I usually watch The Apprentice from behind the sofa. Not only because it’s ‘car-crash’ television filled with pretentious business-speak, but the programme’s title gives a bad name to the honourable status of apprentice.

But glory be! How good did our unsung industry look in last Wednesday’s programme when two of the remaining candidates were tasked to sell lawn tractors off the Leigh Park Garden Machinery stand at the Royal Bath & West Show.

They were competing against a pair ‘selling’ hot tubs (surely the most useless and over-hyped product known to man).  On camera, Leigh Park’s Derek Tucker was clear from the start. “We have a reputation to uphold, people need to trust us to sell them the right product”.

We heard the instant sales team, James and Roisin, selling benefits – and from a standing start, sold two Atco tractors (nice piece of product placement Duncan and Ron). And Derek says they were genuine new sales to new customers.

Meanwhile, over at ‘hot-tub central’ all we heard was discount, discount, discount. Not a word about the model having a non-slip bottom, twin champagne glass holders or more nozzles so it can shoot extra water into unseen places.

Look, this is entertainment pure and simple. It has little to do with real life or real business.

But credit to the programme makers, they put a positive spin on the reasons why people should buy an expensive piece of kit from people who care.


TALKING about discounting, aren't you glad that this so called Black Friday falls at the end of November? I can't see many queues piling up outside a lawnmower dealer today.  The scenes at the supermarkets this morning are unedifying and yes, un-British.  Soon I suppose we'll have Clintons selling Happy Black Friday cards. This is one American 'fad' that can't disappear back over the Atlantic fast enough.

 
ON Wednesday, I was at the Savoy in London for the annual Garden Media Guild Awards (no gongs I’m afraid) but well done to Jim Ward a former editor of our Turf Pro mag for winning the online award for his work on the Royal Horticultural Society website.

Bit of deja-vu going back to the Savoy, which was for many years the venue for the AEA Conference.  The hotel has had a major refurb and retains much of its character, but they do need to re-coup.  An industry colleague offered to buy me a glass of wine in the Savoy’s American bar. Nice glass of red (standard size) but it cost more than 6 times the price of a pint of Nicholson’s foaming Pale Ale in the packed Coal Hole pub next door in the Strand afterwards. Work it out!

LASTLY, do spend a few minutes completing the 2014 Dealer Business Survey in this issue. We would like to know how the year has panned out for you – and what you felt about about 2015. 

And unusually for us, we are putting up a nice bottle of Malt Whiskey for the winner of a tie break question.