This episode was a lot more timid compared to the last couple of episodes. Continuing from last time, Omarosa was moved to Empresario and it was decided that Marilu Henner would move to Hydra. The task this time around was that the two teams would appear live on the QVC shopping channel and would have to select a product to sell. The team who makes the most money would win.

The project manager for Hydra was Marilu Henner and for Empresario was Stephen Baldwin. At first both teams wanted to sell the same product which was a portable ladder that could also be turned into a cart/dolly it seemed. The two teams simply decided to flip a coin to see who would get to sell it and Hydra won. As a result, Empresario decided to sell an electric sweeper product.

Hydra’s approach was to use Marilu Henner as the presenter and she utilized a super energetic and passionate approach to try and sell the product. Empresario used Trace Adkins who was a complete polar opposite it seemed as he had a very mellow and calm attitude with his presentation.

During the planning portion of the episode where the teams were in a meeting room strategizing, am I the only one that noticed what seemed to be blatant product placements to advertise Trump’s book “Think Big and Kick Ass In Business and Life” in the background? I took a screen capture of it here:

It looked like Trace Adkins was staring at that book in particular too wondering where the heck it came from and what it was doing there. Overall, Hydra’s presentation seemed to be a bit overwhelming with Empresario’s efforts being more down to earth for the viewer I thought.

Hydra decided to price their product at $49.99 while Empresario decided to sell their product at 59.95 while utilizing an easy payment plan gimmick to further generate sales which broke it down to five payments of $11.99. In the end, Empresario sold 716 units and made $43,000 while Hydra sold 703 units $35,145. As a result, Empresario won and Stephen Baldwin received $20,000 for his charity.

In the boardroom it came down to Piers Morgan, Lennox Lewis and Marilu Henner. There was some rumblings about the choice as it was questioned why Carol Alt wasn’t selected instead as she apparently has worked with QVC for years and should have had knowledge of things such as the easy payment plans. In the end, since Marilu played such a big role in virtually every aspect of the project, a lot of the results was aimed at her and as a result she was fired.

I thought this episode was interesting in the sense that a lot of energy can sometimes be portrayed as the person being extremely nervous whereas being calm can demonstrate a lot of confidence. At the same time, it was good reminder I thought that that being yourself is the best way to go rather than assuming that you have to necessarily copy someone else’s style/approach to succeed.

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I don’t know if you could classify this episode as a showmanship of business tactics as it seemed more like a domestic dispute of some sort. Donald trump decided that he wanted to mix the teams up in order to even out the playing field since Empresario was getting clobbered still. Although, I think it was pretty apparent that it was more likely done to create drama for ratings. The new teams were as follows:

Team Hydra:

Lennox Lewis
Piers Morgan
Carol Alt
Omarosa

Team Empresario:

Stephen Baldwin
Tito Ortiz
Trace Adkins
Marilu Henner

The task this time was to run a horse carriage operation and to raise as much money as possible with the team raising the most money would win. The project manager for Hydra was Piers Morgan and for Empresario it was Trace Adkins. For the most part, both teams had the same strategy which was to contact their big list of wealthy friends to donate a large sum of money for the service. The episode pretty much revolved around the chaos that arose as a result of Omarosa and Piers Morgan being on the same team as it was obvious that they despised each other.

Piers had an interesting direction where he decided that the people on his team will be judged by how much money each team member brought in themselves and that a commitment form would be created to re-affirm it. Of course, Omarosa isn’t exactly in the same status as the rest of them and as a result it seemed like she couldn’t get anyone. As a result, she became frustrated it seemed and even misspelled Piers’ name on the form that she created. Omarosa then became hysterical afterwards and Piers decided to fire her within 5 minutes into task.

This created pandemonium afterwards as Omarosa decided she wanted to create anarchy of some sort and to attack Piers in his personal life as a strategy to get him riled up. Pretty dirty tactics I must say. Here are some clips of this:

It makes me wonder too why someone would use tactics like that especially in this scenario where your actions will be publicly archived for scrutiny. I guess you truly can’t hide your character when it comes down to it. It seemed like Empresario was doing better as everyone got along and their carriages were constantly on the move. Before the winner was announced, Piers made a comment that despite the outcome either Omarosa goes or he does.

In the end, Empresario made $29,673 and Hydra raised $35,184 which was unexpected with all the circumstances. Trump also mentioned that Omarosa would be on the other team from now on as well. Donald Trump had a very difficult time deciding on who should be fired as the team did very well and got along with each other with no complaints. As a result, for the first time he decided to fire no one.

If this was based on overall performance and past issues I would of probably chosen Baldwin if you had to choose one person from the team. But wow, this episode sure showed how dirty and disgusting some people can be (It happens). I’ve always found that the best way to counter people who try to take things to a personal level to try and throw you off your game is with good old facts and encouraging self realization to the person in question.

