The UK apprentices' first task: Make some coffee, oh and make a profit!

In The Apprentice (UK) Sir Alan Sugar set a pretty easy first task. How much can you make selling coffee in London from a fixed site and with a mobile van?

Andy Jackson was the girls' project manager, team Stealth. And Jadine Johnson was the project manager for the boys, the Eclipse team. So how did they do? Here are some thoughts on their first task.

Eclipse Team ("managed" by Jadine)

Tre Azam and Simon Ambrose drove their mobile coffee van to a pitch where people were already going to buy coffee at inflated prices and started selling well. The first hour they sold about 50 cups. Then Jadine pulled them back so that she could "manage" or talk/shout at them. Later when they went back with Jadine and Ifti in tow as extra salespeople, they sold 30 cups in 20 minutes.

The things that they did badly:

• They assumed that the coffee they bought at a cash and carry was the right one - it wasn't! So they had to go and buy some more elsewhere
• Jadine pulled a team from a place they were selling (so lost time and profits and they couldn't get back to the same pitch again)
• Jadine split the winning pair on the mobile coffee selling team up
• Jadine didn't rally her troops at all, in fact she seemed to spend a fair amout of time shouting at them to be quiet and respect her as the manager
• Jadine kept going on about branding the coffee by shaking chocolate powder on the top in the shape of an eclipse, and:
  • Then she realised that it would only work on cappuccino - because it's the only frothy one
  • What's the point? No one needs to remember this coffee firm, plus it just takes longer to get served

On the podcast, now up on the BBC website, Alan's right hand "man" Margaret said the team would have worked just as well if Jadine hadn't been there at all. In my opinion probably better because then she wouldn't have pulled people back from a winning pitch.

Jadine interrupted her team when they were with customers and she kept on going on about them showing her respect. And of course you can hear her shouting when she's coming back to manage them!

The one thing they did very well was to realise that they should only sell coffee - nothing else. Thanks to Tre I think for pointing them down the right path there.