Screw It, Let’s Do It - Richard Branson (Category J)
Main points
Have faith in yourself.
Believe everything can be done.
Live life to full.
Never give up.
Just Do it
Believe it can be done.
Have goals.
Live life to full.
Never give up.
Prepare Well.
Have faith in yourself.
Help each other.
Have fun
Have fun, work hard and money will come.
Don’t waste your time, grab chances.
Have positive outlook on life.
When its not fun, move on.
Be Bold
Calculate risks and take them.
Believe in yourself.
Chase your dreams and goals.
Have no regrets.
Be bold. Keep your word.
Challenge yourself
Aim high.
Try new things.
Always try.
Challenge yourself.
Stand on your own feet
Rely on yourself.
Chase the dreams but live in the real world.
Work together.
Live the moment
Love life and live it to full.
Enjoy the moment.
Reflect on your life.
Make every second count.
Don’t have regrets.
Value family and friends
Put family and team first.
Be loyal.
Face problems head on.
Money is for making things happen.
Pick right people and reward talent.
Have respect
Be polite and respectful.
Do the right thing.
Keep your good name.
Be fair in all your dealings.
Do some good
Change the world; Even if in small way.
Make a difference and help others.
Do no harm.
Always think what you can do to help.
Summary:
Just do it.
Think yes, not no.
Challenge yourself.
Have goals.
Have fun.
Make a difference.
Stand on your own feet.
Be loyal.
Live life to the full.
Richard Branson Way - 10 secrets
1. Pick on someone bigger than you.
This will automatically bring you into attention. Then the only thing you need to do is to keep the attention focussed. If you go for big, fat, lazy brand leaders, its often easy to offer better value for money.
Picking on the big guys is almost an article of faith for Virgin, but it also plays an important role in Branson’s success.
Along with the obvious downsides, attacking dominant market positions has some important upsides. Markets dominated by big players tend to have fat profit margins, with plenty of scope to make money. They also enable Virgin to play the role of the underdog, something that works to its advantage with consumers, employees and the media.
The first lesson of the Branson business strategy is:
Make business a crusade - Branson has a remarkable ability to clothe almost everything he does in a crusading cloak. This lends the Virgin brand moral authority.
Hoist a pirate flag - Others see Branson more as a buccaneer than a crusader. His appeal is seen as a lack of respect for figures of authority, combined with a gleeful sense of fun and the pleasure of being an irritant to big business. Play the underdog. It’s hard to think badly of a man who picks on companies that are, or at least appear to be, bigger than his.
Pick your battles - Although he gives the impression that he likes to climb business mountains simply because “they are there,” in almost every case Branson is responding to specific business opportunities that present themselves.
Hit them where it hurts - In a number of cases, Branson has successfully used guerrilla tactics against a larger rival.
2. Do the hippy, hippy shake.
With his informal style and nonconformist attitude, Richard Branson has been called a “hippy capitalist.”
A hippy he’s not, but Branson’s alternative management style offers the following lessons to those who aspire to make money not war:
Don’t be a bread head – there’s more to business than just money. Despite his wealth, Branson’s own appetite for material things is surprisingly modest. Somehow, too, he persuades others that money isn’t the most important thing.
Dress down every day (not just Fridays) - Branson’s dislike of wearing a suit and tie is legendary. His informal dress sense stands out from the crowd, something that works to his advantage.
Put people first - Branson is a great believer in people power. He has built the Virgin brand on the premise that people – customers and employees – come first.
Everybody must get stoned - From the start, the Virgin business was run on a deliberate policy of mixing business with pleasure. From its earliest days, the Virgin philosophy has been work hard, play hard.
Don’t imitate, innovate - Another common denominator of business Branson-style is the desire to shake up the markets he enters – and the establishment in general. The sectors where Virgin has set up its stall are rarely ever the same again.
3. Everything is negotiable.
One of Richard Branson’s less well known talents is a razor sharp negotiating technique. Despite or perhaps because of his Mr Nice Guy image, Branson rarely comes out second best in any of the deals he makes. Charisma and an affable charm belie a calculating business brain.
The lessons from the Branson school of negotiating are:
Nice guys finish first - Branson’s shrewd negotiating skills and persuasive tongue are accentuated by an easy charm that lulls all but the most hardened of negotiators into dropping their guard.
Never take no for an answer - Branson’s cheek of the devil negotiating skill has become a hallmark of the company. “No,” “never,” and “impossible” are not words in the Branson business dictionary.
