| Product: |
Badger or Bust |
| Date: |
13/01/08 (175 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Watchable, controversial, dramatic and educational
Disadvantages: Only six episodes in a series.
Business reality TV has become commonplace on our televisions recently in the form of The Apprentice, Dragons Den, Trouble At The Top and No Going Back, which is indicative of the innovative world we live in. Within this genre, there has been an emergence of shows that exhibit a guru or expert in a particular field visiting a struggling entity and helping to troubleshoot them back into profitability. Examples of these are Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, the Hotel Inspector and Mary, Queen of shops.
The reason these are popular is due to the fact that, lamentably, roughly 80% of the millions of small business start-ups do not survive their first year. Nowadays, a business owner has to use and exhaust nearly every resource they have available to them, the yellow pages, the internet, chamber of commerce directories and anything else that can market their business. In an age where so many businesses exist in a variety of sectors, you have to work hard to keep profits coming in, because lack of cash flow is essentially an incurable cancer for a company.
This is where the likes of Ruth Badger of The Apprentice fame has her uses. Ruth Badger was runner up in the second series of the show. However, on her website, she classes herself as "the 'real' winner of the Apprentice", probably due to the fact that Michelle Dewberry who beat her lasted less than five minutes in the job Alan Sugar appointed her for.
Background
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Originally from Wolverhampton, Ruth was one of the most impressive candidates from series two of The Apprentice. Having started at a local financial services company, she drove through the ranks to become one of their most successful managers - having turned a mediocre team into one of the most profitable in the division.
Having won a multitude of awards, she left and headed the sales team of a national company - making a bigger name for herself by bringing in £13m worth of profits, a £10m growth on the previous year. This helped the company achieve a floatation on the stock market.
At this point, she left the company in a hugely ambitious bid to win the second series of The Apprentice. She was clearly a formidable force from the first minute she hit our screens, and was the overwhelming favourite to win. It was a massive upset when she was runner-up.
Since the show Ruth has started up the Ruth Badger Consultancy, a business that offers management consulting to companies that are struggling. A management consultant essentially lives with the client, analyses problems and sorts them, which pretty much explains the premise of Badger or Bust.
The Premise
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Badger or Bust has recently concluded its very first series on Sky One. It sees Ruth Badger helping six fragile businesses that are on the verge of death. Consequently, they either follow the Badger or they go bust.
Using her vast sales experience and knowledge of businesses, Ruth looks at every area of the business and analyses either where they are going disastrously wrong or where a minor weakness can be slightly tweaked to be successful.
Episode Guide
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The first episode sees Ruth aiding a company called Redseven - a stag and hen weekend party planning business. They receive over a thousand sales leads per week, but convert only 12% into deals. Ruth spends time with the sales team to see what it is they are doing or not doing to obtain conversions.
Episode two shows Ruth assisting the struggling Greentrees Adventure Store Company - a caravan sales company where, yet again, the sales team are weak and unfocussed. The Badger, in no uncertain terms, points out their flaws, the problems with their management and provides advice on how they can move forward productively.
In the third episode, Ruth endeavours to help Rooms With A View, a company that sell doors, windows and conservatories. In this episode, she discovers a far from committed sales force is the reason behind poor turnover. Does this company survive? You have to watch this one.
In episode four, Badger visits Kilostate - a struggling estate agency. In week 9 of the Apprentice, the task was to sell flats and houses and Ruth was a maestro at this. Ruth is great in this episode, where she exposes a mumsy managing director that applies a very soft style in a field of business that should be cutthroat, ruthless and aggressive. She also comes across some resistance, and how she deals with it is very fun to watch.
Episode five sees Ruth helping Mayhem, a company that is solely focusing on selling a small and unique portable bicycle. With a sales force that are quieter than a mouse, the company are dying a slow death, and Ruth gets on the case to whipping everybody into shape to sell this product as effectively as possible.
The final episode follows Ruth in her home town of Wolverhampton to help Camberley Curtains - a curtains business that have potential, but requires the correct steering to get on the track to success.
What makes the show work
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Ruth Badger's personality in Badger or Bust is not at all dissimilar to how she conveyed it in the Apprentice - very direct, forceful, no-nonsense, brash and to the point. This personality works fantastically in the position she adopts because people are normally given no choice but to co-operate.
You will see that Ruth says what she thinks at all times, and is not backward in coming forward. However, Ruth does adapt her personality when she sees that her point will come across better to her subject - this way she gets buy-in, and people are happy to implement her ideas. When I watch shows like Property Ladder, the people so very rarely take Sarah Beeny's advice and she does nothing to persuade them into her way of thinking. Inevitably she backs down and lets them run off with their own idea. Consequently the wannabe property developers get it wrong in the end, but I would like to see Sarah enforce her point a bit more.
The same goes for the Hotel Inspector, where the Badger's name sake Ruth Watson, says what she thinks all the time, whether the person is receptive or not. She never gets people's buy-in, causing people to do as she says with no co-operation.
I am not disappointed with Ruth Badger though. She covers all the angles and, moreover, when her suggestions are put into practice, they never fail to add practical value. This is my opinion makes Ruth the most effective, influential and successful trouble-shooter of all the programmes on television at the moment.
My thoughts
+++++++++++
I found watching Badger or Bust tremendously pleasant. She is an extremely watchable and controversial personality. It is like watching Gordon Ramsey on Kitchen Nightmares, with the difference being that Ruth is great at persuading others to her point of view. Gordon often just likes to insult people and get up their noses.
I found Ruth's business advice very useful and plausible, considering that she has never been a management consultant in her professional career prior to being a contestant on The Apprentice. Any manager or business owner should watch this show, because it gives an insight into how a effective manager works and what kind of attitude they should adopt with their workforce.
I find Ruth's honesty very refreshing - it makes for exciting viewing and some ruffled feathers, which is always a dramatic yet unmissable constraint to see Ruth deal with. However, her honesty can lead to arrogance, because she genuinely thinks her way is the right way, and when one of the businesses she helps goes bust, she attributes it to their bad management, and not anything to do with her. This is typical Ruth though, and we wouldn't love her if there was no evident arrogance. I believe the honesty factor makes Badger or Bust also appeal to an audience who likes watching something interesting and compelling.
Overall, Badger or Bust is a superb show which oozes drama and personality, whilst being a very educational management show for a business orientated audience.
Thanks for reading.
Summary: The dramatic guide to effective business management
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