Akshay Thakrar is the latest hopeful to be fired on The Apprentice as the business-minded candidates were tasked with selling the most products on a teleshopping programme on Thursday evening.
The sixteenth series of the Lord Alan Sugar -led reality show has followed a fresh batch of contestants, all eager to prove their skills to claim his mentoring and the £250,000 investment in their business.
The ninth week of the BBC programme saw Lord Sugar summon the remaining candidates to Greenwich market in south east London.
Sugar told the candidates: “In every market around the world, the key is selling to get the best price for your products.”
The teams learnt they would be selling live to the nation on one of the country’s leading TV shopping channels in a prime-time slot, with the group that generated the most sales winning in the boardroom.
Digital marketing agency owner Akshay, 28, was project manager of the Diverse team for the challenge, touching on his sales experience, but when push came to shove the group were beset with poor product selection and interference during the live show.
At the outset of the challenge Akshay said to the cameras: “This is more than a task. This is about me. This is about pride. This is about proving myself. I need to turn up for this task and give something big.”
While both teams struggled on air, the Diverse trio were on the back foot after they failed to charm the head buyer and so missed out on a high value star item the other team nabbed instead.
Then once on air, teammates Kathryn Louise Burn and Stephanie Affleck struggled with nerves and had to contend with Akshay excessively talking in their earpieces from the gallery.
In the boardroom, Karren Brady revealed that the Diverse team had secured over £400 less of revenue from products than their competitors, putting all three at risk of elimination.
When it came to the crunch, Lord Sugar put the failure of the task at Akshay’s feet and the Londoner stared down the infamous pointed finger as he was told he was fired.
Akshay owns digital marketing agency Sai Network which, according to its website, is “a performance marketing agency focused on new customer acquisition”.
“My friends call me AK47 because I’m a killer salesperson,” he said after joining The Apprentice, before claiming he can sell anything to anyone.
The Apprentice hopeful previously responded to the claim that he's been the director of several dissolved companies prior to joining the BBC business competition.
He said in a statement: "These companies were simply registered when I was younger."