Talk softly and carry a big stick - For all his bonhomie, there are those who say that Richard Branson isn’t nearly so nice to do business with as you might think. This is a curious view of one of the most successful businessmen this century. It would be naïve to think otherwise.
Get good professional advice - Behind Branson’s happy go-lucky public image lurks not just a calculating businessman, but one who knows very well the value of good professional advisers.
Always cover the upside - When it comes to setup costs, most canny entrepreneurs seek to cover the downside risk. Branson, on the other hand, wants to cover the upside, too. In his mind, every cloud could have a silver plated lining.
4. Make work fun.
Business, in Richard Branson’s view, should be fun. Creating an exciting work culture is the best way to motivate and retain good people; it also means you don’t have to pay them as much.
The Branson technique for managing people provides the following lessons:
It pays to play - Going to the office at Virgin isn’t the drudgery that it can be at other companies, or at least that’s what Branson wants his people to believe and clearly believes himself.
Let employees loose - Branson has always surrounded himself with talented people and given them the freedom to be creative. Time and time again, they have rewarded his confidence with dazzling results.
Encourage informality – Stay on first name terms. To the average Virgin employee, Branson, the company’s chairman and major shareholder, is simply “Richard.”
Enthusiasm is infectious - By inspiring his staff, Branson gets exceptional performance from them, with sales and profit levels far above industry standards.
Make business an adventure - Part of the appeal of Virgin as an employer and as a consumer brand is the promise of an adventure to be had.
5. Do right by your brand.
One of the most frequently asked questions about Virgin is how far the brand can stretch. Branson’s answer is that as long as the brand’s integrity is not compromised, then it is infinitely elastic. Virgin’s strategy is based on what he calls “reputational branding” rather than traditional product and service branding.
Lessons from Branson the brand master are:
A good brand travels - The ubiquitous Virgin brand has prompted some commentators to ask whether the brand is being diluted. Those who understood what Branson was about, however, recognize that he has created an entirely new kind of brand proposition.
Brand elasticity is infinite - The most important aspect of the Virgin brand proposition is its credibility among its market segment. Existing Virgin products and services provide credibility for new offerings.
Love, honor and cherish your brand - Branson has acknowledged time and time again that the most vital asset Virgin has is its reputation. His philosophy is: look after your brand and it will last.
Rules are for breaking - If you’ve got a great brand and can see a market opportunity, you shouldn’t let a little thing like whether you have any experience of that market get in the way.
A pinch of salt adds flavor - Whatever Virgin does, it adds a sense of fun or cheekiness. It is not that the company goes into anything in an unprofessional way – far from it. It’s simply that it has a sense of humor.
6. Smile for cameras.
He may not look like a finely tuned PR machine, but Richard Branson has turned himself into a walking, talking logo. Every time his picture appears in a newspaper or magazine, it promotes the Virgin brand.
Promoting your business the Branson way has a number of subtle and not-so-subtle twists to it.These include:
Understand what the media want, and give it to them - Where other companies spend huge sums of money on advertising, Branson generates yards of column inches for free. And where other firms employ expensive PR firms to organize contrived media events, Branson delivers a much more valuable commodity – news.
Think in pictures - Branson will do almost anything to promote his brand. He is especially good at creating stories with visual impact.
Stand up and be counted - Branson has a remarkable knack of popping up at unexpected moments of public drama.
Remember, philanthropy and stamp collecting are two different things - Over the years, Branson has been involved in a number of high-profile community activities. Although these are generally separate from his business empire, they also generate publicity for the Virgin group.
Know when to duck - Almost as impressive as Branson’s ability to steal the limelight when he wants to is his ability to avoid negative publicity for his business activities.
Media attention is a great way to promote your business.
7. Don’t leap sheep, herd cats.
“Virgin staff are not mere hired hands. They are not managerial pawns in some gigantic chess game. They are entrepreneurs in their own right.” - Rather than expecting people to follow blindly, create challenging environment.
Contrary to Branson’s own claims, says one disgruntled former employee, the Virgin top management “all sit there like nodding dogs, their heads nodding whichever way Branson’s does. None of his management dare go to the toilet without asking him first.”
Rather than expect people to follow blindly where he leads, Branson relies on his ability to get the best from individuals by creating a challenging environment. Like herding cats, it’s much harder to do but a lot more lively.
The lessons for leaders are: -
Be a back seat leader - One of the characteristics of the Branson leadership style is knowing when to get out the way and let people get on with it.
Act as a catalyst - Branson is the catalyst that transforms potential energy in a project or idea into kinetic energy that sends people scurrying in a thousand directions.
