Looking decidedly unimpressed, Fergus Wilson wanders around the stalls selling marketing, banking and accounting services at the Kent 2020 Start Up and Marketing Live exhibition.

“Many of these things on offer today are the same as each other,” said the property tycoon, who is no stranger to making controversial statements.

“They are probably well needed but they are duplicated and there are too many flooding the market doing the same thing.”

Straight-talking Mr Wilson has hit the headlines several times in recent years, not least because he and wife Judith plan to sell their 1,000-home property empire in Maidstone and Ashford, reportedly worth more than £100m.

The no-nonsense investor has said he does not want to let homes to people on benefits, serving many tenants with eviction notices earlier this year.

The former boxer was also fined in April for punching an estate agent and later challenged his victim Daniel Wells to a round in the ring after he said he “punches like a girl”.

The ex-maths teacher was in no mood to mince his words as he looked around at the clientelle perusing the exhibition at the Kent Event Centre last month, aimed at helping new businesses get off the ground.

“Ninety per cent of the people here will never make it in business,” he said as he sat down with a cup of tea in the crowded refreshments area with wife Judith, the other half of the property duo who were buying a house a day during the housing market’s boom years in the early 2000s.

“Every kid who plays football wants to play for Manchester United but for every one who makes it, another 5,000 don’t make the grade.

“It doesn’t mean you should stop playing but not everyone rises to the position of bank manager just because they work for the bank.”

Making it in business, according to Mr Wilson, is something that only few people can achieve. One of the keys to success is attitude.

He said: “In life there are winners and losers and all these young people have to decide ‘am I a winner or a loser?’ They have got to get their tactics right.

“Our tactics when we were young are probably not the tactics now.”

“In life there are winners and losers and all these young people have to decide ‘am I a winner or a loser?’..." - Fergus Wilson

Although property is where Mr and Mrs Wilson have excelled, the pair have had a varied business background.

“When I started, I launched a number of businesses and, while none failed, some didn’t make as much money as others did,” said Mr Wilson. “So I focused on the ones which made money and closed the ones which didn’t.

“I used to import ties and you look around now and there are many men without a tie. In 1995 they were all wearing one. Times change and you have got to change with them.”

At this point, Mrs Wilson points to a group of young people sitting on a table behind us. “There are 15 students here, aged 17 and 18, and I would say six of them probably won’t get anywhere in life,” she deadpans. “You have got to think out of the box.

“If I was young coming here, I would be pushing companies for a name and address so I could apply to them for a job when I leave school. But the young people here have come because they have been told to. I still wish them every success.”

The pair do not hide their exasperation on the subject of hiring staff.

This is a problem they believe is shared by many of the entrepreneurs they will be inviting to join an exclusive high-flyers business club in Maidstone, to be launched in the near future.

Mr Wilson: “If I get a letter from an English girl or boy looking for a job, I know when I open the envelope the second sentence will tell me they are a team player.”

Judith: “I’m so fed up with that.”

Mr Wilson: “There is obviously a template at all secondary schools which they all copy and send out. They are all exactly the same. Some foreign people will say they cannot speak English well but they will try hard and ask me to give them a chance.”

Judith: “It’s from the heart.”

Mr Wilson: “You get on far better with people like that. People who say what they can do. Yet above all else, the key to starting up a business, is hard graft. I work from 4am every day, 37 hours a day, 10 days a week.”