I ‘fired’ Lord Sugar after we clashed over my business – but I ended up richer after he publicly mocked me

STANDING by his £350,000 green Lamborghini outside his new offices, Apprentice winner Joseph Valente reveals how it feels to tell Lord Sugar: “You’re fired.”

The ex-plumber, 34, says when he axed his partnership with the tycoon after 18 months it felt key to regaining control of his boiler installation firm.

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And he reveals it was an apparent dig from the Amstrad boss when the firm hit the skids two years later, with debts of almost £2million, that spurred him to launch a new mentoring empire which he says is now worth £10million.

As a new series of The Apprentice starts tomorrow, with hopefuls battling to be “hired” by the formidable Lord Sugar, Joseph reveals working with his “icon” was tough.

Viewers will remember the contestant for his sharp suits and booming voice as he clinched TV’s top business prize in 2015.

In fact Joseph is not the only show winner to ditch dealing with Lord Sugar. 

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It was recently revealed the entrepreneur has parted company with eight of his past 12 victors of the reality show.

‘Meetings were fiery’

Days after Joseph triumphed on series 11 of The Apprentice, Lord Sugar invested £250,000 in his nationwide firm. Joseph sent him packing in 2017.

In an exclusive interview with The Sun, he recalls how the stress and shame of his firm folding two years later sent him into a depression — until that “mocking” tweet from Lord Sugar ignited his fighting spirit.

Joseph went on to build his mentoring empire, based in his home town of Peterborough, Cambs — and he dreams of being a billionaire.

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Not bad for a lad expelled from school at 14 and who began training to be a plumber so he could help support his mum Jane as she worked three jobs to put food on the table after his alcoholic father walked out.

Joseph says: “Lord Sugar was my idol. As a young man I worshipped him. I’d been an Apprentice fan for many, many years before I went on the show.

“But after a while it became quite a frustrating relationship.

“I ended up going to a board meeting once a month, just reporting what I was doing rather than going there to get help.

“I didn’t want a business partner I was reporting to and a silent investor. I was looking for a coach or mentor who was going to teach me how to grow my business.

“Those meetings with Lord Sugar were very fiery. There was quite a lot of shouting and debating going on.

“That’s the fun part of a board meeting, really. As a young entrepreneur I thought Lord Sugar would be an expert in all business, but he is an expert in his field.

“It seemed to me he had limited knowledge of my industry.”

Winners of the Apprentice now receive £250,000 and support from a team of money men, who are there to make sure the business stays on track.

They also get a monthly board meeting with Lord Sugar himself. Until 2011, the prize had been a £100,000-a-year job working for him.

Joseph reveals: “You have to call him Lord Sugar, there’s no Alan. Not even as his business partner.

“The first call I had with him, he was in Florida. He wanted to know, ‘What are we doing? Where are we going with the business? What’s the next move?’.

"It was a strange experience because you don’t really know how much time you are going to get with him and whether you are going to sit down and do a plan.

“I went into the board meeting one day and he took me aside after and gave me a massive telling off for putting too much social media content out there, whereas I should have been focused on the business.

“I thought to myself, ‘Hang on, we’re business partners here. I haven’t come for somebody telling me what to do’. So after a while the dynamic started to change.

“It wasn’t about mentorship, it was more about me having to report to these guys.

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“After a year and a half it became clear they couldn’t give me any more guidance on how to grow this company and, in actual fact, it became a hindrance, not a help.”

 Recalling their business split, Joseph added: “I was the first apprentice to buy Lord Sugar out and break up the relationship. I told him face to face.

“He said, ‘I respect that. I’ll come back to you in 48 hours with a decision of what I want to do’.

"True to his word, he came back with a decision in 48 hours. We structured a deal that worked for both of us and, within a week, I was out.”

Joseph was 25 when he won The Apprentice. He was running ImpraGas, which he had started with a £15,000 loan.

By the time he walked away from Lord Sugar, the business employed 50 people around the UK, earned £1million a month and Joseph claims it was the largest independent boiler installer after British Gas.

But the company was growing too fast and crashed, owing £1.9million to creditors. He managed to sell the firm and the buyers took on his employees.

Joseph says: “I went to war with British Gas on all fronts without their war chest.

"My biggest mistake in that business was not getting more investment sooner to take it to the next level. I could see what was coming.

‘Savage but fair’

“It hit me hard. I went through a severe depression.

"I didn’t want to get up. I was dreading turning on my phone and looking at what people were saying about me online and reading what the headlines were saying.

“What sparked me into action was Lord Sugar. He shared one of the articles, ‘Joseph’s Gas Firm Blown’, and retweeted it saying, ‘You can’t win them all . . . ’. 

"That hit me deep. It was like a right hook when I was already in a bad place. But I tell you now, it gave me the fire to get up.

“I saw the tweet, jumped out of bed and said, ‘Right, I’m going to show you I can come back’.

“It gave me another spark and another point to prove to Lord Sugar. I’m grateful to him for almost mocking me because it made me very angry and I used that emotion to fight back.”

Today, five years on, it seems Lord Sugar is reluctant to even say Joseph’s name.

In a recent interview ahead of the upcoming 18th series, he referred to him simply as “a plumber bloke that didn’t do very well”.

But Joseph insists his new business is booming, and says he has invited Lord Sugar’s Apprentice assistant Dame Karren Brady to talks to his customers.

In 2020, after selling ImpraGas, father-of-one Joseph set up Trade Mastermind, a company which helps white van men, including plumbers, builders, electricians and carpenters, grow their businesses.

He says: “It started as a one-to-one coaching business, then lockdown happened and that put a nail in the coffin.

“But actually, lockdown was the best thing that could ever have happened to my business because it forced me to go online as I couldn’t run live events.

“I started selling online training courses and doing virtual seminars. I went from losing it all to within three months doing £100,000 a month in sales from my apartment.”

Joseph says tradesmen train for three years to become experts in their field, yet have no coaching on how to become business bosses.

He charges £15,000 for a one-year course and says most of the participants triple their income in those 12 months.

Joseph adds: “Success for me is about making sure that my family will never have to financially struggle like we did growing up.

“My dad was an alcoholic and drank every day, didn’t work. My mum worked three jobs to keep food on our table.

“I made a commitment from five years of age that my mum was never going to have to struggle for money again.

"At the age of 27, I managed to pay off her mortgage so she could retire early. That was a proud moment for me.”

Joseph has now set up Valente Business Academy to help all small firms become successful and grow.

He says: “Lord Sugar is Lord Sugar. He is hard. He is strong.

“He is savage at times. But I think he is fair.

“We may not have seen eye to eye on everything but the respect was always there because he gave me an opportunity and he didn’t need to give me it.

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“It might not have ended in the greatest way, but actually it is still serving me to this day.”

• The Apprentice returns to BBC 1 tomorrow at 9pm.

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