In Episode 14, Dan Storey is speaking with Mark Wright. Mark is a former student of Dan’s that went on to have a successful career in digital marketing before winning The Apprentice in 2014. He used the investment from Lord Sugar to create the digital marketing agency Climb Online and recently sold the company for a value of around £10 million pounds. He now spends his time investing and educating business owners on what it takes to grow and scale companies. As a self-proclaimed professional salesperson, Mark is passionate about helping people develop a successful sales mindset, and this is what we dive into in detail in this conversation. Some of his views are controversial, and he is not a huge fan of the work-from-home, work-life balance focus of people entering today’s workforce. However, having worked hard to build his business, he is speaking from experience and these are lessons we should all consider when thinking about the level of success we want to achieve in life. 

In particular, we touch on the key topics below:

• Why work-life balance should be the aim for the END of a successful sales career and why we shouldn’t expect it from the beginning
• Why if you want to be a millionaire, you need to commit a year-and-a-half of hard work and grind to your goals 
• How you need to be intentionally creating opportunities to connect with key people that hold the keys to the future of your career, and why working from home might be destroying your career advancement opportunities 
• Why Mark is so proud to call himself a salesperson and how he has taken his professional education seriously 
• How to create a culture of high-performing entrepreneurial salespeople through effective hiring and interviewing, and why this is essential to both business and individual success
• What were some of the biggest lessons Mark learned about sales on his journey from beginner salesperson to successful business exit? 
• What are Mark’s top tips for brand new salespeople and for salespeople who are thinking of transitioning to starting their own business?

This episode is a great balance of motivational advice grounded in solid sales experience and is essential for any salesperson who is serious about being successful in their career. 

About Mark Wright 

Mark Wright is the CEO of Wrighton Investments having recently sold his stake as Founder of Climb Online that he founded with the investment he won from Alan Sugar after winning The Apprentice in 2014. Since winning The Apprentice, Mark has been recognised on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, as well as winning the UK Entrepreneur of the year in 2018. Mark now spends his time investing, advising business owners and also helping educate entrepreneurs on how to scale up their businesses and create the systems and processes required for a successful exit.