For example, if I was in that situation I would have probably kept asking Omarosa if she thinks her charity would be proud to take money from her if she happens to raise any considering the type of tactics she was using. Kind of reminds of the time where she apparently got some kind of endorsement contract for a commercial and a large amount of people sent in letters saying they will never use the product again if they saw her name/face attached to it.

I’m sure attacking others in that way will give you satisfaction during the heat of the moment, but you have to keep in mind that it will then be out on your shoulder for people to see for a very long time if not forever afterwards.

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This episode started off with some soap opera-like drama. Omarosa at first was acting as if she was the epitome of integrity and success in life it seems. She began to attack Piers Morgan for his actions previously and even implied that Lennox Lewis was “just as dirty.” After a few exchange of words, Omarosa arrogantly walks by Piers and pours her drink on his head.

A short while after, Stephen Baldwin mentions that he wants to resign from the show as a result of Piers. Just my opinion, but you don’t need to be an expert to be able to see right through that as it looked like it had more to do about being caught in a lie/contradiction with Piers being a cop out excuse. Ultimately, Baldwin spoke with Trump about wanting to resign and instead Trump mentioned he should just go to Empresario instead which was the end result. Funny thing was Baldwin mention that he had to speak at a Church and as result he wouldn’t be fully involved in the task.

The task this time around was to create a “living window” display that would feature mattresses designed by the renowned designer Vera Wang and teams will be judged by creativity, brand imaging and entertainment value as judged by herself and Bob Sherman who is the president of the company Serta. The project manager for Hydra was Lennox Lewis and for Empresario it was Omarosa.

Empresario’s direction was to focus on a “perfect marriage” theme which was definitely a more conservative route of the happy bride and groom presented in a dazzling heart warming way. Hydra decided to go with a more creative route revolving around the thought of “The world’s greatest romance deserves the world’s greatest mattress” and created a symbolic visual of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony as a couple with a modern day twist. Again, it was Trace Adkins that came up with the idea for Hydra and it is quite amusing to see how he is so quiet yet ends up coming up with all these brilliant ideas.

I couldn’t stop laughing at the events that took place on Team Hydra’s side. Essentially, Lennox Lewis’ management style was that for every decision and direction for the project he would do it in a team voting style as oppose to him making a decision. It was a very disciplined management style I guess you can say. He was getting ridiculed by his teammates for it and the funny thing was everyone, including himself, were just having so much fun with it. I guess the music they had playing in the background made it even more comical.

In the end, Team Hydra ended up winning as their presentation was more creative and was focused in expanding Vera Wang’s brand out of just bridal themes. Lennox Lewis then got $20,000 for his charity the Muhammad Ali Center. Piers Morgan made a comment after and told Omarosa “Well, Bad luck. Bad luck next time huh?”

In the boardroom it came down to Omarosa, Marilu Henner and Nely Galan. It seemed like with those choices Trump was pre-meditated in getting rid of Nely for past incidents. It then got kind of fiery as Nelan Galan called Trump out on that and tried to defend herself such as back in the episode when Gene Simmons was fired on how people respect her enough not to bring her in which should say a lot.

It looked like she had crushed Trump a little bit there as he had no immediate answer. In a normal circumstance, all the things she said were pretty solid though in my view. If you think about it, it is kind of hypocritical in some way to use that past issue against her and yet for some reason a person like Omaraso, who probably has the worst history and lost twice as a project manager so far, seems to be hopping along still. Regardless though, Nely was fired. Just to show how agitated Trump was, he ended up saying “get the hell out of here”.

Should past issues play a big role? From my personal experiences it is generally a yes. This episode had to do a lot about character and integrity. While the show was leaning more towards an entertainment side of things I thought, it is so important in life in general to be able to find people who share that level of honesty and integrity to associate with. Like they say, history is there so we can learn from it.

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This was a long and energetic 2 hour episode. It was announced in the beginning that Tito Ortiz would not be around for this challenge as he had a fight/match to attend to. The task this time around was to create an awareness campaign dubbed as “Soles United” for the Footwear company Crocs. The campaign’s mission was to encourage people to donate their used Croc shoes which will then be recycled and given to the needy. The team would also have to create an in store receptacle bin for people to place the shoes in and the winner will be determined by Croc’s founder and CEO.

The project manager for Hydra was Piers Morgan and for Empresario it was Carol Alt. The team’s meeting rooms were actually right next door to each other this time around which created an interesting twist. At first the Hydra suspected that the Empresario was eaves dropping on them and as a result Piers Morgan had a plan to send Vincent Pastore as a spy to get information out of them and was dubbed as the “rat”.

They did this by pretending that they had some kind of dispute while being very loud about it and Vincent Pastore sat outside the room pretending to be disgruntled. He then approached the ladies on how he wanted to work with them for this task as a result of the dispute and Empresario had no issues with taking him in.

