The Apprentice - Negotiation, negotiation, negotiation...

One of my favourite tasks of The Apprentice (who can forget Michael Sophocles and the kosher chicken fiasco of 2008?) - take a list of 10 items to find and then buy at the lowest price - was the offering of this week's episode. On the surface it sounds pretty simple, but, as we've learned from previous experience, it is a tragedy waiting to happen. Jamie, heading the boys' team, had one strategy and one strategy alone for winning this task - race around London, find the items and start by offering 30% of the asking price. Liz, managing the girls, had a more organised strategy - locate the items, plan each purchase and location, then work on the negotiation on arrival. With Jo going great guns from the beginning, and Jamie stumped on trying to find a tikka (the gold type, not the curry), it looked like the girls were off to a flying start, especially as they managed to find out what the Blue Book was long before the boys did.

Once the boys had found the items, though, they showed some remarkable negotiation skills. Jamie was extremely persuasive and wouldn't take no for an answer, whilst Chris - following his leader's mantra of "always have a story when negotiating" - came up with some inspired reasons for needing items at a good price. My favourite gem was his bargaining tool for the Blue Book, which was a convoluted lie regarding a desperate brother and his impending test for The Knowledge. Amazingly, he managed to get his discount, along with a few laughs for good measure. He lied again about a tartan loving Granny in order to get a discount on the fabric, and managed to snag a great bargain - extremely entertaining. Chris may even be the one to watch... The girls' organisational skills really paid off for them - by sourcing and ordering the kitchen worktop in advance, they saved the wasted time and effort that Jamie spent on trying to find it - and they managed to find all ten items, albeit returning slightly late and facing financial penalties. Unfortunately, Laura's miscalculations about the price of truffles (and trying to buy them from a restaurant) put the dampers on their chance of victory, and in the end it was Jamie's team (even with over £500 of penalties added on for failing to find two of the items), who walked away with the weekend in Paris.

So, what can we learn from this latest installment? Well, that it all came down to negotiation. The boys were far stronger at negotiating the best prices, regardless of their slapdash approach to resourcing the items. The girls' failure was, that although they researched the items well, they went out blind into the marketplace in terms of pricing and negotiation strategy. It was also commented on by Lord Sugar that they failed to adapt themselves to the situation and the seller - the corporate approach of deal making and handshaking doesn't suit a small independent store. Does careful planning aid negotiation? Not in this case, although it could in the right circumstances e.g. if the product and market has been identified and price checked. Negotiation is an extremely useful tool in the job market, as anyone who has had a job interview should know.

So, how should we negotiate a job offer? When do we talk salary? Well, we need to start by making sure we have used our skills as a chameleon to adapt to the environment - a skill which Liz and Stella were sadly lacking. Being able to adapt our social and communication skills to a situation is an incredibly important part of negotiation. It's not about pretending to be something we're not, just realising that different people respond to different things, and certain situations require certain handling and personality traits. The negotiation of a job offer is really important for both employer and employee, and sets the stage for a satisfactory working relationship. For the jobseeker, negotiating too hard can result in losing the opportunity, but not negotiating enough could lead to dissatisfaction if we accept a role where we feel we should and could be paid more for. If we are lucky enough to have other offers, these can be used as a starting point for salary negotiation of a new role, or alternatively as a stick to beat an existing employer with should the promotion or pay rise we feel we have earned is not forthcoming. As the boys learnt, spontaneity is also a good thing - playing by ear allows us to adapt a strategy in real time, rather than planning it all ahead and being too rigid. We also need to know our potential employer and the flexibility they may have in salary offerings - for example, a large company where salaries are set or banded for many employees are unlikely to be able to move much, whereas an SME can usually offer more flexibility in terms of benchmarking indivual salaries. What it all boils down to is, essentially, being able to use our negotiation skills in an effective and appropriate manner.

Why not take your inspiration from Chris? Just leave out the tall stories....