Apprentice star sells business he set up with Lord Alan Sugar for eye watering eight-figure sum
A WINNER of TV’s The Apprentice has sold the business he set up with Lord Alan Sugar for an estimated £10million.
Mark Wright won the £250,000 partnership on the BBC show in 2014.
He and the peer founded digital marketing agency Climb Online and grew it to 130 staff.
The firm, which has worked with TikTok and Emirates, has been sold to agency xDNA.
Lord Sugar said of Mr Wright: "A young boy comes from Australia, skint, totally skint.
"He sees an advert on BBC to enter into The Apprentice programme.
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"He then goes on and wins it. And he wins a partnership with me of £250,000. And from acorns, big oak trees have grown.
"And this young lad who came with no money is now going back to Australia with millions."
Mr Wright said the show helped him meet top business boards after previously being turned away by carpet shops.
"Before I went on the show, if I rang up a carpet shop in South London they wouldn't give me the time of day," he said.
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"As soon as I won that programme I could get a meeting in the boardroom at Emirates.
"That brand was incredibly powerful."
But he said a focus on keeping the language at the business simple was key to its success.
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He added: “What really made my company stick out was the fact that we were results-driven and kept the language simple.”
"Instead of talking about the click-through rate and cost-per-click and digital marketing speech, business owners wanted a clear example of, 'How much have I got to spend and how much are you going to get me back?'"