Episode 6

Selling British Produce In France

This week our task was to buy British produce and sell this at a market stall in Arras, France. I was the winning project manager!

I had wanted to be project manager for a few tasks now and I was very glad that SAS gave me that opportunity on this task. I feel I did a good job as project manager. I successfully established, with the help of my team, the right approach (high quality products), the right products and the right sales targets. I set the tone and brought the team together – overall, we were motivated, enthused and we had fun!

My first focus was to select the right products and establish the right quantities. We quickly agreed on The Great English Breakfast as the theme. I decided that we should purchase 100 units each of jam, smoked fish and tea, so 300 units in total. I felt this was a realistic target, given our limited experience with the French language and culture.

I realised the importance of team work and really wanted to bring the team together - after all, a win for the team was a win for me! I was aware of the tension between Jadine and Tre and wanted to split them up. I also recognised the value that Tre could add, so I decided to work with him as my deputy and give him lots of responsibility/input, while still making the final decisions myself. I believe this management style worked well for both of us.

Tre and I were responsible for purchasing the jam and the tea. In the end we purchased a range of strawberry jam and marmalade in two sizes as well as different types of tea, including tea bags, gift boxes and loose tea leaves.

I delegated the smoked fish and marketing to Simon, Jadine and Naomi. I made it clear that I would be happy with their research and decision as long as they stuck to our vision of high quality and the budget/units we had agreed. They did a fantastic job.

When we arrived at the ferry, I could sense the tension between Simon, Jadine and Naomi. I knew I had to do something to diffuse the situation. I spent a lot of time mediating and enabling them to resolve the issue themselves. My natural style is very consultative and this works well when people are highly skilled and motivated. This seemed to work a treat although I was ready to become more authoritative if I needed to be.

On the second day, we worked really well as a team. Our strategy was to offer samples to entice people to purchase. I had 3 people at the fixed stall and decided to send 2 people to work the nearby streets and shops. I regularly rotated the teams to keep them interested and motivated. Taking a tip from Series 1, I also got my team to sell to the other stall owners at the market. A beautiful moment was when Simon managed to sell a substantial amount of fish to a fishmonger!

I worked hard to manage the team while still selling my socks off. There were many hilarious moment where people would buy from me because they felt sorry for me struggling with my French!

Naomi played a key role in helping us all with our French skills - she was up very late writing cheat sheets with commonly used phrases. Jadine worked really hard at the stall and was constantly cutting up baguettes and lathering them with jam for our sample plates. She also did a great job with merchandising the stall.

We kept selling until the last moment. We sold our last few items at the ferry terminal - Simon did an awesome job selling a packet of tea to the drive through customs officer! In the end, we sold everything except for a few boxes of tea that I decided to keep as a memento of the task.

That whole scene of me and Simon in the bedroom was so much fun. Probably my funniest story from the show so far!

Lohit Kalburgi