What can graduate entrepreneurs learn from The Apprentice?

In the current season of The Apprentice Lord Sugar is searching for an ideal ‘business partner’, an entrepreneur with a great idea for him to invest in. There’s plenty for wannabe graduate entrepreneurs to learn from the floundering candidates, from the crucial importance of getting your product right to why it isn’t always you who should give a presentation to potential investors.

Make sure your product is a good one

Whether your business is making or selling, this year has shown that product selection is key. Tom’s team’s catastrophic loss in France – a boardroom record – was put down to them choosing the wrong item to sell. And way back when the teams had to make pet food and Lord Sugar had to choose between the team with the good pet food and bad ad campaign or the team with the bad pet food but good ad campaign, he chose the best product.

Know where to make your profits

To be fair to the candidates, they usually get thrown into these tasks without any experience or knowledge of the market and you have the opportunity to do your research. Always keep your profit margins in mind. In the beauty tasks, the teams were told that the real money was to be made in the treatments and yet they spent most of their time selling products because, as Nick said with customary scathingness, it was easier – a missed opportunity.

Play to your strengths

When starting up your own business, the chances are you’ll be doing a lot yourself, but if you do have a team, play to your strengths and delegate the areas you’re weaker in to people who can do a better job. Remember when during the phone app task team leader Edna grandly announced that she’d assessed all of her team’s strengths and decided that the best person to lead the presentation was… herself?! She only won the task, we believe, because their app was better than the other team’s.

Where can you get help?

New graduates can start their own business successfully – targetjobs.co.uk’s parent company was started 20-odd years ago by two university graduates frustrated at the lack of good careers advice for students. These days universities have loads of information and support for budding entrepreneurs. Many universities now have offices dedicated this and your careers service can point you in the right direction.

Source: Targetjobs.co.uk, Thursday 30th June 2011