The Apprentice EXCLUSIVE: Conor Gilsenan reveals the most challenging parts of the competition

Virgin Radio

14 Jan 2022, 13:36

It’s a lot harder than it looks to become Lord Sugar’s business partner. 

That’s according to the latest candidate to be booted from the boardroom. Sales Exec and former pro-rugby player Conor Gilsenan was sent home after the boys team failed to get any sales for their wizard-inspired electric toothbrush for children. 

Lord Sugar was unimpressed with yet another brown-and-green ‘turd-like’ creation from the guys team, and unfortunately Conor took the heat for the failing product, but he insists before meeting up with the opposing girls team, the boys felt they had a good chance of winning. 

Speaking exclusively to virginradio.co.uk, Conor revealed this week ran on a '22 hour working day’ after being woken up at 4:30am and not going back to bed until 2:30 the following morning, but the time to actually get things done is a lot shorter than you’d imagine. 

Conor elaborated: “You're doing these things in such limited times. You’re effectively starting a business from scratch and getting it to a point where you're going to market with it within 48 hours. 

“That was one of the takeaways I took from the shows. When you put your mind to it, you roll up your sleeves and you get the bit between your teeth, you can get anything done in a short time frame and that would be the main takeaway from a business perspective.”

Conor was an avid fan of the series before landing a coveted spot in the boardroom, but after experiencing it first-hand, he confidently says it’s a bigger challenge than it looks. 

He continued: “It's really, really hard! It’s so easy for people from the comfort of their couch to say how stupid everyone is. I never created a marketing campaign before, I have no kids, I have never developed a toothbrush, but I put myself out there and outside my comfort zone, came up with ideas. You can never explain how difficult the whole thing is until you're in that environment. 

“I've always been a massive fan and I'd sit there going 'I could do such a better job'. You're taking notes going ‘I'll do this in this situation’, but I've never done a kids toothbrush before, never created an app, you don't know anything about these guys that are in your team, I've never met anyone like them before. It was challenging but I was loving the challenge.”

After two miserable weeks for the boys, Conor reckons fans at home should keep an eye out for the girls this year, but not to discount the remaining guys just yet. 

He added: “I definitely think the winner will come out of the girls group. With the limited time I had getting to know them, there are some really smart girls in there who have good businesses and who are well spoken in the boardroom. 

“Nick's a really smart guy, he's got a really good job,and Alex has got a really good business, but I think they'll probably fall victim to the same thing I did whereas they're not abrasive and aggressive enough in there, and that seems to be what's rewarded.”

Check out more of our exclusive chat with Conor here.

The Apprentice continues on Thursday 20th January at 9pm on BBC One.