What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur, Genius Networking, and More with Richard Branson - Genius Network Episode #3

Welcome to the Genius Network show. In this episode, you'll hear from Richard Branson, Marie Forteo, Yannick Silver and Joe Polish in an inspired conversation about what makes a successful entrepreneur, the business principles that have worked really well for Virgin, the one piece of advice Richard wished he had when he had started his first business, and more. If you would like access to the full interview and a one page PDF guide with the insights and wisdom covered, please visit geniusnetwork.com 3. That's geniusnetwork.com 3.

Hi, this is Joe Polish and I'm here with my friends, Janik Silver, Maverick Business Adventures, Marie Folio, Rich, Happy and hot. This is Mr. Sir Richard Branson. Obviously Virgin and everything related to Virgin, from Virgin Unite for the foundation to Virgin Airlines, started with Virgin Records and Virgin, pretty much like several hundred things. And of course I have a company called Piranha Marketing and one of the top podcasts in the world@ilove marketing.com on iTunes. Now, we wanted to ask Richard some questions about you and about your business, about your success. And Richard, first off, we're sitting here on this amazing, gorgeous, beautiful island called Necker, and you've built this as a result of being an amazing entrepreneur. So I wanted to ask you, what makes a successful producing entrepreneur?

Ah, gosh. What makes a successful entrepreneur? I'm, I'm not, I'm not sure that, that, that, that somebody will know that they're an entrepreneur from the beginning. I think they will have a, a desire to make a difference to other people's lives and, you know, they'll see that, you know, that something's frustrating them. There's a gap in the markets, they feel they can do it better themselves and they'll try to fill that gap in the market and then they almost become an entrepreneur by default. I don't think you can sort of set out to become an entrepreneur. I think you've got to set out to make a difference to other people's lives.

What are the business principles that have stood out for you, that just have worked really well for Virgin and for even building any sort of organization or cause?

Well, again, I don't necessarily think of them as business principles. I think the word, you know, I think the word business, it becomes the business. But what you're doing is you're painting a picture. You're trying to create something to make a difference to other people's lives. You have a blank canvas and you're filling in every little bit of that canvas to get every single little detail right. And if that canvas sings out at you at the end. And it's a beautiful picture. Your business is going to be successful if, you know, if bits of the canvas are not quite right, your business may fail. So if you set up to change people's lives, you've got to get every single little detail right. You've got to make sure that the people that you're working with 100% believe in what you're trying to do. And you've got to make sure that what you are trying to do is worthwhile spending your time on. And the end of the day, you want to be sure that the people's lives you've affected, you've really been. You've affected them and benefited them. And if you get all that right, hopefully you'll be able to pay the bills at the end of the year.

I know you've started so many businesses, Richard. I mean, you have, I think, 300 some companies right now and so many entrepreneurs. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are startups, who are in their growth phase, who are even in their legacy phase. And if you're in a startup mode, I mean, you just talked about this painting the canvas. That's really incredible. Is there like one tangible piece of advice that, that you wish that you had when you were just starting your first business?

I mean, the absolute key and like an old stuck gramophone record that existed in my day is how good you are with people. And if you genuinely care about people, if you can surround yourself with people that genuinely excited about what you're doing, if you can draw out the best in people, if you're, if you're good at lavishing praise on people and not criticizing your people and inspiring your people. That's something you just have to do from day one. Never use the I word. I mean, you're a team. We're doing this, we're doing that. Just never, ever let it sort of center on yourself and just be a great leader of people. And if you can do that from day one, even if you've got one other and person working with you or two other people working with you, then, you know, you can enjoy the good times together. But there will be bad times and your people will pull, pull around for you. They'll work day and night to try to, you know, keep whatever it is you're creating alive and make sure that you make sure it survives. So the number one lesson is be a great people person.

Yeah. So now you started to make it as a business owner. So now we work with a lot of seven figure eight figure nine figure business owners. What did you do to take it to really the whole, whole next level?

