Apprentice star gives top tips to DMU start-up businesses

Apprentice star Neil Clough passed on his top tips to new start-ups as he visited De Montfort University Leicester (DMU).

Neil – famously labelled the “right man with the wrong plan” by Lord Sugar – now runs his own sales and recruitment company Prime in Manchester.



His visit to DMU’s Innovation Centre was part of the two-week-long Leicester Business Festival, a celebration of the city and county’s business community.

And he urged the packed audience to make sure they concentrated on their sales skills, saying it was “the key skill entrepreneurs needed to succeed.”

He said: “For me, sales is the core part of any business. If you have not got sales, then you have not got a business. Sales is the sort of job that people tend to think of call centres, but it’s very much about relationships, it’s all about communication.”

DMU’s Innovation Centre is home to many small businesses and offers a support network for companies across the city and county. It also runs a bespoke mentoring programme, The Crucible, for DMU graduates setting up their own businesses.

Here are Neil’s top tips for start-ups and anyone thinking of starting their own business:

•    Make mistakes. “Mistakes are good,” he explained. “I believe that they are the way that we learn and the way you gain experience, especially in business.”
•    Step out of your comfort zone. “Push yourself and try new things. People don’t take themselves out of their comfort zone enough. Look at me: 60,000 people apply for The Apprentice every year and I got chosen. It’s changed my life for the better.”
•    Learn what motivates you. “50% of your success rate is going to come from motivation. It will get tough and you will get through it if you know the reason why you do this every day.”

Since reaching the final of the top-rated BBC show, Neil has formed his own recruitment agency called Prime, training graduates in corporate sales roles. The company, co-founded with sales trainer Nicole Plinston, was named start-up business of the year in the North West.

He still is in contact with Lord Sugar and says the Apprentice was “the best experience of his life”. He’s still a huge fan: “I watch it every week now it’s back on. I do feel for all the candidates because I know exactly what they are going through.”