One of the rules of the American dream game: as long as you are smart and diligent, you have a chance to succeed.
There are many popular documentaries in the United States. Some make participants sweat in the mud of tropical islands, hungry and hot, and provide a big meal for mosquitoes. Some make a handsome guy pretending to be a millionaire provoke 25 beautiful women to compete for a rich husband in the dark. Compared with these programs, "Apprentice" should be regarded as the "documentary show" closest to life so far. Its stage is the familiar ubiquitous office, but this office is in new york, a metropolis where shopping malls are like battlefields.
Apprentice, also known as apprentice.
16 contestants, eight men and eight women, came to new york to face the challenge of American real estate tycoon DonaldTrump. Everyone takes turns to be the team leader and do a project like selling mineral water and renting a house every week. One of the losers will be "fired" and the winner will get a one-year contract under Donald Trump. Don't underestimate Trump's "apprentice". His annual salary is $250,000. Although this annual salary is not comparable to the millions of bonuses of other "Survivor" programs, the exposure of players in NBC and the promotion of their talents under the public's attention are invaluable to their career development. Successful contestants can either get a stepping stone to employment without investing time and money in business school, or climb the ladder of promotion in the company and enter the top of the company in one fell swoop, so they can struggle less for 20 years.
Professor Robert Thompson, majoring in television and popular culture at Syracuse University in the United States, said: "This is an excellent opportunity for all those who dream of the American dream." The story of "Cinderella" in the workplace attracts people's attention because it preaches that everyone is equal in the United States and there are many opportunities. There are really many Americans who believe that as long as you are smart and diligent, you will have a chance to succeed.
"Give you a chance to show yourself and succeed" is the main reason why the apprenticeship program attracts the attention of many Americans. More than 0.2 million/200 thousand people applied for this 16 position in the program, and the second episode set a record for the highest ratings of American documentary programs: 20 million viewers.
Trump, the founder and host of The Apprentice, is now the victim of his own program "The Mantra". Trump said that every day, the fans of The Apprentice shouted at him, "You are fired!" Not less than a hundred times, even when he and his girlfriend are eating in a restaurant, someone will shout at him across the table, "You're fired!" " "
The second rule of the American dream: teamwork and leadership are necessary, and psychological quality is stronger than external pressure.
In order to win the competition in the end, the contestants should not only cooperate closely with every member of the team in the competition, but also achieve the almost impossible sales target in a short time, and can't help but intrigue when the project fails, learn how to save themselves and let others get fired. Although the projects specially designed for TV programs are different from marketing in real life, they are really like the case studies of American business schools, full of insights from the business community.
In the first week of March 2004, two groups of contestants were asked to sell paintings by two artists of their choice. The first group chose an artist who sold at a high price but had a strange style that even the members themselves could not understand. After discussion, everyone decided to take a chance, because as long as one work is sold, there will be considerable sales chances. The second group chose a painter whose painting style is more popular, but the unit price of his works is lower. As a result of the competition, the difference in sales between the two groups set a record since the beginning of the program, and the profit of the second group was more than 10 thousand dollars higher than that of the first group. Trump, who holds the power of life and death, finally concluded: "If you want to sell your own goods, then you must believe in your own goods. You can't sell something you don't believe in yourself. "
In this episode, a girl named Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth was fired, even though she sold the only work in the group worth more than 800 yuan, and she once advised against choosing artists with weird styles. Because other team members thought her attitude was not positive enough, Stalworth insisted on having lunch in a restaurant for two hours while everyone was racing against time to achieve her goal. Besides, this is not the only time. While promoting the bottled water of "TrumpIce" brand, she spent time in a beauty shop that only bought two boxes of water to do a free beauty treatment for herself. When everyone was busy painting Trump's apartment and wanted to rent it out at a good price, Stalworth ran outside to play ball with the children. The whole team has been dissatisfied with her for a long time, and it is a miracle that she can persist until now. Then she starred in the seventh season of Celebrity Apprentice. As the first project manager of the women's team, when performing the first task (selling hot dogs), she asked all the celebrities in the women's team to rely on solid marketing instead of celebrity social networks, which was the main reason for the failure of the women's team. But she still found a scapegoat for herself and was not fired as the main person in charge of the mission failure. Trump commented on her: "She always thinks she is smarter than others."
From the above description, it is not difficult to see that each project of the apprentice contains the basic elements necessary for the office, such as teamwork, personal contribution, leadership, sales skills, pressure confrontation and so on. And it is much more vivid than the cases written in business school books. Professor Robert Thomson thinks: "If American business can represent ordinary business, then The Apprentice is its first visual diary."
"When Susie, her two children and I first watched Apprentice in bed, I knew it would be a good program. Finally, they started shouting together, "You're fired! You are fired! I'm surprised to be so excited. It was like a home run. Jack Welch, a retired CEO, commented on the plan.
Of course, many people disagree with this. Washington post invited seven Washington business leaders to watch the second episode of The Apprentice. PaulVillella, founder and president of FireStrategy, said: "Ironically, a group of unemployed people desperately signed up for a project that people kept firing." A Lang. Merton, former dean of Cornell University's business school and now president of George Mei Sen University, believes that the project "does not help the education of business schools at all."
American dream 3: countless opportunities, countless wealth, but be ruthless.
The background stage of The Apprentice is new york, the golden land of international business. There are countless companies, countless opportunities, countless talents and countless wealth in this reinforced concrete jungle. No businessman can refuse new york. "I like the city shown in the movie, its beauty, its evil and how it devours these children alive. I really like all this. " This is what Trump told Newsweek.
Donald Trump is the biggest winner of The Apprentice. He is 57 years old. He is a real estate developer who talks a lot and likes to exaggerate. He likes beautiful young women and the spotlight. 10 years ago, Trump was on the verge of bankruptcy, but now he has returned to people's sight with the infinite scenery of the "Apprenticeship" program. By the way, he has done enough advertising for his products at the beginning of the US economic recovery and earned enough reputation. Now, he hangs more names on buildings of all sizes in new york than Rockefeller.
Trump received100000 dollars from each episode of The Apprentice, and now he has signed the second episode of The Apprentice, which costs more than the first episode. At the same time, he is still spending time promoting his project product "Trump" brand bottled water on TV, and is writing a new book to teach people how to get rich. The Nasdaq stock under its company's name has also hit a record high through this propaganda wind.
Trump will reward the winner of each project, or let the winner have a picnic in his luxurious villa, or let the winner's leader choose two people to fly in new york in his private helicopter, overlooking the Statue of Liberty, or let the winner's leader walk into his golden gate office and be alone with him for ten minutes. Nobody can refuse such an invitation.
CathyGurny, a native of new york, watches The Apprentice with her 9-year-old son Harris every time. Now Harris's dream is to become a real estate tycoon like Trump. Cathy had to tell Harris that he didn't have to be as ruthless and competitive as Trump, and he was forbidden to yell at his nanny, "You're fired!" However, what Cathy can't stop is the American dream, which includes not only the belief in equal opportunity, but also the insistence on the cruel and scheming survival criterion that is not so beautiful. In America, they are passed on to the next generation.
Tell everyone confidently that he will not be just a flash in the pan like other actors in the documentary, and then drown in the crowd after the performance. He will always be with everyone. Yeah, who would yell at Donald Trump, "You're fired!" And then what?