Well, I think the next stage is to be a great delegator and not try to do everything yourself. Try to find people who are better than you all the time. Try to find people who are better than you to put you out of business effectively. So whatever you're spending all your day doing, try to find someone who's better than you to do that, to replace you at it so that you can go off and think about the next big picture. An entrepreneur is not a manager. I mean, an entrepreneur is somebody who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas, building ideas, but then handing over to really good managers to manage the businesses. The moment you've got more than one business, you can't be hands on doing everything. If on the other hand you're not really a great entrepreneur, but you're a really good manager, then fine, just immerse yourself in the business. You know, worry about every detail. Don't worry about having to move on to other businesses. So it slightly depends on what kind of person you are. In a strange way, Steve Jobs was more a manager than an entrepreneur. I mean, it sounds slightly strange to say that because he was somebody that focused on almost specifically on one subject matter, you know, immersed himself in that business. He second guessed everybody with everything. No bit of artwork could go out without his approval. And he built a formidable business, but pretty specific business in one area and, you know, and it worked very well for him. But you know, if you want to be a true entrepreneur and you know, build a lot of different businesses, you've got to be a great delegator.

So one of the things that we're all passionate about and I think we really admire you for, is being a great marketer. And when you're launching a new company, how do you start to think about the marketing campaign? What's the first steps? How do you even begin that whole process?

You've been listening to a conversation with Richard Branson, Marie Forleo, Janik Silver and Joe Polish. We will return to the conversation shortly. If you would like access to the full interview and a one page PDF guide with the insights and wisdom covered, please visit geniusnetwork.com 3. That's geniusnetwork.com forward/3. Let's get back to the conversation.

The marketing campaign, you know, what's the first steps? How do you even begin that whole process?

The most important thing about marketing anything is does the product itself, is it worthy of people's attention. So make absolutely certain that you've got a product that is worth going out there and shouting about. And once you've done that, then I think the cheapest form of marketing is to use yourself to try to put the company on the map. You know, there are a lot of chairman of companies who seem to hide behind a bushel and just refuse to use themselves. But I think a good chairman, at least a third of their job, will be getting out there and promoting their company. And if anybody knows anything about that, that's you. They, you know, if you're going to promote your company, try to get yourself on the front pages of the papers rather than a little byline in the back pages. Be ready to make a fool of yourself. Try to come up with ideas that make people smile. We've often tried to pull the tail of our bigger competitors and have fun ways of trying to get our companies on the front pages rather than the back pages of newspapers. One fun one. You know, I had a telephone call one morning and I was to be told that, you know, the British Airways was sponsoring this giant wheel the other side of the House of Commons and that they were having technical problems getting the wheel up. And they had the world's press there to film it as it was going up. And we had an airship company. So I scrambled this airship and just out it's London and headed it towards the. This giant wheel. And as it flew over, the massive banner at the back just simply said, ba can't get it up. And we had a lot of great coverage at BA's expense for that and the press loved it. And obviously that helped get Virgin on the map.

That actually ties into something that I truly, absolutely love and admire you for, is the fun and just that amazing DNA that you instill in all your businesses and the culture. And where does that come from? Does that come straight from you and it kind of bubbles down, top down, or is it literally just everybody? It creates that.

