I liked this guy, funny, down to earth and at times had good business acumen but he crumbled when confronted by a stronger team member. Ex-forces also!

UKpreneur talks to Simon now he is out of the competition:

How did you feel the day after your big day?
I mean, I’m ok. I think you saw where I lost the task and where I got upset and I realised the dream had gone. And I knew that the following day I’d be going to the boardroom and I wouldn’t be coming back. And that was just the realisation that everything had gone wrong. I said look, put me in charge of something let me do it, and I blew it. I was really, really upset at that point. But in retrospect the right person went, I’ve got no qualms, no hard feelings, and it was a pleasure to be on the show, I really thoroughly enjoyed it - we’ll just see what happens now.

Ian volunteered last week with the pub task because he said he knew the business. You had a similar reaction when this task came up because of your photography background. Do you think it’s a mistake when people assume they’re going to do better because of personal experience?
The validity of me as a photographer meant that I completely lost track of it at the start. I should have done the photographs and let someone manage the project, or I should have managed the project and let someone else do the photographs. At the time you think right, I wanna be in the front office, I’m fed up with being in the back office doing all the hard stuff. I want to show that I’ve got something about me. I took on so much, and I think my team was sabotaged from the start. They didn’t want to work for me, so I knew it was going to take something absolutely spectacular to turn it around.

Watching it was really uncomfortable because it was quite clear Alex and Claire weren’t taking it, or rather you, seriously. Why do you think that was?
I have no idea. I said on the show that I felt they had no faith in me business-wise but I don’t know what I’ve done to project this lack of faith. I think sometimes when you’re not in charge you’ve just got to tuck in behind. One thing Ian could never accuse me of when he took me into the boardroom was that I didn’t work for him. I pointed out where I felt he was going wrong, but when he said ‘no, I’m doing it my way’ I went ‘Ok’. I went to the supermarket, I did all the work, I chopped all the onions and did all the pizzas. Sir Alan said ‘well I know you can do all that, but you need to show me a bit more’. And I probably tried to show him too much at once, but it was doomed to fail from the start. I knew I was going to have to pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag to beat Helene and I think he made the right decision. Everything he said to me at the end was correct.

Did you feel personally let down by Alex because he was a friend of yours up until that point?
He is, and he will be when he comes out. I think Alex is a potential winner, but I wanted him as my deputy because I wanted him on side. And he was playing a game in the episode right from the start, he knew exactly what he was doing. You’ve got to take it as a back handed compliment - in a way that they wanted to get rid of me. They may have seen me as an overall threat, they probably thought the longer his popularity goes up with Sir Alan, Nick and Margaret, the harder it’s going to be to get rid of him. So, get him in a pincer movement and we’ll get rid of him now.

A bit tactical then perhaps?
Oh of course, and I was naïve. I went in with no game plan. I went in to win the tasks and get the job. Perhaps, in retrospect if a candidate was applying to do it next year, I might say, ‘you’ve gotta have a game plan’. Even if you’re a nice person, you must have some kind of game plan, because that’s what the general public love about The Apprentice, the Machiavellian tactics. I didn’t have any, and it cost me dearly because you need practice to be Sir Alan’s apprentice - a bit more of a ruthless streak that I didn’t have.

Talking about tactics, the time I noticed Alex doing it was in the boardroom when he said he thought Claire should go even though he’d spent the entire time questioning your ability. Did you feel that way?
Well that was nice for me but I don’t think Alex covered himself in glory by doing that, because what he did was actually change tack. At that point he was squirming because Sir Alan was ripping into him as well and he went for the popularity by then backing me, and Sir Alan didn’t like the fact that he changed tack. You could see Claire was very shocked, she felt suddenly very vulnerable. But you will have noticed when we got down to the final three I had very little fight left in me. I’d given it my best shot. I’d given it 110%, but it just didn’t quite come up to what he requires for the job of the apprentice. But it was great fun finding that out. And I’ll take the best bits of it and I’ll go back to work and it’ll make me a better engineer.

What was it like watching the show back? Was that the first time you’ve actually seen it last night?
No, I saw it on Monday. The other episodes I get to watch the same time as you, on Wednesday night every week. But for your firing episode they bring you into London a little bit earlier, and they show you it because then you have to go on the You’re Fired programme that goes out straight after. So I’d seen it on Monday, and I watched it through my fingers because I had some real David Brent moments in last night’s one. You can see I’d lost complete control of the team and I’m just trying to smile and bluff my way through it. It’s hard because 24 hours after I’d been fired and I was home I’d knew where I’d gone wrong. To see it laid bare for eight million people… well never mind. I’ve got to say the public reaction has been overwhelming, there are people stopping me on the streets, they are being very kind to me. It’s quite unusual for Apprentice candidates to come out and be liked, most people get spat at. It’s been amazing.

You endeared yourself to people because you thought you could win without tactics or having  to screw people over, but do you now think that’s not the case?
No, it isn’t. And I think that’s something I’ve learned. Sir Alan probably didn’t get where he is without being a bit ruthless. I’m sure there’s people in Brentwood somewhere thirty years ago that were selling aerials out of a car that he shafted to get on the ladder. You’ve got to have that. If I had won it I was hoping to be taught that sort of thing, because I’m the kind of person that if you teach me to do something I can go off and do it and knock it out for you. I’ll turn my hand to most things. But I think he is looking for a more rounded business individual. He doesn’t want an unshaped piece of clay to work with, but something that he just needs to tweak. And I think maybe at 36-years-old, it’s too late to knock a few of the edges off me. It was the right decision and it was great fun trying to get the job, but ultimately it wasn’t to be.

