'Lord Sugar fired me from The Apprentice but I'll become a billionaire'
The Apprentice's Emma Rothwell shares her experience of filming the BBC show with Yahoo.
The Apprentice star Emma Rothwell spoke to Yahoo after becoming the first candidate fired by Lord Sugar on the latest series of the BBC show
Businesswoman Rothwell was hoping to get the £250,000 investment and mentorship for her already successful online gift store Quirky Giraffe
The candidates were split into mixed groups for the first time when they jetted off to Austria to put on tours for the public
Here Emma shares why she thinks she didn’t deserve to be fired…
If I could speak to Lord Sugar now, I would say, "Thank you so much for the opportunity. It was so lovely to meet you and I will see you when I’m also a billionaire!"
That makes me sound so bigheaded. I went on to get investment and I came off The Apprentice having the weirdest holiday of my life. But it was phenomenal, such a great experience, I loved it.
Being told no, motivates me more. People in my life have been like, "She can’t do that can she?" Even when I quit my job to do the business full time, people were like, "Surely she can’t make that much money selling mugs?" I enjoy proving people wrong so this has actually fuelled me to go into that next stage and absolutely dominate the world of business.
Lord Sugar is such an icon. He's obviously done it spectacularly well and to work with him has just been absolutely phenomenal but to even have you know who I am. What a win. He was super lovely, in general — obviously not when he fired me!
Lord Sugar fired me
I wasn't the right person to be fired on The Apprentice. I was super unlucky and it could have been multiple people.
Lord Sugar was right that it was the sales team’s fault. It could have been any of us. We did all have the same job to go get the sales and we just didn’t but we did try our absolute best. It was a really difficult decision in the end.
Honestly, not getting any sales wasn’t through lack of trying. We stopped collectively every single person we thought we could and all of us have got sales backgrounds. Believe it or not I can normally sell!
I think the other team were in a similar area so they were catching people just before us. We honestly tried our absolute hardest.
It was absolutely devastating going out first. Everyone who I told that I was going on the show said, "You are made for this. You will be so good." My main thing that I'm really good at is marketing. I've got a design degree, I would have been awesome at the product tasks. I didn't get to show them how good I am at branding, design, at logos, and pitching. Basically everything the show asks for, I can do.
Filming in the boardroom is terrifying
Filming in the boardroom is the most bizarre it seems because you feel like you're watching the show but you're in the show.
Honestly, it's crazy and yeah it’s as terrifying as made out. Your brain is doing a million things at once and it’s the first week so you’re trying to deal with the environment, you've got these new people, you’ve got this new experience.
Part of the reason I was fired was because my final speech, which I didn't realise would be my final speech at the time, wasn't as great as the others. I should have fought more.
Jana and mine’s negotiation was phenomenal. We did such a good acting job when we pre-planned it. Jana felt that as well to trust me to go into that negotiation with him out of everyone else. That shows great trust within one another, having only known each other a short space of time. I feel like if I had brought that up in the boardroom and fought my corner a bit more, it might not have been me.
When you're in that environment, it’s like when you have an argument with someone, you think: "I should have said that." I do genuinely think my boardroom fighting was my biggest mistake because like I said in that task, we were at it constantly and we tried every sales tactic in the book. I should have fought more in that moment.
I did think, "Am I too nice for this process? Can I big myself up?" I’m just a normal person. You struggle to be like, "Oh I'm amazing."
Secret struggle while on The Apprentice
Filming from 4am until 10pm was one of the things that I was a bit apprehensive about because I'm an eight-hour girly. I need my eight hours [sleep].
I actually suffer with really bad periods and that first week was when I started. I was battling with that at the time. That maybe was part of the reason why I was a bit quiet.
Production were lovely, they said, "If you need to sit out, sit out." They were really supportive but you know how there is this expectation in society for women to just shut up and carry on?
I did that off my own back, I thought: "I am not letting this thing beat me." That plus the tiredness, it was a lot.
Life after The Apprentice
Leaving my business was the scariest bit but it was also good because it shows I can step away if I want to.
Even writing out the business plan for the show has helped me massively, I’m winging it! Writing my business plan helped me focus on my next steps and I’m going through with my business plan now as we speak. That’s really helped, obviously a lot slower because I’m doing it without investment and with my own money.
I learned to go for it. Even if you feel like you are being a bit reserved, you need to push a little bit more. I need to think a bit more highly of myself. I always said I’m a confident person but I think putting that across to other people is a bit new to me. Going for it, know what I’m about and have more confidence.
My biggest goal for 2025 is to try and hit half a million revenue — which fingers crossed — and just expand the business and yeah follow through with my business plan. Just the same thing with everything in life: be happy, healthy and have fun.
Emma told her story to Lily Waddell.
The Apprentice is on Thursdays at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.