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Chelle’s back and is switching off! But she has come back with thinking about the language of business…. (more…)

This week I mentioned to my partner that I was doing a blog passing judgement on The Apprentice. He couldn’t wait to share his view too! (more…)

Dear Apprentice,

You try to entice me with your funky 80′s tunes and take me back to the days where it was all about the over you could pull on the dance floor.

You try to entice me with showcasing business skills, allowing me to compare with other.

You give me hope that there is a fun way to lose my mummy tummy. There hasn’t been any swingaling in my hips for a long while…let me tell you!

Where has the fun, the passion and the innovation gone?

Please come back soon.

I miss you.

Love Chelle.

This weeks Apprentice flopped for me. Can you tell? The fitness challenge this week had me waiting for passion and enthusiasm. not only in any business routine but my own wanting of weight loss this week. On many levels this should have been the episode for me. I loved the retro idea, as an 80′s kids (well 70′s by a year ;)) things were so colourful, pop music was fabulous and funky. So why did this episode flop for me?

After reading this story about Pregnancy Zumba this week i was enthused for some new workout ideas. I’m not a gym bunny (well not anymore) and I would love to be able to do something fun with my daughter which would also benefit our health. I am not sure why either team did not pick up on yummy mummies or buggy fit or anything where mums or dads can workout with the kids. You’d think with talk of a baby boom every other week or even the huge amount of celeb pregnancies they’d be fishing for something niche rather than blah…

I have to say although the workout left me more couch potato than like a shaken bottle of diet coke (full of fizz) the pitches are getting better. I thought that Sterling were concise and confident regardless of any questions they had thrown at them.

Phoenix won but for me I thought they were so lucky Virgin thought through their idea and took it for the right market but for me that didn’t mean they were the winners…

Melody Hossaini (one of last years apprentices) came up with this memorable quote ‘Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.’ After one fan got this tattooed this week I am thinking maybe we all should be reaching a little bit further and not selling ourselves short.

Come on Apprentice – step it up!

Our guest contributor Chelle has taken over our Apprentice blog. She loves watching the corporate life but isn’t so sure she want to be in it…. (more…)

Today, we’ve got a guest blog from Michael Taylor – a journalist with 20 years track record, successful involvement in business for some time and now, moving into another arena as an event producer. Based in the North West and very well connected to some of the coolest people around, we’re really pleased to have Michael comment for us on presenting yourself and what’s important when speaking…

Growing a business requires paying attention to how that business is understood by the outside world – and so it remains vitally important for all businesses to engage with the media, despite everything you may have read about the decline of traditional channels. It was in this context that I delivered a “masterclass” for management consultancy Winning Pitch, creators of the High Growth Foundation. The 40 or so attendees were all small business owners, so I had to pitch it quite broadly.

I spoke for about two and a half hours in total, taking a break coffee, but tried to be interactive and conversational. One of the subjects I covered was how to get ready for appearing at an event. The last thing they want to see therefore is someone who doesn’t appear prepared, authentic and memorable – the very things I was telling them all they MUST do. As an events producer myself, I always brief speakers at events to focus on what they know and to give something of themselves without overtly selling. The literal  interpretation of what you do is probably the least interesting thing you could talk about. I use as an example my pal Phil Jones, the MD of Brother UK. He delivers time and time again as a conference speaker or panellist. Has he ever tried to sell a total paper based ink connectivity connections interface solution, a printer in plain English? Has he heck! If he did he’d be finished and wouldn’t be asked back. He talks about trends in workplace design, management patterns for distributed workplaces and the uses and abuses of social media. Would I ask him for a printer if I needed one? – Of course I would – plenty of others would too.

The main point is he’s memorable.

I dished out a few trade secrets and home truths about the mindset of the journalist on business desks and BBC newsrooms – which ones will be more receptive to opinions and what kind of stories to drop on a journalist at what time. The trick is to understand where resources are distributed and which are the hungry beasts to feed – measure the output of a publication and work out how many staff work on it.

I don’t think there’s anything magical about what I said, it just happens to be what I know about – a collection of stories and observations from my experience.

Heather Lomas/Jim/Michael Taylor/Gareth Burton

It helped too that three of the people there were friends I recently went on a Learning Journey to California with (pictured above are Heather Lomas, Jim Clarke, me and Gareth Burton).

I enjoyed it enormously and would love to do more of these sessions – there are plenty more stories, hints, tips and insights that could really help a business get a better profile, in the media, and then in the places where you can do it for yourself like blogs and social media.

But do you know what – many of the same rules apply.

What rules do you have for presenting yourself in public?

It’s Wednesday night so it can only mean one thing for me – The Apprentice!

This week it’s all about coming up with a useful gadget for the home. Lord Sugar stated that the most important thing was to come up with a brilliant concept as every process after that depends on the product being great. Wise words but would the candidates listen?

They were still in their girls v boys teams, the Project Managers were picked fairly quickly this week, the boys were positive in their choice and the girls did it with some eye rolling. Why oh why do they insist on behaving like this? Anyway I digress.

They came up with their concepts and off they went to carry out their market research. The focus groups all picked their favourite products and the teams then both proceeded to ignore the research and go with the product the PM favoured!

The pitches were next. The boys faired ok but the girls were a shambles, as Lord Sugar said, the product was bad and the financial side was appalling, they didn’t get their figures right at all. So guess who lost this week? ……… Yep, the girls!