I think the chairman of a company needs to be willing to let their hair down. And if, you know, if you take a party situation as an example, if the chairman of the company stands in the corner sipping sherry with his fellow directors, as normally happens in a lot of company parties, everybody else in the room will be standing in huddled corners having boring conversations. If the chairman of the company is the first to throw themselves in the swimming pool and drag a whole lot of other people in with them, everybody else will be in the swimming pool. They'll have the most memorable party they had in the year and they would have had fun. And that sort of spirit of fun can make it a fun company to work for. And therefore, you know, chairman, a company has to be a leader. I mean, it has to, you know, has to try to, you know, get that sort of spirit of, you know, spirit of fun in the company and not take themselves too seriously. I mean, obviously there's the serious side of running the business, which people will appreciate and expect. You know, if you're running an airline, you know, you've got to make sure the planes fly and that the, you know, in the daytime, the engineers don't drink and the. And the pilots don't drink when they're flying and so on, you know, but when people are off duty, people should be able to have fun. And it's getting, you know, getting that balance. And I think that Virgin, you know, we've managed to get that balance. You know, we've got the best safety record of any airline in the world, you know, but that doesn't mean that our staff can't have fun. And, you know, and because they're having fun, because they enjoy the company they work for, you know, they're genuinely proud of the company, they smile, they're happy. And therefore our passengers who fly on our planes, they smile, they're happy and they come back for more. And therefore we have a successful business.

I think we can all agree that we're all massive supporters of business owners and entrepreneurs. And you believe that.

Business owners having fun.

Totally. I mean, well, first off, let me talk about that for a moment. You know, I mean, here we are on necker and we're bringing a group of people, all of us in our own businesses. Janik has his maverick business adventures, which mixes fun with business and just know, allows people to do amazing, awesome things. Marie, I wrote down a rule that.

You said yesterday, which was there's no work that can be done in the afternoon in Ecker. And you literally stepped in and said, we're not having this meeting at 4:00'. Clock. And, and that's so amazing because it's like most entrepreneurs never take that time to, to just re. Energize and regroup. And.

Yeah, and I think, I think that, you know, you can, you can have meetings after meetings, after meetings, which. Where people can actually end up being burnt out. Whereas if you're having fun with people and get to know people and, you know, getting to know people in fun situations, you can learn a lot more than perhaps in informal meetings. So, you know, so, yeah, we mustn't, mustn't eat into our fun time.

I mean, Peter Drucker said you're either working or you're in meetings. So, you know, you know, I tend to like that. Okay, Richard, I believe that you believe that social and economic problems can be solved in many ways through entrepreneurism. And I wanted to get your perspective on that.

It's worth making a 1, 1 point, first of all, and that is that creating businesses in themselves can, can solve social problems because by, by being an entrepreneur, creating businesses, you create jobs. By creating jobs, you can help help take people out of poverty. And obviously that applies, you know. Well, that applies worldwide today, I think. I mean, it's. But particularly with recessions and things around the world. But equally, I think that once you've actually created a successful business and you feel that the business is secure, I think if every business could then become a force for good and you can use your entrepreneurial skills to think, how can we as a company tackle a social problem in the local community? Maybe if you're quite a small business, use our entrepreneurial skills to see how we can tackle it better than it's been tackled before, or if you've created a bigger business, maybe how can we tackle some of the seemingly intractable global problems and again, use our entrepreneurial skills to see how they can be tackled in a better way than they've been tackled before? I think if every business could do that, an awful lot of the problems of the world would get resolved.

You've had the experience of meeting, I'm sure, just thousands of entrepreneurs over time and also helping to create them. Is there any consistent mistake that you see entrepreneurs make in business that they could possibly avoid?

I think that if you don't protect the downside and you sort of treat your business a bit like going into a gambling, gambling, gambling casino and, you know, sort of keeping on doubling up to, you know, hoping that you're going to get out of a problem, you know, then, then you're asking for trouble. And eight out of 10 businesses do go bust. And quite often it's because people haven't thought of the downside consequences of what they're doing. So without being too conservative, it is important, I think, to always think, if I do this, what's the worst that can happen? Can I afford the worst? For instance, right now, some of our airlines have protected against oil going up. Now a lot of people within our airlines said, well, look, it can't possibly go any higher. We've got a recession on, you know, so do we really have to protect the wiser people at Virgin said, yes, you know, we should protect against the worst happening, you know, so it was, it was good and sensible that they protected against the downside.

