Lip smackers or lip service?

IF you've got it, flaunt it, right?

Not when you're trying to land a job with Sir Alan Sugar.

The scary millionaire was not impressed when North Yorkshire Apprentice hopeful Kristina Grimes and her mates tried to kiss their way out of trouble on the hit BBC show.

Tasked with setting up a business with only £200 of stake money, girls' team Stealth started selling kisses.

They lost - and the prickly tycoon tore into them in the boardroom inquest afterwards.

"It (the kissogram idea) doesn't sound great to me," he rasped.

"It sounds like another, older profession I've heard about."

So why did seven supposedly high-flying businesswomen stoop to selling kisses to make money?

Was it sheer desperation - the only money-spinning idea they could think of in the short time they had available?

Their face-painting idea earlier in the day had, after all, already proved a flop.

Or was it entirely legitimate - a case of women using what God had given them to get on in a dog-eat-dog business world, where men are very much on top?

To be fair to the girls, the kissogram plan left them divided.

Stealth team leader Naomi Lay argued on the show: "I don't really want to be doing that.

"I'm a business woman not a prostitute."

But she was persuaded by Kristina, a 36-year-old pharmaceutical sales manager from Harrogate who, with fellow contestant Natalie Wood, argued it was a good way to make a quick buck.

So who was right...

I thought it was a bit cheap'

Watching the show did make her feel distinctly uncomfortable, admits Sophie McGill, communications director of York City and a big Apprentice fan.

"I thought it was just a bit cheap, really, and that they could have done something a bit more innovative.

"It is not something I would have done. I thought it was a bit naff. It almost reeked of desperation. But they did have a very short space of time to come up with something, with their future careers possibly on the line!"

Sophie thinks of herself as a bit of a tomboy, but admits that she has a "very girly appearance" - which sometimes, in the male-oriented world of football, has its advantages.

Not that she'd ever dream of kissing City manager Billy McEwan, she jokes - however nice he was being. But occasionally her softer side can be useful: like when there was a barney between rival managers recently and she was able to step in and calm things down.

In her day job, however - as commercial manager for family firm JM Packaging - she'd never dream of using her femininity to sell.

Yes, she takes care of her appearance, she says. "People do like to see people who are well turned out, and they do buy from people who they like."

But it's not about flirting to get business, she says - for a start, most of the people she does business with are women. "It's about feeling good and feeling confident."

That applies as much to men as to women, she insists. "I have a brother who is extremely concerned about his appearance as well!"

If you've got it, flaunt it!'

Charlie Daniels said it is quite sad that in this day and age women still have to resort to such tactics to get ahead.

"But, what the hell if you've got it, flaunt it.

"If men are stupid enough to fall for it, good luck to the girls!"

Single mum Charlie was, in a previous life, one of Yorkshire's most successful madams. After a stint in Askham Grange women's prison, she has now turned her back on a life of vice for a writing career (her autobiography, Priceless, comes out in paperback at the end of May).

But she sees nothing wrong in women using what they've got to get ahead.

In a patriarchal society loaded against women, in which less than three per cent of company chief execs are female, they have every right to do so, she says.

The apprentice girls were just using sex to get ahead.

"They were choosing to do that. They weren't victims. So I think whether it's getting their boobs out in an interview to get attention, or like this on The Apprentice, I defend their right to do so."

She doesn't like the way women are objectified, Charlie says. But the reality of the world we live in is that sex sells - just look at advertising.

"So if you've got it, flaunt it!" she says.

I think it's very degrading'

Julia Gash is a self-taught expert on sex and relationships and boss of Gash, the chain of racy lingerie shops which recently opened a branch in York's Fossgate.

She'll have no hang-ups, presumably, about women using sex to sell?

Don't you believe it! She didn't see this week's Apprentice, she admits: but from what she's heard of it, she was appalled by the women's antics.

She saw the episode in the last season of The Apprentice where the girl's team flirted heavily with men at a fruit and veg market to get stuff on the cheap.

"It's not acceptable," she says. "It's very degrading for women. To me it's a sign of insecurity."

There is nothing wrong with a bit of harmless social flirting if all you are doing is trying to get the attention of a man you fancy, she says. In fact, Gash runs classes for women in how to flirt.

But in the business world, it is entirely different. "In a business context, it is incredibly manipulative," she says.

Worse than that, it is an admission by the woman doing the flirting that she is not the equal of the man she is trying to please.

"If they're doing all this oh, please, do this' and fluttering their eyelashes: that's taking dignity away from women. It's accepting that they're not on an equal level," she says.

That doesn't mean that to succeed in business, women have to be more mannish than men, dressing in dull business suits and trying to hide their femininity, she says.

She doesn't anyway accept the claim that business is a man's world. Women can get on just as well, she says. And they can certainly dress in a feminine way - good jewellery, nice skirts and dresses - without being too overtly sexy just to try to please men.

Too many young women are simply confused about sex and power, she says. Sleeping with lots of men or wandering around on a Friday night with almost no clothes on flaunting yourself is not about being powerful, Julia says. It is about being needy and insecure.

Women get power not by putting it out all the time, she says, but by respecting themselves.

And that applies whether it is a Friday night out on the town, or a tough Wednesday in The Apprentice boardroom.

Women showed lack of dignity

Alice Adams can't believe that modern, professional women should have had to resort to such tactics.

The dynamic managing director of Ryedale Telecommunications - winner of the Business Personality of the Year award in last year's The Press Business Awards - says the claim that business is a man's world is completely wrong.

Capable women have all the attributes and skills they need to succeed, without having to stoop to flirting, she says.

"They only belittle themselves and lose their dignity by resorting to that," she says.

"If you're clear-thinking, confident and capable, the question of whether you're a woman shouldn't even need to arise in business, she says. And women have some qualities - empathy, and the ability to multi-task - that actually give them an edge of men.

"I just can't believe that any woman who is confident in her own abilities would need to fall back on anything like that," she said.

She herself isn't a big fan of The Apprentice, she admits.

"It may be entertaining - but it's nothing like the real world of business.

"It's plastic, an exaggeration. Enjoy it as entertainment, but don't read anything into it!"