So again, the team failed due to lack of basic business knowledge. I am beginning to wonder how they have all managed to start up these businesses they rave about? I wonder if they are failing because they are thinking more about the prize than they are about the tasks? At least this week it wasn’t a case of see who can shout the loudest so it was a bit easier on the ears!

We’ll have to wait and see what happens next week and I’m hoping that there is a shining example of a businesswoman sitting within the remaining female contestants. And can I just say – the pro wrestler/businessman who pipes up with the tag lines here and there is becoming tv gold!

Hi all, it’s Emma here sharing with you my love for The Apprentice! My Wednesday nights are now a write off as the show has made its return, oh how I love this show. I love seeing the characters that have been picked, I love seeing the tasks they are given and I love seeing the money result to (don’t we all?).

16 applicants have come together for this series and I’m sat wondering whether part of the selection process involves the kind of tag lines they can make up for themselves?

“I’m going to roar my way to the top”

“I’m like a blond assassin”

“I’m like a shark, top of the food train and I truly am the reflection of perfection” (This one came from the business man who is also a professional wrestler by night!)

Anyway, I digress. So the task was set that they would have blank products that they could then print on and sell, they were split into teams of boys v girls and Phoenix and Sterling were born.

They worked completely differently and if I’m honest (and please remember these are my own views and not those of Weston Communications!) I felt embarrassed by the girls team and thought they actually gave business women a bad name, no wonder we have trouble out there! So whilst the boys knuckled down to figures and margins the girls concentrated on the design. Admittedly this is where the girls excelled, they came up with a fab motif that went on their bags, jigsaws and t-shirts whereas the boys came up with a crap ‘This is a red bus’ with a picture of a red bus (really!) for theirs and an extortionately priced teeny teddy with a union jack flag on it.

So the next 20 minutes or so of the episode concentrated on watching the teams sell, well the boys team sold and the girls team argued….. a lot! The desperation of wanting to get rid of all the stock kicked in in the final half an hour and off they went to try to bulk sell to shops. The boys managed to get rid of their bags but were then recalled as the bags were so badly printed that they had to give the shop a full refund! The girls finally found a shop and basically all talked at once at the poor woman behind the counter, I couldn’t believe my eyes and had to turn the volume down, they were appalling basically trying to railroad this woman into taking their stock, it got so bad that someone else working with the lady actually came out and told them all off for their bad behaviour and incredible rudeness!

And then it was back to the boardroom. Surprisingly the boys team won by a massive difference. I say surprisingly because the girls team had a far superior product than the boys. But, this is where it shows that a strategy is a massively important thing to have for any business, imagine if the girls had had a strategy as well as their fantastic product? They could have blown the boys team out of the water.

So it was goodbye Bilyana after a lot more arguing in the boardroom, I’m not sure she should have gone as a) I think she had some good points and b) she made good tele rubbing everyone up the wrong way!

Now I have to wait another whole week for the next instalment – they’re designing a new gadget this time, it will be interesting to see if the teams have learnt anything from this week to take into the next task. And I really hope there is less shouting too, I don’t like watching things where I have a frown on my face, I have a battle with wrinkles as it is!

Did you watch it? What did you think about it, I’d love to hear your thoughts too.

Following National Breastfeeding Awareness week how can we support Breastfeeding mums to feel confident with breastfeeding in public? The story of one mum being asked by a council representative to stop feeding in Oldham Civic Centre shows how uninformed others still are about breastfeeding. Chelle McCann pops in to discuss…

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Regular Guest Blogger Chelle McCann is back with tips to stay happy!

This week I have really been tested. With so many projects on the go this had to be the week where our little one was sent home from nursery with conjunctivitis and a chest infection. Already feeling like bad parents for not realising that it wasn’t just sleep in her eyes or just the usual teething cold myself and hubby got to see what stay at home parent life is like again.

Fizz was ill but hyperactic, two stressy parents with work to do too really did not help but later in the week I had the sense to stop everything and be a child again.

I watched This Morning who were doing a feel good section involving laughing therapy and Diva Dancing. It looked fab! So with baby wanting to shake her maracas we ran into her bedroom, danced around on the futon making loads of noise and jumping around finally giggling with an average age of ohhh 17 months fell onto a bed for cuddles. It was the most fun I have had in ages. I embraced motherhood again and vow not to be such a work junkie in the future.

So how do you stay silly/fun? How do you balance? Let me know as for me the jumping up and down and tickles with my daughter continue to ground me when I seem to be floating away!

This week it was rumoured that Carla Bruni and Katie Holmes are both rumoured to be pregnant this week. It seems normal that the press focus on these women, scrutinising their pregnancies and probably putting a huge amount of stress on thes women.

As more women are loosing babies later in pregnancy this article in The Daily Mail. Kelly Brook, Amanda Holden and Lily Allen have all lost babies in the later stages of pregnancy. The article discusses whether or not discussions around miscarriage and still birth are more open then older generations. In the current day it seems that women are more likely to discuss what has happened to them rather than hide away – a sign of strength or independance. I’m not completely sure.

However a great campaign called Count The Kicks is gaining momentum everyday  within social media. This great campaign encourages mums to be to ensure they are aware of their unborn child and not to shy away from highlighting if they think something is wrong with their bump. The website offers guidance to women as well as fundraising to push more momentum to their campaign.

Please follow Count The Kicks on twitter and share the link so hopefully more mothers can recognise the signs they may need medical help earlier.