Welcome to another edition of Make It Make Sense, the business and mindset show. Today, Claire Stanley and Neville Wright sit down with Joseph Valente – winner of The Apprentice in 2015, founder of Impregas, and creator of Trade Mastermind – for a conversation about resilience, self-belief, and building a business from nothing.
The Moment Everything Changed
Joseph’s journey began with a moment that would define his entire life. He was 14 years old, expelled from school, and everyone had given up on him.
“I remember coming out of the headmaster’s office, my mum was crying, and she looked at me and said, ‘What are you gonna do now, son?’ I remember thinking, why is everybody writing me off? Just because I haven’t got school to work for me, it doesn’t mean that I’m a failure.”
— Joseph Valente
It was in that moment that Joseph realised something profound.
“The cavalry wasn’t coming. There was no one coming to save me. If I was going to be successful, it was going to be down to me.”
— Joseph Valente
His dad had left. His mum had given up on him. The teachers were gone.
“It was me versus me. I made this immediate shift into wanting to prove a point – that Joseph Valente was going to be somebody.”
— Joseph Valente
The Backstory: A Troubled Childhood
Joseph grew up in a family that struggled financially. His mum worked three jobs. His dad was an alcoholic who drank every day.
“Money was the problem in our household. Every negative energy and experience was down to the fear and worry about how we were going to pay the bills. I made a decision when I was a kid that I was never going to live like that.”
— Joseph Valente
When his dad left, Joseph became angry and difficult to manage.
“Anybody that tried to impose their authority on me had no chance. I went off the rails, got into a lot of trouble.”
— Joseph Valente
But rather than letting that define him, Joseph used it as fuel.
“I’ve always backed myself. There’s one person that I can rely on and one person only in this world – and it’s me.”
— Joseph Valente
From Worst Student to Best Employee
At 14, Joseph went to work for a local plumber. He worked on the tools for a year and a half to earn the right to go to college.
“I went from being the worst student ever to the best employee.”
— Joseph Valente
He became an apprentice, then a plumber, then a qualified gas engineer. By 22, he was earning £50,000 a year – but he knew that wouldn’t be enough to put his mum into retirement.
“I realised very quickly I wasn’t going to be able to take care of my family on a £50,000 salary. It would take care of my own bills, but it wasn’t going to give everybody else the freedom that I wanted them to have.”
— Joseph Valente
The Book That Changed Everything
His mum bought him Lord Sugar’s autobiography, What You See Is What You Get, for Christmas.
“At 22, I wasn’t into personal development. I didn’t really like education and I definitely didn’t read books. But I was an Apprentice fan, so I gave it a go.”
— Joseph Valente
He read it cover to cover over the Christmas break, staying up doing all-nighters.
“Something changed within me. My DNA started to shift. I started to believe that anything was possible for me.”
— Joseph Valente
He realised something powerful: Lord Sugar came from a council estate, had no money, didn’t come from the right family or school – and he built billionaire wealth.
“All the excuses I’d made in my whole life – my dad left, expelled from school, didn’t come from money, rubbish education – were actually just excuses I was telling myself to justify why I wasn’t the person I wanted to be.”
— Joseph Valente
“He’s got nothing that I don’t have. So if he can do it, I can do it.”
— Joseph Valente
The £15,000 Loan
At the end of reading the book, Joseph took out a £15,000 loan from Tesco – no business plan.
“I called up my boss, quit my job, then called my mum and told her I was starting this business. I said, ‘In five years, everything is going to be amazing. I’m going to put you into retirement.'”
— Joseph Valente
Her response wasn’t what he wanted.
“‘What do you think you’re doing? You don’t know anything about business. Why would you take a risk? Why are you so impulsive?'”
— Joseph Valente, recalling his mother
But Joseph understood where she was coming from.
“That came from a place of protection. She was afraid based on her beliefs. But being an entrepreneur and a risk-taker – my mum wasn’t an entrepreneur. She was a saver.”
— Joseph Valente
He learned a valuable lesson.
“Be careful who you get your advice from. Family and friends for big dreamers and big achievers can be your biggest blocker. Some try and hold you back because they’re jealous. Some try and hold you back because they’re scared for you.”
— Joseph Valente
The Apprentice Years
By 25, Joseph’s business, Impregas, was turning over £600,000 a year. But he was working 18 hours a day, seven days a week – and he realised something.
“Hard work wasn’t going to get the job done because I was only doing £600,000 a year and I was working seven days a week. There wasn’t an eighth day. If I wanted to become a multimillionaire, I had to learn how to work smarter.”
— Joseph Valente
He went on The Apprentice for three reasons:
1. A mentor – He needed someone to guide him.
2. Attention – Nobody knew who he was.
3. Cash flow – He needed money to scale.
“The Apprentice did all three things.”
— Joseph Valente
The Manifestation
Before going on the show, Joseph visualised the outcome every single night.
“I used to lay there every single night for about three or four hours, keep my eyes closed, and visioned ‘You’re hired! You’re hired! You’re hired!’ I could see him there pointing at me. I was so disciplined and religious with it that it came true.”
— Joseph Valente
He told his mum at the train station: “When you next see me, I’m going to be The Apprentice winner.”
