Why getting ‘fired’ 11 years ago was the best thing that’s ever happened to me!

They say resilience is key to being a business owner…

I applied for the BBC Apprentice ‘FOUR TIMES’!!! The last time me receiving the nickname ‘Jade Nash, Apprentice 2012’ from my friends. For some reason this was used ‘in full’ as a greeting for many years afterwards, spoken in the style of a talk show host!

By the time I got to my fourth time I knew the drill!

🌟Stage 1- Queue! Much like you see in the X-Factor; but instead of a mix of talented and deranged singers, it’s a mix of aspiring entrepreneurs and fame seeking egos.

🌟 Stage 2 -

The one minute ‘elevator pitch’.

In groups of ten you walk in. They call out your number and you have to pitch yourself!

The biggest mistake was when the classic lines came out ‘I work well under pressure’ ‘I’m a team player but work well alone’ – those with this kind of mundane narrative were dwindled out straight away. ‘Numbers 1,4 and 6 stand forward, you can go through, the rest of you, thanks for coming we will be in touch’. (Or not!)

🌟 Stage 3 -

One to one interview with TV exec-

‘You seem to have a chip on your shoulder.’

‘You think you’re better than everyone else.’

‘You don’t really have much experience.’

Clearly prepped to goad the candidates and see how they can handle a bit of a roasting.

My first year this is where they said, ‘we will be in touch.’

As my husband says…. It’s not the ‘being knocked down that matters, it’s the way you get up again!’ I go again…

🌟Stage 4 -

Interview with one of Alan Sugar’s team!

Much more gruelling! All about the business plan and your experience and career.

My second time they said ‘goodbye’ at this point!

Now they were just adding fuel to the fire!!

🌟Stage 5 -

Interview with a Board! Producer of the Apprentice and Lord Sugar’s associates!

These guys knew what they were doing!

They lured me in by being exceptionally nice but at the same time brutally honest.

On the third year, this is where I was given my marching orders. Apparently, I didn’t have a big enough breadth of experience.

That was it! I got to the end of the first day but fell at the final hurdle!

I left it a couple of years, licking my wounds, and of course ‘getting more experience’. I moved from Auto Trader to Yellow Pages and then into the ‘lead generation’ and ‘data’ world. All hardcore sales, but I had moved channels and broadened my client base. It was time to go again!!

At last! I got through the full day of interviews, what’s next?? Another whole day!!!!

I knew it was my time! Surely they would let me get on the show just to get rid of me?!! I ploughed through a day of building flat-pack furniture, writing manifestos, team business planning and much, much more. The end was in sight!

Sitting in front of the production company’s psychologist with a puffed-up chest… ‘I can take on anything’…..‘nothing will phase me’….. ‘I’m unstoppable’ were my initial thoughts.

Over the session gradually I started taking on board what could happen when you’re on TV.

All I know is that I called my mum and listed the worst things I could think of that she could find out if anyone ‘sold a story’. Ironically nothing was sold, but my mum got a real feel for my early 20’s when I told her a few snippets I’d rather she heard from me and not a newspaper.

I remember in the queue on my last and successful application I met a Greek girl. Young, stunning businesswoman, Maria O’Connor. She was only 19 I think and owned a Greek restaurant already! And I was 29. Thank God I got through as I was the ‘geriatric apprentice’ in comparison to all these young ones after all these years of applying. We chatted away in the queue and I told her of all the times I had already applied. Little did I know the first day I turned up in the board room waiting room I would walk in and see her standing there smiling. We were amazed - ‘you got in too!!!’

The whole experience of the apprentice seems so surreal now. It was 11 years ago and so much has changed!

If I was to give a snapshot of things people asked:

How long was it? Depends on how long you last, but 6 weeks if you get the final which I did.

Did you speak to Lord Sugar off camera? Nope, it’s a reality TV show and he’s trying to get rid of everyone apart from one business partner, and a large % of the candidates are rather grating so I don’t blame him!

Did the phone really ring to wake you up at 5am? Yes!! Luckily I sleep really lightly and I could hear the film crew come in so I would wake up and get ready before phone rang!

Is Claude as scary as he looks? Noooo! He was actually really nice to me. It’s a reality TV show so he needs to be hard hitting on camera, but he was really kind before and after the filming.

What did I learn? If you’re good at selling and you have discipline and motivation you can make a success of a task or business, or at least try! If you don’t try, then you will never get anywhere.

Biggest regret? When I came out of The Apprentice lots of the other candidates hung out together and invited me to things. I got invited to the Radio Times awards and so many other cool events (as I was on the front page of a few magazines and you tend to get a few invitations, Z list central!) A few months after leaving the show I was with controlling boyfriend who made sure I never went out; so hardly went to any of these things… (who’d have thought that would happen to a ballsy Apprentice candidate?!) The regret was of course meeting him, because that meant I didn’t live my life and the experience after The Apprentice to the max, and maybe came across as rude to the other candidates. But we learn lessons from these experiences.

