TV Selling

Lessons from BBC TV’s “The Apprentice” – Series 16. 9. TV Selling

I quite like to watch a bit of teleshopping now and then (tele-evangelists as well, but that’s a different story). I am fascinated by the skills of these TV sellers and the cunning of the infomercial, and by the moment when, maybe 15 minutes in to a repetitive drawl about whatever gadget they’re selling, I actually start to think I’d quite like to have one.

I’ve never bought anything from teleshopping and I’m pretty sure I’d still have bought nothing from the candidates in Series 16, Episode 9 of BBC TV’s “The Apprentice” as they had a go at a bit of TV Selling. This task is another fixture of the schedule in the “process” of The Apprentice. It matters very little who won or lost, or even why or how they did. It’s a competition to make the most money from selling on TV. So what can we learn?

The first part of the task is to select and secure the products that you want to sell from a prepared selection. Usually there’s a choice of a high-ticket item that you only need to sell a few of make a lot of money, vs a cheaper item you need to sell a lot of to make as much. But you might very well sell none of your high value item (the winners this time sold just one jewelled ring for several hundred pounds) – your lower value items are more likely to shift, but for little money each turn. Both teams fancied the odds on the high price ring but, as we have often seen, securing it was a relationship sale – persuading the supplier that you were the best team to represent his product. So we have price-share elasticity and supplier relationship right away.

The teams also get to select some other products to sell, and here it turns out to have a lot to do with common sense: air fryers are probably early-majority in market uptake and you have to know or sense that and chose that product. A low-cost massager can also be effectively sold to someone sat on their sofa watching TV. But not much can really be made of a blow-up pink flamingo – it’s just a cheap novelty and out of place entirely. Common sense was not so common and the teams got some of this right and some wrong.

Also at this stage there’s vital product knowledge to be gained because the on-air sellers have to speak engagingly about these products for quite some time (it’s amazing to see what the professionals can do in this regard!). They did quite well at this, I think, but failed to share that knowledge with the presenters who floundered without the facts. It’s knowledge sharing that is power, not just knowledge.

Then there’s going on-air and this is clearly taking the contestants way out of their comfort zone and testing them in every way. Two of them have to present as a team – and their failings underline again the fundamental importance of investing in teams and teamwork skills. It’s preparation, and it’s execution – and the failure of the former only amplified the failure of the latter.

The other key role here was played by the other team-mate(s) who had the task of directing the on-screen team and also controlling the price, which drops, Dutch-auction-like.

What was the failure of the task? Failing to get the high value item, for one. Failure to work as a team on screen for another. Poor application of product knowledge in the form of effective execution to convert sales. As ever, the winners also benefited from luck. The losing, and ‘fired’ project manager was also criticised for dropping all prices quickly to the floor – but we would have made fewer sales if I’d kept the prices high, he protested. Ah, yes, price-share elasticity again.