Apprentice done, Nascar next?

For a guy with a broad smile and an easygoing demeanor, Jim Abrams thought he came off a little uptight next to Donald Trump for his national TV debut.

Other than that, the Sarasota executive breathed a big sigh of relief May 2 when he sat with about 100 other people in an east Manatee County restaurant for a viewing party of the Apprentice. The NBC reality show pits teams of celebrities against each other in a variety of business tasks. Trump is the host and co-creator of the show.

Abrams' company, Clockwork Home Services, was the focal point of the May 2 episode. The $200 million company is the parent to a trio of home service franchise brands: Mister Sparky electrician services, Benjamin Franklin Plumbing and One Hour Air Conditioning & Heating.

Abrams and John Young, Clockwork's chief marketing officer, broke down the assignment for the teams at the beginning of the episode. The task was to create three 30-second radio commercials that show how reliable, professional and punctual the company's franchise units are.

Abrams knew going on the show was a gamble, since he would have no control over how Clockwork's brand was portrayed. His biggest fear: The show would play off the stereotypes of late, unprofessional plumbers and electricians, something Abrams has fought for three decades.

“But they made [Clockwork] look good,” says Abrams, the Review's Entrepreneur of the Year for the Sarasota-Manatee region in 2008. “They made fun of John and I as opposed to the brand.”

The show, seen by 10 million viewers, is the first phase of a multimillion-dollar national branding and marketing campaign for Clockwork. The second step is an online sweepstakes — the Trump Time is Money contest — that launched the day after the show aired. The company will give away cash prizes and trips and in doing so hopes to collect at least one million e-mail addresses for future marketing efforts.

The early returns, on both the show and the contest, were positive, Abrams tells Coffee Talk. The company's Web server temporarily crashed May 3 due to high traffic volumes, for one. And Abrams has already taken calls from a few entities that would like to partner with the Clockwork in more marketing opportunities, including the Holy Grail of product placement: Nascar.

The company earned one other perk from being on the show: Two of the stars, 1980s rock singer Bret Michaels and Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump's daughter, approached Abrams about hiring Clockwork to come out to their own homes.