Some strong personalities have already begun to emerge. What do you make of Lucinda?
She’s very sweet. I think she’s in risk management on the outside, but the thing is with Lucinda, I wasn’t sure what she was doing there. She’s so kooky and she’s nice, but you struggle to wonder what it is that she wanted to achieve from it. She’s got her own motivation for doing it, I don’t know what that is yet, and I’d love to see her go a little bit further, because she’s going to have to project manage pretty soon and that’s gonna be really interesting. I’m unfortunately out and I didn’t get there to see it, so I’ll be looking forward to seeing her in action. But, yeah, she’s a very nice person.

What about Raef?
Raef’s my buddy, I absolutely adore Raef. He’s so posh, but there’s nothing to dislike about him. He’s genuinely open, kind, and he really does get on with prince and pauper. I know he got pilloried for that but, he is a genuinely nice, kind guy.

He certainly led his team very well in the previous week - no division there.
No, absolutely not.

And Claire, what’s your honest opinion of her?
A potential winner in that she’s got the ingredients. What she needs to do now is learn from a couple of these boardrooms she’s been in. When she’s not in charge, she’s got to stop chipping away at the project manager because she can’t get her own way. And that’s basically what it comes down to with Claire. She’s a wonderfully accomplished business professional and I think she’s one of the candidates that would take a salary drop to go and work for Sir Alan Sugar because she wants the experience. But she’s got to start listening to him now. There’s a couple of weeks she’s been in the boardroom now, and she’s got to start listening to him if she’s gonna go any further. I think he puts her in charge next week, so if she loses that task, she’s bang up on offer isn’t she?

She got on his nerves last night, didn’t she?
You didn’t see the whole cut of that. She was at him and he was at her for a good half an hour. It was a very intense boardroom that night.

What was that like to witness? And did you think it might work in your favour?
There is a point, if you watch the repeat, when he says ‘Get out, get out now,’ my eyebrows lift a bit because I think, ‘Christ she’s dug her own grave here. I might survive this.’ But when he said ‘get back to the house’, I knew in my heart of hearts I was fired and it was all finished for me.

What’s your honest opinion of the man himself, Sir Alan Sugar?
You know, what you see with him is what you get. He doesn’t come and have a coffee with us back at the house after the task is finished and say ‘good work chaps’. I’ve got the utmost respect for him. He’s always treated me with a lot of dignity and spoken to me nicely in the boardroom. He said, ‘Simon, with regret’, ‘my friend,’ that sort of stuff.

He only says that to the people he likes, the ‘with regret’ thing, so that’s a compliment isn’t it?
It was a compliment. Whenever he asked me a question, I answered him like I would expect he’d want the question answered. You know, Raef would flower it up and he’d go ‘Raef shut up. Simon what happened?’ So, I did build up a bit of a rapport with him but he’s not gonna let you get too on side. And I think that’s why I got the ‘with regret.’ He did want me to do well, but ultimately it wasn’t to be.

Nick and Margret, are they good guys as well do you think?
Again, the programme is really good at reflecting what goes on there. They follow you. They make lots of notes and they play it with poker faces. They don’t miss a trick. As to say whether I know them or not, no I don’t know them any better than you see on TV because they don’t interact with you. It’s part of the business part of the programme - they keep it real. You are being assessed by Nick and Margaret so they’re not gonna talk to you about their holidays and stuff. You try, in the first week, you try and have a little chip away at them, but they’re not having any of it. I’ve seen four series of it now and you realise quite quickly that to try and get them on side is not the way to go about it. 

What was your personal highpoint?
The laundry task. I wish they’d just show some of the banter I had with Raef, because it was just great. It was so hard, but it was one of those nights when we came back to the house before the boardroom and we swaggered in there because they could not possibly have beaten us that week. We did so much and the hotel contract was huge and we kinda knew that if you got that, and you completed it, you were through. Nobody could beat you because there wasn’t another big enough contract to get. So, although we were sold short a little bit on the price that we got for it, to get it completed 15 minutes before that laundry shut, and it was really that tight, was great.

Military precision you might say…
It was military precision. Again, it didn’t come out, but it was fantastic to be a part of that team that night. And the boys really did gel, we put all our differences to one side and I think this week I suffered from the split teams as well. I think if I’d had the guys on their own… but I think Sir Alan knew that as well. He thought the guys would all unite around me. I think if Alex had had Lee around to guide him, they’d probably have tucked in and helped me out a bit, but what can you do?

Your friendship with Raef has come out in this interview, do you think you’ll still be friends?
Yeah, absolutely. Raef’s gonna take me to a gentlemen’s club and I’m gonna get him an ASBO! You know, as soon as he comes out, whether he wins or loses, we’ll meet up and have a drink and have a laugh. I’m looking forward to seeing him.

Have you had any offers yet?
I’m being told that even as I’m talking to you that the interest in me is overwhelming. So I am going back to work because my company was very good to me while I did The Apprentice. They held the job open for me, they left me on full pay, and I’m going to go back for two to three months to give them that time. And I’m gonna look at all these offers coming in. I’m 36-years-old, so the next job change for me will be something pretty good. I’m gonna just soak it up and take my time on it, go back to my old job immediately so I can get my feet back on the ground and then see what comes of it. But yes I’m open to offers, and we’ll see. It’s early days yet because I was fired effectively at 10 o’clock last night.

So no regrets then?
Absolutely none at all, really enjoyed it, hope I made a few people laugh. A few cringy moments, but it was good fun. 

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