The Apprentice’s Sarah Dales on being fired and that short skirt strategy
“It’s important to take care of your appearance in business because I do think people judge a book by its cover,”
Sarah Dales dove headfirst into this year’s Apprentice by taking up the first project manager role for the girls’ team, with her main strategy being to hike their skirts up and put some make up on.
“Most people will buy from females because females look more attractive,” the former PA and hypnotherapist told her team before their first day of selling.
It’s a strategy that didn’t seem to hit the right note, with fellow candidate Katie saying during tonight’s episode that they’d all struggled to take her seriously since.
Now one of three candidates to be fired after Lord Sugar’s online video task, does Sarah stand by that initial strategy?
“It’s clearly important to take care of your appearance in business because I do think people judge a book by its cover. People are far more likely to buy something from somebody who’s made an effort. If you’ve got an attractive female who’s spent time looking good and then there’s someone who hasn’t made so much effort and they’re selling the same product, you will find 9 times out of 10 both males and females will go to the person who looks slightly more attractive, or the person who has made a bit more effort with their appearance.
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“They took it far too seriously,” Sarah adds of her teammates. “I didn’t see any problems trying to use a bit of girl power. At the end of the day we won that first task and that’s all there really is to it in my eyes.”
Of finding herself part of this year's first triple firing, Sarah certainly doesn’t think she should have been brought back into the boardroom.
“If you appoint someone as a sub team leader and that person doesn’t perform, you don’t then take one of the people they’re managing into the boardroom. You take the person that’s in charge of that. So really, what should have happened, is Ella Jade should have taken Lauren into the boardroom and not me," Sarah says of their sub team leader who failed to ensure a description was added to their uploaded Fat Daddy Fitness Hell video.
Although Sarah does admit she could see the way Ella Jade was leaning.
“I just don’t feel like Ella gave me the opportunity to speak and pitch. I knew she as going to take me in there, because she didn’t really give me the opportunity to have a go.”
“It’s very nerve-wracking in the boardroom,” Sarah continues, saying that “most of the time Lord Sugar hasn’t got anything very nice to say about what you’ve been doing. So you just hope and pray he’s not going to say something bad about how you’ve done something.
In fact, Sarah reveals the whole process is “emotionally very charged” noting that even at night it’s hard to sleep well. “It was a lot more challenging than I expected it to be. A lot more tiring. It was a lot more bitchy than I expected it to be. It was a surreal experience.”
Of who Sarah thinks can win the competition, she’s backing Bianca. “She’s very level headed, I’m sure she’ll do well.”
The Apprentice continues Wednesdays at 9:00pm on BBC1
