She impressed Sir Alan Sugar with her sheer talent and business acumen and now Ruth Badger has come to Norfolk to impart her wisdom to a Dereham caravan and motor-home dealership.

She impressed Sir Alan Sugar with her sheer talent and business acumen and now Ruth Badger has come to Norfolk to impart her wisdom to a Dereham caravan and motor-home dealership.

The town's Greentrees Adventure Stores is one of six businesses to feature in The Apprentice runner-up's new Sky One show Badger or Bust, in which Ruth turns businesses on their heads to increase sales.

Neil Greentree, managing director of Greentrees, said: “Last year we had just had our best year ever with a turnover of nearly £6m and I wanted to show my staff we could still be better and they needed to be more professional.

“I got involved with the show because it is promotion for both Greentrees and the caravan business as a whole, and I wanted people to see Norfolk is not a backwater in the business world.”

He stressed Greentrees was not a struggling business.

Mr Greentree, 38, said when Ms Badger first breezed into Greentrees he thought she was “officious” but the pair soon found they had a lot in common in the way they saw business.

She said she thought both Mr Greentree and his operations manager Paul Nally, 32, gave 120pc to their jobs but blasted salesmen Marc Jordan, 23, Nathan (Vern) Dack, 29 and Matt Dack, 26, as lazy and complacent.

She put the team through their paces by getting them to sell caravans to her, secretly filming their bad habits and even creating a “caravan of love” to help Mr Nally manage his staff.

At one point one of the salesmen was offered an ultimatum - work with the team or leave for good.

“We were really honest with Ruth and because of that we got a lot out of it. I would recommend any business to do what we did. We have managed to maintain about a 20pc increase on sales compared to last year since Ruth came to Greentrees,” said Mr Greentree.

Ruth said working with Greentrees was her favourite show of the series.

“The biggest shock for me was that the people who ran the business gave 120pc but there was such a difference between their efforts and the sales staff and I had to bridge that gap,” she said.

“I could not believe how busy they were and how they would just ignore customers. The first week was exhaustive. I experienced bad attitudes, laziness and complacency and low confidence.”

“I really enjoyed working with Neil and Vern especially. Neil I cannot speak highly enough of and Vern is the hero of the whole series. His confidence was so low and now he is the best salesman.”

The Greentrees episode of Badger or Bust is on Tuesday, 10pm, on Sky One.