Sir Richard Branson is well-known as a British business magnate. His rise to fame started with co-founding an enterprise that would grow into Virgin Group. He has also been outspoken about his dyslexia and ADHD. These have conferred certain advantages to him as they have framed many of his different approaches to business challenges.
It’s best to hear Richard Branson tell his stories and worldviews himself. Below are some very compelling, and, at times, lesser known quotes from his autobiography titled “Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way.“
“I have always believed that the only way to cope with a cash crisis is not to contract but to try to expand out of it.” (p. 138)
While making a presentation to Esso executives to secure a sponsorship for one of his air balloon trips, Branson said, “It’s going to be a great trip, and we’re really going to advertise BP as much as we can.” I thought that I heard a collective intake of breath, but I ploughed on regardless. “We are going to plaster BP all over the refueling ships, have your logo on the boat, really put BP on the map. Nobody will ever confuse you with that old rival of yours …”
“At this point I looked up at the wall opposite me and noticed the huge Esso logo. I realized my mistakes. The ESSO executives looked at me with horror, as if I were a ghost. I fell down on the floor and crawled under the table.
“I am sorry,” I said, and started to spit and polish their shoes.
Remarkably, Esso were as good as their word, and went ahead with sponsoring the trip.” (p. 216)
“Most people think that 50 percent of a public company is the key to controlling it. While this is true in theory, to a large extent you lose control just by having to control nonexecutive directors and generally giving up your time to satisfy the City. Previously, I had always felt confident about any decision we made, but now Virgin was a publicly quoted company, I began to lose faith in myself. I felt uneasy about making the rapid decisions I have always made, , and wondered whether every decision should be formally ratified and minuted. In many ways 1987, our year of being a public company, was Virgin’s least creative. We spent at least 50 per cent of our time heading off to the City to explain what we were doing to fund managers, financial advisers and City PR firms, rather than just getting on and doing it.” (p. 231)
“We asked some head-hunters to draw up a short list of suitable candidates, but I was most intrigued when Simon Burke applied for the job of chief executive. Simon had joined Virgin a couple of years previously as the development manager. His job was to sift through all the business proposals we receive and see whether we want to follow any of them up.
One of the things that I am always trying to do with Virgin is make people reinvent themselves. I firmly believe that anything is possible and, despite Simon’s having no obvious qualifications to turn a large chain of unsuccessful record shops into a chain of successful ones, I was certain that, if anyone could do it, he could. And sure enough,, as soon as Simon started work at Virgin retail in August 1988, things began to change as he started to weed out everything we didn’t need or that was losing money.” (p. 258)
“Even though I am often asked to define my “business philosophy”, I generally won’t do so, because I don’t think it can be taught as if it were a recipe. There aren’t ingredients and techniques that will guarantee success. Parameters exist that, if followed, will ensure that a business can continue, but you cannot clearly define our business success and then bottle it as you would a perfume. It’s not that simple: To be successful, you have to be out there, you have to hit the ground running; and, if you have a good team around you and more than your fair share of luck, you might make something happen. But You certainly can’t guarantee it just by following someone else’s formula.
Business is a fluid, changing substance, and, as far as I am concerned, the group will never stand still. It has always been a mutating, indefinable thing and the past few years have demonstrated that.” (p. 397)
“Conventionally, you concentrate on what you are doing and never stray beyond fairly narrow boundaries when running a company. Not only do I find that restrictive, I also think that it’s dangerous. If you only run record shops and refuse to embrace change, when something new like the internet or MP3 is launched you will lose your sales to the person who makes use of the new medium.” (p. 409)
“The Virgin way has been to develop many different ventures and grow organically. For most of our companies, we have started from scratch rather than merely buying them ready-made. We want each of the Virgin subsidiaries to be an efficient, manageable size. When it comes to setting up new companies, one of my advantages is that I don’t have a highly complicated view of business. When I think of which services I want to offer on Virgin Atlantic, I try to imagine whether my family and I would like to buy them for ourselves. Quite often it’s as simple as that.” (p. 411)
One of the things I’ve learned over my years in business is that, once you have a great product, it is essential to protect its reputation with vigilance. It’s not (p. 450)
Branson, Richard; Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way; Crown Business, NY, 2007