Cabral describes himself as “ambitious, driven, relentless and quite hard at times”. Born and raised in London, he considers his greatest achievement to be taking a money losing business and turning it around into a fast growing profitable business within 12 months.
Andrew Montlake, communications director at Coreco, himself looking forward to watching the new series, said: “Some people don’t give estate agents enough credit. The good ones have to be multi-skilled. They have to show tenacity and there are a lot of poor estate agents out there who don’t have that. Good estate agents are very social animals so if he’s good he should get along well with people.”
Cabral may have leant on a few non-classical strengths for an estate agent to get him where he is today, as on his audition reel he boastfully states: “I’m not frightened to make enemies and I like being unpopular because usually that means you’re doing your job properly.”
Liz Locke, a former contestant on last years’ hit series and now development director at bridging lender Omni Capital, offered advice to Cabral.
She said: “The main thing is to just remain yourself, to be honest, and to have confidence in your ideas. People will question you and double guess you and you just have to be confident in your beliefs and not be afraid to have a voice.”
And she added: “It was the best experience of my life! You’re put under so much pressure. It’s not just to test your business skills but also to test how you deal with pressure and how you make decisions under a limited time scale.”
Asked whether she will be watching this year Locke added: “Absolutely! It’ll be lovely to sit back, relax and watch it this time around rather than being on the edge of my seat.”
This May the seventh series of the BAFTA award-winning reality television series will air with a new format that will offer budding entrepreneurs a £250,000 investment from Lord Alan Sugar instead of the usual prize which is the opportunity to work for one of his firms.
Sixteen contestants will vie for the opportunity to start a business of their choice this year, which will be joint-owned with Lord Sugar, each taking a 50% interest.
The contestants range from accountants and salesmen to inventors and engineers between the ages of 21 and 36.