She said, “Good luck, son. I know you’re going to do all right.”
“She didn’t believe that I was going to pull this off. But I 100% knew that I was going to execute.”
— Joseph Valente
The Boardroom Reality Check
After winning, Joseph had his first board meeting with Lord Sugar.
“Everyone in the boardroom was finance people. I couldn’t understand why. I thought hard work was the metric we needed to measure. They were talking about the numbers.”
— Joseph Valente
“I didn’t know what a profit and loss is. I had no idea what a balance sheet does. I didn’t know my margins. I didn’t actually know if I was making any money or not.”
— Joseph Valente
That was the moment he realised:
“I was a tradesman running a business – not a businessman running a trades business.”
— Joseph Valente
The Hardest Lesson
One of the hardest lessons Joseph learned was about trust and delegation.
“When I went on The Apprentice, I was only allowed to tell two or three people. I was going to disappear overnight for at least three months.”
— Joseph Valente
His business served 2,000 homes on contract. His phone rang 500 times a day. He was the business.
So he told everyone his auntie was sick in Italy – on a goat farm with no signal.
“When I returned three months later, my business was intact. My office manager had kept the company running. I realised that if you build the right business with the right people and the right team, it can work without you.”
— Joseph Valente
But there was a flip side.
“I could have come back and the business I’d been building over three years could have gone bust. It was a big trade-off.”
— Joseph Valente
The Lord Sugar Experience
Joseph shared what people don’t see about Lord Sugar.
“He won’t shake your hand. He doesn’t say hello and he doesn’t say goodbye. You walk in, you sit down, you talk about business and you leave. If you put your hand out to him, he will just blank you.”
— Joseph Valente
Joseph once emailed him on Christmas morning with a long, grateful message.
“I got an email back saying, ‘If you ever email me like that again, it’s going straight in the bin. Bullet point format and talk about business.'”
— Joseph Valente
Joseph learned from it, but he didn’t want to do business that way.
“I want to be respected – but not hated and feared. I’m firm but fair. I care about my people. I want to see people do well.”
— Joseph Valente
The 2019 Crash
In 2017, Joseph bought Lord Sugar out of the business – the first Apprentice winner to do so.
“I’d scaled from a regional business to national, doing a million pounds a month through pure hustle and hard work.”
— Joseph Valente
But one of his mentors had warned him:
“There’s one thing in business you’ll never control – and that’s the market. When it changes, you better be ready.”
— Joseph Valente, quoting his mentor
In 2019, Brexit happened. It was a warm winter. Sales projections halved.
“I’d overexpanded. I hadn’t raised funding quick enough. I had to sell off part of the business and shut part of it down. At 30 years old, I found myself starting again.”
— Joseph Valente
But out of that failure, Trade Mastermind was born.
Trade Mastermind: The Gap
Joseph saw a huge gap in the market.
“Tradesmen start businesses with the skills they had. Plumber starts a plumbing business. Electrician starts an electrical business. But unless they learn about business, they’re forever stuck.”
— Joseph Valente
He asked small business owners: “How much time and money have you spent on your own education?”
“99.9% will tell you it’s next to zero.”
— Joseph Valente
He identified two big blockers:
1. The business owner – The business will only grow as far as your knowledge.
2. The business model – Just because someone wants a service doesn’t mean you can scale it.
“I spent my twenties building a national plumbing business with tight margins and challenging cash flow. If I’d done that with the same grit in finance or tech, I could be worth hundreds of millions.”
— Joseph Valente
His advice is simple.
“Get off the tools and focus on sales and marketing. The businesses we support grow 370% in year one because they stop doing the delivery and hire people to do the work.”
— Joseph Valente
The Perception of Trades
Joseph believes trades as a career is changing.
“With AI on the horizon, a lot of white collar jobs will disappear. There’s a big skills shortage in construction. People in white collar roles will look to the trades to retrain and get a very high-paying career.”
— Joseph Valente
The Morning Routine
Joseph is a huge believer in routine.
“You’ve got to set yourself up for success. Routine matters for sure.”
— Joseph Valente
He does ice baths, walks, and takes time in the morning to set himself up for the day.
“I’m a huge morning person.”
— Joseph Valente
The Legacy
Joseph is a father now – his son, Joseph Jr., is nearly five.
“His middle name is Junior. Having my first child created purpose. When Joseph Jr. came around, I was clear on why I was put on this planet. Build legacy. Create generational wealth. Put a platform in place so he didn’t have to start from zero.”
— Joseph Valente
And he’s already learning.
“If you ask him what makes a business tick, he’ll tell you: marketing first, sales second. Love is king.”
— Joseph Valente
The Last Word
Joseph’s parting wisdom was simple but powerful.
“Winners focus on winning. Losers focus on winners. Too many people spend their time pointing out what others did wrong, rather than focusing on what they did right.”
— Joseph Valente
“Don’t get distracted by the news, the government, or all the other stuff out there. It’s all designed to take your focus away from your own mission.”
— Joseph Valente
And on self-belief:
“No one’s going to back you if you don’t back you. You’ve got to back yourself 100%.”
— Joseph Valente
Joseph Valente is the founder of Trade Mastermind. Find him at trademastermind.co.uk.
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