The Apprentice with knobs on! (Natural Born Sellers)

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Natural Born Sellers
Date:	14/10/08 (278 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bearpit TV

Disadvantages: Not likeable folk

Natural Born Sellers (decent title) is obviously the latest attempt by ITV to mimic the BBCs most successful shows, this a blatant hybrid of the very successful 'Apprentice' .A previous attempt with Peter Jones and some young Entrepreneurs bombed badly on the same channel. Michael Grade-head of ITV- deployed this tactic with Dancing on Ice to bag some of the 'Strictly' crowd and the formula is clearly a desperate bid to win back falling advertising revenue by attracting that more lucrative BBC audience demographic. When the channel takes on shows like 'Dexter' then you know they are trying hard.

The basic formula here is very similar to Sugars show but having the honesty to admit their eight contestants are just salesman, and so that will be the only task involved, which is often all the jumped up types who appear on 'The Apprentice' are capable of, hence Sugar taking four attempts so far to find his successor of sorts.

The format of the show again demands the contestants are engaged in a long challenge and so have to get the six weeks off from their understanding (or relieved bosses) or give up their jobs, a somewhat risky strategy if your gone by week one. The grand prize will go to who ever has earned the most commission by the end of the sixth and final episode, that payment complimented by various bonuses to make it worth their while. If ALL of the sellers hit their targets in each weeks challenge then an extra twenty grand is added to that final prize pot every week. The twist is that each shows top dog salesman/woman not only gets a nice Lexus for the week to drive around to enhance their status but gets to vote off one of the bottom two salesmen for that week. I quite like that harsh injection of reality.

-The contestants-

ITV have trawled the nation to find the most obnoxious and pushy sales rep in England, who are encouraged to make power statements to the camera every chance they have, eight Alan Partridges (and esses) jammed into an anonymous travel tavern. Thea, the posh and ample breasted I.T sales girl, was first off the mark with her outrageous comment to grab early publicity. She announces: "When you're pretty it helps when you're a customer, it's easier to be sold something by someone who's easy on the eye". Thea isn't really that pretty or sexy but she is deluded. I think she's an actress as surely there's no one really like that out there selling. You may put me right dooyoo sales reps...

John Caudwell of Pones4U billions plays the Sugar role although he is merely a presence to give the show some sort of credence and doesn't any hiring or firing stuff, let alone jab and point his finger at anyone, just offering avuncular business advice at the closing big table eviction sequence. Its employee power here and the one who makes the least bucks are probably out. The contestants do get to keep their commission.

-Episodes so far-

Week one and Danny, a typical Essex car salesman, won the first task, which was to sell household furniture for three days, earning top dog status and the keys for the Lexus with his victory, whizzing off to the next Travel tavern with a tear in his eye for his long dead old man. Whilst the real sales staff of the furniture warehouse was sent home on full pay for the long weekend the new team was let loose under the leadership of the real boss of the business in the increasingly flustered Dave Harris. If they lost money he lost money and so was soon on their case. Whilst Thea resorted to thrusting her tits at male customer so make her required six grand sales, the other female contestant, Kirsten, gave up on week one and headed back to the station. It looked rather contrived at the time and there seemed no real reason for her to do that, although a subtle hint was afforded by the director when another contestant was shown calling her on his cell phone from his hotel bed first thing.

Nick (nice but dim) and Gavin (Bit of a thick 'Welshy' if we are honest), finished bottom after the three days of selling beds and settees, bad paperwork the latter's downfall. But it was posh Nick who was voted off by a tearful Danny, the posh city boy clearly unable to sell to the 'proles'. Dan recognized the next challenge may suit Nick but he clearly couldn't sell to normal punters so had to go, one would presume the type the challenges would be. Scott, who came second, is the pushy and over ambitious one for the series that most people watching on already want to punch in the face with a steam iron.

Double-glazing was challenge two, a family company from Leeds priding themselves on the softly softly approach, tactics that don't agree with top dog Danny early on, deciding to skip training as he has sold glass before.

The target was 15 grand (4% commission) for the guys, new girl Haley joining the show after Kirsten's walkout last week. Thea dominated early on, hogging the customers with her now irritating self-deluded sex appeal to nail her 15 grand on day one. A lot of middle-aged Yorkshire man had seen plenty of her cleavage by day two. Scott, driven by nicotine, dance music and the catch phrase,' check your bad self out', nailed his 15k by day two. Danny was still in the dumps, Scot helping others with his 'spare' leads to make sure all the team made the target so to claim the 20k bonus. They would all hit their targets after Danny had an amazing third day, deploying his hard sell tactics to make his target and more. Gavin, in his ridiculous straw hat, was bottom again, joining professional double-glazing salesman Leighton. Danny saw Gavin as no threat to his status so voted off Leighton. Danny keeps the Lexus.

-Conclusions-

If you like the Apprentice then this is for you, a no nonsense sales challenge with rather cliché reps bombing around the country ticking every stereotype. You suitably despise the contestants and so want them to fail, cheering for the customers every time they lose the sale. With just six shows over a month or so the run is just the right length and on at that nine PM watershed there's plenty of 'effing and blinding' to give it a grown up twang. Where as the Apprentice and Dragons Den require some thought you can just sit back and enjoy this without engaging your brain like any other ITV prime-time show.

Thursday night, ITV1, 9pm-10pm...



http://www.itv.com/Entertainment/reality/NaturalS ellers/default.html

Summary: Another Apprentice hybrid...