Surround yourself with talented people - What Branson is good at is surrounding himself with very talented people and creating the right environment for them to flourish. This is no mean feat.
Encourage chaos - Branson is the master of mayhem, orchestrating the chaos.
Constantly scan the horizon for new opportunities - Branson’s great skill is the ability to stay in touch with Virgin’s customers and employees and use that knowledge to spy new business opportunities that are ripe for the Virgin formula.
8. Move faster than a speeding bullet.
Move quickly when opportunity presents itself.
If there is one area where Richard Branson’s disdain for the “suits” of the corporate world is entirely justified, it is in the speed of their reactions. Management gurus are agog at the notion of a large corporation that can move quickly. He has created exceptionally short decision-making chains. The normal committee stages are almost entirely absent.
The lessons are:
Avoid paralysis by analysis - The speed at which Branson expects to move is often breathtaking.
Leap before you look - Branson is not a great believer in market research, preferring to trust his instinctive feel for what consumers want, often based on his own conversations with them.
Streamline decision making - Timing is all important to Branson’s success. He is a master of the decisive moment – the all-important moment when an opportunity presents itself.
Get plenty of help - Something Branson is especially good at is persuading others to get involved in his projects. Whether it’s Virgin employees or partner organizations, Branson’s enthusiasm is infectious.
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes – it’s the only way to learn. Branson gets fired up by new ideas and converts them into business opportunities with head-spinning speed. The downside for Virgin employees is that their illustrious leader is constantly switching from one hobby horse to the next.
9. Size doesn’t matter.
Think big but keep it simple.
The Virgin Group is effective because it maximizes the entrepreneurial spirit of its staff whilst minimizing the bureaucracy of its systems. Virgin is not a traditional hierarchical company. Rather, it is a cluster of loosely associated businesses, with their own offices and their own management teams.
The Branson approach to corporate structure has five key points:
Grow your own - Branson is a builder not a buyer, something that marks him out as a special kind of business leader. Where other business tycoons have created empires by gobbling up smaller empires, Branson has grown his own.
Keep it simple - Branson’s life is remarkably uncluttered. This adage epitomizes the Branson approach.
Break it up into management molecules - To maximize the entrepreneurial energy, and to counterbalance the risk of losses in one part of the empire infecting the other parts, each Virgin venture is intended to be a stand-alone business.
Keep headquarters to a minimum - Long before they fell out of favor with management gurus, Branson spurned the very idea of a large corporate headquarters.
Ensure the sum of the parts is greater than the whole - Richard Branson has made it company policy to listen. He has also made it public knowledge that the company will take a look at business proposals from would-be partners.
10. Never loose a common touch.
Richard Branson’s ultimate gift is the common touch. He makes us feel as if he is one of us. More than just humility, Branson’s ability to mix with people of all walks of life sets him apart from just about every other business executive you will meet. It is the real secret to his enduring success – and popularity.
Here are the Branson lessons:
Listen to people – it’s the least practiced management skill of them all. The difference between Richard Branson and 99.9 percent of the people who run large businesses is that he treats people decently and listens to what they think.
Don’t let success go to your head – a sense of humor helps, so does being thrown into swimming pools by your staff on a regular basis. There is about Branson something of the Everyman figure. For no readily apparent reason, people seem to identify with him, believing he is like them.
Use your customers as consultants – they know their requirements better than the McKinseys and Bains of this world. Branson knows that the little things matter. It is a feature of all the Virgin products and services.
Treat everyone as an equal - Branson is more likely to be rude to the CEO of a multinational than a check-in clerk. What Branson has that others – businessmen, politicians and TV producers in particular – can only dream of is his finger on the pulse of the nation. He seems to speak for a large part of the population.
Be what people want you to be, and don’t let them down - Perhaps the appeal of Branson is that he is different things to different people. What is undeniable is that he has dazzled the British business scene for more than two decades in a way that no other entrepreneur ever has before.
Few Goodies at Last
Good qualities of any product:
it must be of the best quality
it must be innovative
it must be good value for money
it must be challenging to existing alternatives, and
it must add a sense of fun or cheekiness.
Branson’s 4 core competencies:
Ability to identify appropriate growth opportunities.
Ability to move quickly.
Willingness to give day-to-day management control to relatively small operating teams. Small team and informality.
Ability to create and manage joint ventures.
Other competencies (others say):
Ability to motivate people and push them to the limit.
Relentless and sometimes rutheless negotiation skills.