didn't anticipate the back up of cars they would have, as almost every member of the team was selling, and hardly any of them were working. Once this was realized however, all team members took off their jackets, rolled up their sleeves and proceeded to personally make sure that every car that left their lot was spit polished clean. Even the ladies, crouching down in their heels and skirts, were drying cars, vaccuuming the insides and touching up. While there was no upselling, they still managed to take the win with a total of $2463.

That's when Donald revealed the third, and most unusual twist of this season. The winning team would reside in the luxurious mansion, while the losing team would "rough it" in the tent out back - oh, and they also had to assemble another one. The winning team was taken out to dinner at Spago by Donald and his lovely wife, and had the pleasure of meeting Wolfgang Puck in person.

At the back of the mansion, the losing team had shower stalls, no electricity, and were forced to see by the light of the moon and flashlights. It was compared to living in a third world country.

In the boardroom the next day, the majority of the team tried to pin the loss on Frank, who, in turn, tried to pin it on Martin AND Tim. There were one or two exceptions that backed Frank, one being Nicole, who had lost her voice during the task. There wasn't too much cohesiveness amongst this team, making me feel that any one of them could have gone and none of the others would care.

With Frank being the losing team leader, he chose both Tim and Martin to go back to the boardroom with him. As winning team leader, Heidi had the privilege of sitting in on the boardroom, and while her strategy to keep the weakest link in the game backfired, she gained an insight as to how the Donald thinks, which will serve her well in this game.

The Donald did something different this year. After telling Tim that he wasn't fired, he dismissed him from the boardroom, leaving Professor Martin and Real Estate Developer Frank to plead their cases to Mr. Trump. Personally, I would have fired Frank, just for the annoying voice and for the fact that NO ONE can get a word in edgewise.

However, Donald went the opposite way, and Martin was graced with those two famous words: You're Fired.

I was glad to see him go. He might be a hard worker when it comes to brainstorming and strategizing, but in this show you need to get physical sometimes too, and I don't see Martin as that type.

Now, let's hope Frank loses his voice next week.....

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