Hydra’s direction was to once again utilize Lennox Lewis as the celebrity figure and created a receptacle bin using his image. They also came up with the slogan “Wear them, share them”. Empresario created a receptacle bin that was shaped like a Croc shoe while using Carol Alt as the celebrity image with a slogan of “Share the love.”

It got interesting afterwards as Vincent Pastore decided that he genuinely did want to help Empresario mainly in spite of Piers Morgan for assigning him such a task. He did end up providing Hydra with notes about what Expresario was planning to do though and became a double agent of sort. The episode then became like this one big soap opera about morals and ethics in business and life it seemed.

One topic was about whether or not it is okay to sabotage another person/company in order to get ahead. Ivanka mentioned how it was okay In her book depending on the situation. Maybe it’s just me, but when Stephen Baldwin started to talk about morals and ethics it just didn’t seem very genuine as he seemed like he was putting on an act.

Vincent Pastore decided to confess to Empresario about his original motive for joining the group and how he provided Hydra with internal information. In the meantime, Piers Morgan and Stephen Baldwin decided to have a little fun by giving Empresario members hints that they knew their whole plan and believed they were silly for trusting Vincent in the first place with a nudge on the fact that he plays a character in the show Sopranos.

Eventually, Empresario decides to get rid of Vincent and upon returning to Hydra and learning about his disloyalty to them as well it created a lot of tension. In the end, his decision to kind of play both sides of the fence didn’t work out as both teams did not want him and he ended up leaving while awaiting the boardroom date.

In the end, the Croc executives believed that Empresario’s idea was the best overall which gave the team it’s first victory. As the winning project manager, 10,000 pairs of recycled shoes were to be donated by Croc to needy people in Africa under Carol Alt’s name and she will also receive $20,000 for her charity.

Before any type of candidates were selected to be fired, Vincent Pastore mentioned that he wanted to simply resign from the show. There was then a discussion about quitting in life and how many times it is a mental game. Trump then got Vincent Pastore to express how he wanted to quit simply because of Piers Morgan which didn’t seem right. An interesting comment came up as Trump asked Baldwin for his opinion. Baldwin began to talk about morals and ethics again and mentioned how he believed that a big reason why Trump was successful was that he would never hurt someone to get ahead. Trump kind of smiled and just said no comment.

In the end, Trump accepted Vincent Pastore’s resignation and he was he one to go. This episode almost felt like some kind of high school match with people teasing each other along with “I’m telling on you” type of scenarios. The theme was definitely about one’s character overall. I guess as apparent in this episode, inconsistency in your actions and principles in life can sure create one big mess.

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There were a lot of interesting tidbit lessons you could get out of this episode I thought. The task this time around was to sell Broadway show tickets with the team raising the most money would win. Donald Trump’s special guest this time around was Vince Mcmahon from the WWE. The project manager for Team Hydra was Vincent Pastore and for Team Empresario it was Marilu Henner.

There was an interesting comment from Nely Galan in regards to last week’s episode that got me thinking where she commented on how Gene Simmons must have respected her a lot to put himself on the chopping block. That made me think on how his actions could have been a result of thinking more long term in regards to wanting to develop business relationships with certain people outside of the show as well. That’s actually a very common scenario when I think about it in a work life.

For the most part, both teams had a similar strategy which was to contact wealthy people that they knew beforehand to purchase the Broadway play tickets at a generous amount of money. The two teams initially had to negotiate with each other on which plays they would be able to sell out of the pool of 8 shows. Hydra was more straight forward and wanting to get it over with it seems whereas Empresario to me seems like they were trying too hard.

At the actual ticket selling day it seems like Team Hydra was more willing to go all out such as Piers Morgan dressing up like King Arthur to get attention from the crowd on the streets. While Empresario had gimmicks as well, it didn’t seem to be a very pro-active approach to generate any kind of buzz. In the end, Empresario made $31,747 and Hydra ended up with $33,300 which handed Empresario their third straight loss.

In the boardroom it came down to Carol Alt, Jennie Finch and Marilu Henner. Initially though, there was a clear sign of a lack of team spirit as everyone didn’t seem to be focused on a common goal. The best example was Omarosa who tried to label Carol as a person who flies under the radar and she was quick to fight back. The women did make a comment on how Omarosa was like a cancer to the team yet Marilu mentions that she did not bring her in because she felt that she works good with her. I just thought that was a very strange way of thinking.

The weakest person clearly was Jennie Finch as she admitted herself that she was not used to this type of business environment and sure enough she was the one that got fired. This episode made me dislike Omarosa even more. I personally can’t stand people who are that disloyal.

In my opinion, focusing on dealing with the trouble makers who are constantly in it for themselves will help more in the long run despite if they seem like a good worker. I remember one example in a business where there was a person who seemed like the best worker from a numbers point of view and put on a good show to outsiders. In reality, he kept trying to demean the rest of his team members whenever possible and even resorted to stealing to better himself and overall the business did poorly. Focus on fixing foundations as oppose to instances I guess you can say.

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