Preneur World March 2024

Business tycoon Lord Alan Sugar talks
about The Apprentice, revealing all about the
candidates and his top tips for business success
ew
You’re back for series 18, how excited
P
are you for the audience to see this
series?
Well, I’m very pleased with this series
A
because the quality of the candidates
that we have attracted this year is superb,
I have to say. This year, we’ve got a lot to
work with.
P
What do you think has changed this
year in the audition process?
This year, we had more business
A
focused tasks early in the audition
process so that my team and the production
company could filter out and find serious
potential businesspeople.
P
What makes you keep coming back to
the show?
Well, I love it. I love doing it. If I didn’t
A
like doing it, I wouldn’t do it. I can
assure you I’ve got plenty of other things to
do in my life, but I do enjoy it. And what I
enjoy about it is that it’s growing acorns to
oak trees. It’s finding a person and starting
all over again and doing exactly what I did
back in the ‘60s.
Do you have an idea of how long you
P
want to do the show given the 20th
anniversary is around the corner?
Well, obviously we’re going to do that.
A
No question. But bear in mind, it’s
not my call, it’s the BBC’s call. They’re
the ones that will decide whether the
programme has got longevity beyond 20
series. I have a contract to do series 19, I
don’t have a contract to do series 20 yet,
but I’m pretty damn sure that I’ll ask them
to do it and we’ll do it. But it’s really up to
them. It’s up to their scheduling and all that
type of thing.
Me personally, I love it. I love doing it.
I know Karren loves doing it. Tim loves
doing it. And bear in mind that we’ve got
people coming along now who 20 years
ago weren’t even born. Or we’ve got people
coming along now who were five years
or six years old when they first started
watching The Apprentice through their
mums and dads. And now they’re coming
on the show. So, it’s great. It’s fantastic.
And it’s a great BBC programme.
How important are Baroness Karren
P
Brady and Tim Campbell MBE to you
in this process?
Unbelievable. Karren is brilliant. Tim
A
is brilliant. They’ve got it. They’re
the ones that tell me what’s going on
when they’re out in the field with the
candidates. I get emails, maybe 10 emails
a day, as they’re going on. “Fred’s just
fallen over. Fred’s just dropped all the ice
cream. Harry’s just screwed up in front
of the buyer.” I get it all. That’s how I get
my information to actually question the
candidates in the boardroom. They’re
brilliant because they’ve done it for so long,
right? They’re experts. They know what to
look for and they know what to tell me and
they know when to shut the candidates up
and to steer them in the right direction.
They are very important to me when it
comes to deciding who I’m going to fire
and hire. I mean, you could say the show
is all Lord Sugar, it’s not. It’s Lord Sugar,
Karren and Tim. It’s definitely down to
them also as much as me. I can’t get all
my questions out to the candidates without
them telling me what went on in the task.
A large percentage of your audience
P
is the much sought after 16-24
age bracket, why do you think you are
attracting that age range when people might
expect them to be focussed on dating shows
or streamers?
First of all, what you need to
A
understand is, and I don’t wish to be
disrespectful to any other host of business
programmes, but I have done everything.
I’ve literally done everything. When I’m
questioning the candidates, I question them
from a position of absolute experience of
knowing every single facet of starting a
business from scratch right the way up to
becoming a multi-billion-pound turnover
business.
I think what happens is the interrogation
or the questioning, put it that way, of the
candidates, is what attracts the youngsters.
If I’m walking down the street, it is that
age group of people who come up to me
to ask for a signature or a photograph or
something like that.
PRENEUR WORLD 23