Having never met Alan Sugar Mark, I don't know if he's domineering, and I don't even know how much of a direct hand he takes in his 'investments'. What I do see - especially on his rare after-show appearances - is a man squirming slightly at his own performance. So often, what you see on TV is people playing a part.
Bear in mind that he invests time in the show, and in that sense profits both in PR terms and earnings - I suspect he comes out ahead on the deal. And you're quite right about the 'formula' used to develop the narrative through the series. Many of the 'performances' really grate on me.
Let me go back, for a moment to the Bianca Miller example...
I'm going to predict that in 5-10 years time, the by then nearly-40 year old Bianca will be on TV crying into her beer about the bad man she married and what a terrible time she had and how it isn't her fault she's a bankrupt and possibly left with a couple of carefully-styled doe-eyed waifs in tow...
Read this...
http://the-blc-group.co.uk/byrons-bio/ Before commenting further, I'd like to remind the refined ladies and gentlemen of this esteemed establishment of a case, won in 1977 by one John Mortimer QC (author of 'Rumpole of the Bailey') and Virgin records, in which it was established that the word "bollocks" is not an obscenity...
And I'm afraid Byron's Bio - and business background - is a great steaming pile of
particularly rancid old bollocks; which set me digging just a little further.
It emerges - with a little deskwork - that Byron Cole has set up multiple limited companies which then seek and obtain (relatively small amounts of) credit. These companies are then collapsed in on themselves. His companies owe just under £200K most of which has to be written off.
"BLC Group"? - 10312789 Blc Group Limited seems to have nothing to do with either of them; based at a accommodation address in Hemel Hempstead, it's roughly £40K down at the moment. - A dissolved version of the name, 09476906, seems to be nothing to do with them either.
There is a Blc Global Group Ltd - 10692504 - relatively newly incorporated, no information available other than it seems to belong to someone else again...
So, again I'm going to call 'BS' on Byron's "The BLC Group" - I can find no evidence that it actually exists...
"Quint Solutions" (08719104) is another that Byron claims an interest in... He's not a Director nor, it would appear, a shareholder. Although, I'm not sure I'd want to be either! It owes an awful lot of money!
Bianca seems to be heading down a similar route... The company that carries her own name (which should really be dormant if its just protecting IP and nothing else) is an irrelevant £1300 down, whilst Be Styled Ltd is circa 18.5K down; which is about the point at which Byron usually folds his houses of cards and walks away. - No worries though; they have another couple of 'names' waiting in the wings...
A - painfully familiar - pattern emerges here.
And this, Scott, is the danger of paying too much attention to self-appointed 'business gurus' and self-aggrandising self-publicists... Often - far too often - a bit of light-grilling shows them up as specialist tailors to unwitting nudist emperors. All I've done this morning are the basic desk-checks I'd make if I was asked to consider someone as a contributor to a programme. And I'm really disappointed to find what I have by just scratching gently at the gilt coating here.
Having been basically self-employed since 1986, I've seen an awful lot of this sort of thing go in and out with the tide. Don't get me wrong - I'm not averse to embracing
credible, rational and logical business processes. But I'm very wary of 'magic bean' type 'by rote' solutions (and even the abuse of legitimate systems by the injelitant) - and particularly wary of the 'fake it 'till you make it' brigade'.