Axed Apprentice candidate Nadia Suliaman has defended her ‘bullish’ negotiation technique which saw her go viral and be compared to users on resale app Vinted.
Nadia, 36, who owns a chain of high-end hair and beauty salons, was dramatically fired by Lord Sugar in Thursday night’s episode of the BBC show after failing to make a profit as project manager.
Candidates were tasked with turning either potatoes or tomatoes into cash by producing a dish to sell to the public as well as a corporate client.
Despite concerns from her co-stars, Nadia bulldozed her team into making pricey sausages and mash and under her direction they also failed to adhere to the strict demands of their bespoke corporate order.
After she was found responsible for making a £73.40 loss, Lord Sugar refused to let Nadia fight for her place in the competition as she reentered the boardroom alongside candidates Keir Shave and Dr. Jana Denzel.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline after the brutal sacking, Nadia says she is ‘gutted’ not to have gone further in the process but doesn’t regret being a hard negotiator.
Axed Apprentice candidate Nadia Suliaman has defended her ‘bullish’ negotiation technique which saw her go viral and be compared to users on resale app Vinted
Nadia, who owns a chain of high-end beauty salons, was dramatically fired by Lord Sugar in Thursday night’s episode of the BBC show after failing to make a profit as project manager
Candidates were tasked with turning either potatoes or tomatoes into cash by producing a dish to sell to the public as well as a corporate client
Nadia said: ‘I was absolutely gutted. I feel like I should have gone further and ultimately pushed myself more.
‘I could have taken a step back, but you have to be true to yourself and do what you think is right. It’s a competitive environment and it’s hard work and you’re under pressure.
‘I’m one of these people that when I go in with something and I make a decision, I’m very much that when I’m in, I’m fully in. There’s no messing about and what you see is what you get.
‘This won’t be the end of Nadia Suliaman, I can tell you that.’
Nadia, who grew up on a tough Swansea council estate, became an Internet meme after attempting to drive a hard bargain by offering £1.50 in a negotiation for a sheep’s fleece when the product usually costs £20.
She has been compared to users on the resale app Vinted, who notoriously propose small amounts in exchange for secondhand items.
But Nadia says she’s relieved that the talked about moment made the show’s final edit or else she may have been forgotten about following her early departure.
Nadia said: ‘It’s gone viral. I am being compared to Vinted sellers. I love it. People know who I am and thank God. I would have been gutted if I did all of that and no one knew.
After she was found responsible for making a £73.40 loss, Lord Sugar refused to let Nadia fight for her place in the competition as she reentered the boardroom
Project manager on the rival team Mia Collins, who runs a meal prep business, broke down in tears when she won the task
Nadia became an Internet meme after attempting to drive a hard bargain by offering £1.50 in a negotiation for a sheep’s fleece when the product usually costs £20
When asked if she would adopt a different tactic to remain in the process for longer if given the chance, Nadia replied: ‘No, it’s just not my personality’
‘That is the way I genuinely do negotiations. When I learned negotiations in the corporate world, we learned gap negotiations, which was always done on a clock face.
‘In this situation, it was hard bargaining for me because we didn’t have much time, we were up against pressure, they always say in negotiations that when the other person puts their price on the table, which he had at £20, you put your price on the table the completely opposite end and then you meet in the middle and that’s what we did.
‘We had four minutes, I’m not going to build a relationship with this guy, ultimately it paid off because we got the item for £12.’
When asked if she would adopt a different tactic to remain in the process for longer if given the chance, Nadia replied: ‘No, it’s just not my personality.
‘I have been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks. This could have gone one of two ways. I could have been a candidate and lasted four weeks and people might not have even known my name or who I am.
‘I might not have got any airtime and people might have thought, who is this girl? And I would have done all that filming, gone through all the effort for nothing.
‘I’m so glad that at least people know my name, I have loads of people following me now and they’re like oh my God, you’re so funny, you should be in TV and entertainment.’
She added: ‘I wouldn’t have been true to myself if I just blended into the background. I have always been someone that stands out and goes for it and makes it happen. A lot of the time it works but there are occasions like this where it hasn’t, and I have to own that. I’m not a businessperson if I don’t own it.’
Nadia, who’s the co-founder of Forbici London, believes her hard-nosed sales techniques wouldn’t have been a problem if she were a man
She became the fourth candidate to be fired from the current Apprentice series after Lord Sugar was shocked by her decision making and failure to make a profit
Nadia, who’s the co-founder of Forbici London, believes her hard-nosed sales techniques wouldn’t have been a problem if she were a man and says her reason for setting up her own company was to earn a wage representative of her skillset.
She said: ‘Honestly speaking and I do a lot of talks around International Women’s Day, no disrespect, if I had been a man in that situation, I would have been fine.
‘This is a shame because there is still a big stigma and a bias around how women do business and that’s what I hate and why I left the corporate world.
‘I worked with a very male dominated team, and I earned half the money they did but made more sales, there was a stigma around a woman’s role in the business and how they should work, and I hated that.
‘I wanted a change and that’s why I started my own business. I wanted to be an inspiration for other amazing, talented and beautiful women out there who deserve to be in business and deserve to be hard negotiators and deserve to be bolshie and forward because why can’t you? Men can.
‘I knew I had to start my own business. I could no longer deal with the unfairness and while the world says we have moved on we haven’t quite got there yet and there’s a long way to go.’
- The Apprentice airs Thursdays on BBC One and is available to stream on iPlayer