That's a great example, is like Virgin Mobile, as we'd say in the uk, but Virgin Mobile and like, just instead of buying, like building all the communication, all the, all the infrastructure, take you literally least, I think sprints, lines. And so there's very little downside and very big upside if it worked for you.

We have a strong brand and therefore we're able to avoid the enormous infrastructure costs of sometimes of building new businesses. We can piggyback on other people's infrastructure using, using, using our brand and, you know, we'll, we'll put in the brand, we get 50% of the company, we use our marketing skills and other people put in the infrastructure. And that in itself also, as you say, protects the downside.

All the decisions that you have coming across your desk wherever you're at your beach, I guess it could be, how do you make really tough decisions on a daily basis? Because you've got to be. You've got so many requests and demands of your time and people that want your attention in the world. And what's the Richard Branson methodology of, I guess, time management, priority management, really thinking it through. I mean, how do you, how do you do all of this?

You know, we spoke about delegation and I think the first thing is to make sure that everything is running without you. So, you know, if, you know, when I'm swimming around the island every day, you know, if a shark comes and decides that I look tasty and I disappear, that, you know, everything will continue to run. And it may not run in exactly the same way, but it will continue to run and Virgin will continue to grow. The fact that everything is running, we've got a fantastic team of people on a global basis. It means that literally I can work out how I want to spend my day. And I think it's absolutely essential for all of us that we stay fit and healthy, because if we're not fit and healthy, we're not going to achieve anything. So I will swim around the island every day, or I'll go kite surfing, or I'll play tennis, or I'll do something to make sure that the body is healthy and the endorphins are running, and then I can throw myself into work. And I suspect at least 50% of my time is sort of setting up not for profit organizations in the world to tackle Some of the bigger problems of the world and you know, the other 50% I suspect is diving in and out on, you know, some of our businesses around the world, you know, maybe doing a bit of firefighting when things are going wrong or, you know, giving them a push, you know, when things are going right.

So I have a question that's a little more personal in nature. When you first started and you were getting everything going, did you find it challenging at all to have like any kind of balance? And because I know you love your kids so much and you love your wife so much, you know, when you're getting something going, you invest a lot of time in the ramp up stage. Did you ever deal with that sense of guilt of like, oh man, I have to put the phone down or oh God, I have to just shut it off, you know what I mean, and spend time with my family?

Well, I've done something which is slightly unusual and I think, you know, possibly it's the advantage of owning your own company and that is. I've always worked from home, so I've never worked from an office. When I say never, not pretty well, never, I mean, you know. Right, right. In the early days, you know, I'd pop in a lot to our record company and I originally worked in a houseboat. The kids would be crawling around on the floor. I'd be having meetings with people, might even be changing a nappy. So the kids literally grew up with me as we were building the virgin empire. And then when the kids holiday time came, we would pack the bags and I would just move my office to Necker island. And you know, so I would always be around my family and I suspect, you know, we're closer than, you know, closer than a lot of families because of that, you know, Yes, I would be, you know, spend quite a lot of time on the phone and you know, I'd be busy. But we were around each other. Now I think if there's any lessons to be learned from that for other people, I mean, you know, I do think that with modern communication one shouldn't have to get stuck in an office. You know, the more one can get out and about, the better. If you've got companies, go and, you know, go and live your companies live, you know, spend a lot of time with your people and spend as much time with your family as you can. And I think getting that, getting that balance is absolutely critical. And making sure that you bring up great kids who are happy and loving and you found that time for them is critical because they are going to be the next generation.

Thanks for listening to the highlights from a recent conversation with Richard Branson, Marie Folio, Yannick Silver and Joe Polish. If you would like access to the full interview and a one page PDF guide with the insights and wisdom covered, please visit geniusnetwork.com 3 that's geniusnetwork.com 3. Don't miss out on more insights, strategies and wisdom like this on geniusnetwork.com subscribe to geniusnetwork.com today by visiting geniusnetwork.com subscribe that's geniusnetwork.com subscribe.