On last night's episode both teams of candidates visited Brighton Body Casting as part of the scavenger hunt style 'discount buying challenge'. The task: to locate and negotiate on nine items synonymous with the area. The team that buys the most items at the lowest prices, wins. Team Affinity, arrived first and tried to smooth talk Jamie McCartney down from £160 to get Joe's lips cast. They immediately attempted to get a 50% discount which Jamie was having none of: "I'm really sorry to burst your bubble but it's seriously not going to happen!"A more sensible offer of £120 followed yet still Jamie held his ground, playing with the befuddled team for a while and keeping the upper hand throughout. Eventually he conceded on one condition:"I'd consider it a deal if someone would get me a coffee!" Whereas other business owners were often easily swayed by frothy appeals and hard nosed tactics, Jamie's polite but firm stance led The Apprentice Instagram account to immediately hail him "The King of Negotiations" "To be so called by the programme is high praise indeed. I always say you should never negotiate with terrorists or artists! But it's not easy to keep your nerve while four other businesspeople try to beat you down with a film crew watching and a TV camera in your face. But seriously I couldn't just halve my prices on national TV - that would be a huge business mistake!" By the time team Apex (including theatre school CEO Reese Donnelly) arrived it was getting late in the day and there was precious little time to get the cast done by the deadline, let alone waste time negotiating. They opted for a navel cast, although one candidate didn't know what a navel was! They tried to go in at £110 and Jamie immediately shut them down with his mind firmly on the time: "The maximum I would ever come down on a price is 10 percent. I know you're in a hurry and I'm happy to do that..."They paid £144 which was £24 more than Affinity. "The first team had some charm and mostly listened and engaged but the coffee was the clincher. With the prep for filming I'd not even had breakfast so a coffee was high on my needs list. When negotiating you have to find out what the other side wants then work with that. Trying to steamroll another business owner with an insulting offer is only going to create friction. The second team seemed very unsure of themselves, making a higher but sheepish first offer. I rarely come down on price, there would have to be a reason and these guys gave me no reason. I'd have given them a chance to counter offer on my ten percent but there was no time. In the end it was the clock that beat them. Better time management would have helped them." Both teams went away with their casts and made it back to the pier by the deadline to much celebration but next came the board room and the scrutiny of Lord Sugar. "It was a complete surprise to see him wielding the casts in the boardroom whilst mocking the candidates. Hilarious! I guess it has long been a dream of Lord Sugar's to get his hands on some of my work!" "In all it was a great experience, although it was a whole day taken up with TV crews. It was so manic I didn't get a chance to eat and I never did get that coffee! I think you can tell I was pretty 'hangry' by the time team Apex turned up! But they all took it in good humour and we had a lot of laughs doing it. I found Joe to be a gentlemen and Reece was earnest and likeable. Dani Donovan from team Affinity also impressed and was a good sport. I think it will be one of them that wins. They've all got my backing." In the end it was Apex team leader Denisha Kaur who got the chop. So Reece survived to fight another day. Maybe he is a winner. "In my experience people often try to drive a hard bargain with artists, imagining that we're all desperate for the money or we just do it for the love. When I mentor young artists I always say don't drop your prices. Negotiate by all means and upsell if you can but hold your ground. Otherwise you devalue your own work and make it that little harder for all of us. My pricing is fair and reflects the years of training and experience and time taken to produce quality work. Even on something small like this we go all out. If in any doubt I'd advise listening to Woah Dude's "It Costs That Much..."Talking about the company, Jamie said: “We take moulds directly from any part of the body to produce a sculpture. We create them in a multitude of materials, from fibreglass to bronze as well as mount and install if required. Our client list includes numerous celebrities, royals and several other fine artists, such as Damien Hirst, who rely on our expertise to meet their exacting standards. Founded in London in 1996, we moved the business to Brighton ten years later to set up the UK’s first and only high street body casting studio. We've rapidly became the premiere body casting service in the UK and around the world.”