How was it to be fired? A massive relief! Even though I was confident to get into the process I really hadn’t thought my business plan through (which was apparent). It was done months and months before. With my friend Jacqui I came up with the business name one night after about 5 glasses of wine and my friend Abi had helped me out with figures, but again, I hadn’t really taken it too seriously at that point. I don’t actually even know those girls now as it was another lifetime ago and about 150 miles from where I am now, but thanks ladies, I still have the business name, I just sorted out the commercials (when sober). Because of this I knew it wasn’t the right time to have a business partner so ‘being fired’ in the final was what I needed.

Would I do it now? For starters, I’m now 40 years old, so I think there might be an Apprentice law against that! But no, I wouldn’t do it now as I feel as though the last 10 years of running my business has been like an ‘apprenticeship’ in itself. I don’t think anyone who starts a business fully knows what they are doing. You have to try, make mistakes, adapt, evolve, learn, fail, retry, and on and on and on…

I don’t regret doing it though, it was a pivotal moment in my life that set me off a couple of degrees all those years back, and the place I have ended up is now potentially somewhere far away from where it may have been! Who really knows, but I know I’m so happy with the direction I chose.

It did change the way some friends were with me. They said they thought I had changed. But I was just excited and had something to talk about, that didn’t ‘change me’ in my eyes. I have now learnt the friends who said that actually wanted to hold me back and for me to stay in the same place as them. I remember one said to me ‘remember your roots’. That has stayed with me for years, and now I realise that the more you achieve and evolve the more you need to surround yourself with people who want success for you. I want everyone around me to do well, but for some reason some of my friends didn’t, and of course these are not people I choose to be around anymore.

When I was called to go on The Apprentice I worked at a company called DLG, now PDV.

When I started working there I was interviewed by one of the owners, Wendy Williams. Both Wendy and Adrian Williams (husband and wife) owned this super-successful data and lead generation company (among others). I was really inspired by Wendy, a strong determined successful female role model. I was so excited to work for her and her husband.

She oozed confidence but also had so much compassion and empathy for her employees. Along with Sharon Randall (my employer from Trader Media) Wendy had shown me what a leading female ‘could’ and ‘should’ be like. These were the females in my working life who gave me that extra push I needed to 'go for' it!

Adrian Williams had allowed me to have a 6 week break from work to film the show where we had to say I was going travelling. No-one could know where I was! When I returned to work after my 6 weeks away I had to keep quiet about The Apprentice until it was aired several months later!

Adrian called me into his office and gave me a pay rise because of my time with the company, I guess as a ‘well done’ for getting to the final. That day he said one thing to me which changed my business life forever…… he said, ‘some people are made to run a business Jade, and some people just aren’t’.

To me someone saying that was the ultimate challenge. I’d hope that I have now proven that I am the ‘some people’ that ‘are’ made for running a business. I have him and his wife to thank for that. I actually believe that almost anyone ‘can’ run a business. The success of that business will of course vary, but to earn the same as you do working for someone else is relatively easy.

The business which I proposed on The Apprentice was Choose Leads, and to this day I run Choose Leads, a lead generation agency.

People always say, ‘focus on a passion’. How does ‘lead generation’ warrant being a passion?

I now know my passion is to help people, and one of the ways I can help is to make their businesses more successful. Just writing this sound so cringey! It’s a blessing and a curse. I see others (not all) in the industry, and I know they do it for money. And solely for money. Do I wish sometimes I did? Yes! If I have a client I am fully ‘engaged in’, I think of it like being one of their employees. If they are having a challenging time, I’m having a challenging time. If they lose a client, I take on that sadness and disappointment. Therefore, there’s not only the highs and the lows of your own business but also of theirs!

Has this benefited me? Yes, as my clients know I am so ingrained in their business and ‘on their side’. Our relationships can grow and in turn this creates longevity!

Has this caused me issues? Honestly, yes. I wake up at 6am, having dreamt about a client and how they are facing hard times or have got extra pressure to perform.

Through therapy (which I recommend everyone has) I know I am an empath. This means you ‘suck in’ other people’s feelings, be that good or bad! Taking on the world, so to speak.

Running a business has been a whirlwind and time passes so quickly… that’s a whole other story!

I wanted to write this (it was meant to be a few paragraphs!) to give a little insight about my journey on The Apprentice. In conclusion - getting fired, failing, ‘things not going 100% to plan’ means you tried! Means you ‘are trying’ and means you will be successful.

For any of you thinking ‘should I apply’ for The Apprentice, it’s always a yes from me!

If you’ve read this far, thanks for caring.

It’s been emotional!

*Credit to the BBC for the very stern photo of me!