The Apprentice, Episode 8: Water World

Troy, Heidi, and Kwame visit bars and restaurants together. The problem they keep running into is that many of the places they visit don’t have enough storage space to handle a big order. At one bar, Troy offers a price break on a half pallet, and says that he’ll gladly roll up his sleeves to make space for it.

Heidi paired Heidi and Omarosa together, figuring that Amy would do the best at dealing with Omarosa. No doubt Amy wishes she were a little more incompetent so she would have been trusted with that task! The two of them take a meeting at a restaurant, and Omarosa gives a sales pitch in which she claims, “I am a big, big connoisseur of waters.” Let’s look at that sentence again, all alone:

“I am a big, big connoisseur of waters.”

Hahahahaha! Okay, back to the show. Amy says in an interview that she and Omarosa agreed ahead of time that when Omarosa needed to shut up, Amy would kick her under the table. By the time Omarosa finishes by saying that she has tasted many of the waters that the restaurant offers, and Trump Ice is the best, her shins must be black and blue. Amy says that Omarosa was going to do the marketing, and she’d handle the numbers, but Omarosa keeps taking Amy’s job. To make matters worse, Omarosa’s offers are too low. Amy starts to offer the restaurant managers – who are short of storage space just like Protégé’s customers – a certain amount of water when Omarosa interrupts and suggests “just a few cases.” Amy fumes.

We then see a montage of Omarosa promising not to talk numbers anymore, then going ahead and doing just that in meetings. In one meeting, she interrupts whatever offer Amy was going to make with, “just one case.” Amy is livid. In an interview, she says, “Surely I’m not hearing this again! That was when she got her third kick.” Omarosa thinks the whole thing is hilarious and says in an interview, “She’s lucky I didn’t kick her ass back.” Way to miss the point, Omarosa. Amy says in an interview that she doesn’t think it’s a good use of their time to spend an hour selling just one $15 case of water.

That night, Protégé crunches numbers. Troy is worried and thinks they need to sell 1,500 cases a day to stay average. Selling them one case at a time won’t cut it. Omarosa shares her and Amy’s results, which don’t sound very good. Heidi says in an interview that the next day, Amy will work with her and Troy. Amy asked that she not be paired with Omarosa again. Heidi is fine with that, because Omarosa is, in her opinion, useless. There is no mention of Kwame, who must now spend the day with her.

Meanwhile, over at Versacorp, Ereka is looking at the web site for ABC Distributors. She suggests that Nick check it out so that he can learn more about the customer. He flatly refuses to look at it. He says in an interview that it’s ridiculous that Ereka is telling him how to sell. “It’s like telling the Pope how to pray!”

The next morning, Omarosa and poor Kwame, who is stuck with her for the day, visit a salon. The man they’re meeting with is a makeup artist, and Omarosa begins the meeting by asking how her makeup looks. He decides that she needs some work, so Omarosa gets her makeup retouched. In an interview, she tells us all about it and is very proud that not only did she get fresh lip gloss, but they also sold two cases of water. Two cases? Big deal. Considering the amount of time she and Kwame must have spent in the salon while she got her makeup done before even trying to sell anything, it was a real waste of resources for only two cases sold.

The rest of the team is doing better. Troy, Heidi, and Amy pile into a cab, and Troy says, “Oh, my God – we’re missing the boat.” They should not be focused on just a one-time sale. They can write purchase orders for more than one delivery. Then storage won’t be such an issue. Amy is impressed. In an interview, she says, “Troy is a much smarter guy than I initially thought.” She says he reads people well and can easily adapt to find the best way to talk to each person.

Nick is positively giddy to get to selling. He says, “This is show time.” He thinks his team has underestimated him so far, but he’s about to prove his worth. “Hop on this back,” he says, “I’m taking us to the promised land.” I want to like Nick because I think he’s smart, but sometimes he is so arrogant that he makes it hard. Nick meets a potential customer, gives a pitch, and offers the guy a truckload of water. Katrina contributes to the effort by standing silently at Nick’s side nodding. In an interview, she says that Nick seems more interested in how much money he can get than in what the customer needs. The customer passes on the water. Nick suggests just one case. No dice.

Nick the master salesman then goes to a nightclub with the rest of his team. He gives a long speech about who Donald Trump is, what good quality water it is, and so on. The customer says that he runs a nightclub, so “It’s just water.” All he wants is a good price. Bill steps in and offers to cut the price in half. The customer agrees. In an interview, Bill says, “Nick didn’t want to learn about the customer… he’s the kind of guy who’ll jump out of the plane without learning how to operate the parachute.”

In an interview, Heidi, wearing a really unflattering ostrich feather trimmed top, says that at the end of the day, they had all of their paperwork in order. All they needed to do was wait for George to tally the results.

In contrast, Ereka and her team are a disorganized mess. As Carolyn looks on, Ereka digs through piles of papers trying to get everything together. In an interview, Ereka says that Nick did not fill out some of the paperwork properly to get it approved. If the team loses because of that, she is not going to be happy. Bill says in an interview that Ereka was flustered, nervous, and making excuses, all in front of Carolyn. It did not look good. Carolyn looks politely impatient as Ereka finally pulls everything together.