Branson - Like a Virgin: Secrets They Wont Teach You at Business School

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group. He was born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School, where he set up Student magazine when he was sixteen years old. In 1970 he founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer and shortly afterward opened a record shop on Londons Oxford Street. Two years later the company built a recording studio and Virgin Records went on to become one of the top six record companies in the world.

Since then, Virgin Group has expanded to encompass more than four hundred companies in over thirty countries. Branson is the only person in the world to have built eight billion-dollar companies from scratch in eight different sectors. Through the Virgin Groups charitable arm, Unite, he is working to develop new approaches to social and environmental problems.

Bransons autobiography, Losing My Virginity, and his books on business, Business Stripped Bare, Screw Business As Usual, and Screw It, Lets Do It, are all international bestsellers. He lives on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands and is married with two grown-up children.

Like A Virgin

Secrets They wont Teach
You at Business School

PORTFOLIO/PENGUIN

PORTFOLIO/PENGUIN

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in the United Kingdom by Virgin Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing 2012

First published in the United States of America by Portfolio/Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2012

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Copyright Richard Branson, 2012

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-101-60317-8

Printed in the United States of America

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ALWAYS LEARNING

PEARSON

Business schools are wonderful places and yet, in hindsight, I am thankful I never went to one-assuming that is that any of them would have had me!

The simple fact is that formal education and I were never really meant for each other. I suffered from an acute combination of dyslexia and what I suppose would nowadays be diagnosed as attention deficit disorder. When I went to Stowe School in the sixties however, I was simply regarded as an inattentive and troublesome student. As a result I think everyone from the headmaster down was probably rather relieved when I decided to drop out and pursue my dream (at that time) of publishing my own magazine.

Had I pursued my education long enough to learn all the conventional dos and donts of starting a business I often wonder how different my life and career might have been.

Although the word was allegedly first coined in the nineteenth century, I certainly had no idea when I started my magazine and subsequent mail-order record businesses that I was also displaying some quite marked symptoms of something called entrepreneurship.

While the word would have meant nothing to me then, it has since become pretty much the core of everything I have done for the last forty-plus years. The Virgin group of companies has grown in some weird and wonderful ways that even I dont always quite understand. Sometimes I wonder if the fact I was never indoctrinated into the correct way of doing something is why, come what may, I seldom have trouble sleeping at night.

I talk a lot in the articles I hope you are about to read about the important role I believe entrepreneurs have to play in this world. The creative juices that lead to entrepreneurs starting and reviving businesses not only create employment but also help tackle some of the many challenges facing our communities, society and the planet.

Entrepreneurs are innately curious people. This must be why I receive loads of mail from people all around the world asking all manner of questions on doing business Like a Virgin. The following pages are a blend of responses to questions I have received, as well as an assortment of my written ramblings that have appeared in various publications around the world.

The people who contact me tend to be looking for advice on everything from starting a new business to closing an old one, from hiring people to firing them and the fun part everything else in between. Given my well-known focus on business always being enjoyable and fun, the boundary between my work and my personal life does sometimes tend to blur a little: so too do the questions I receive!

As I have never worked for anyone, this book is written through the eyes of a founder. However, the advice is pertinent for anyone faced with the challenges of working in a business or company.

Just recently in London a British interviewer asked me a great many short questions about both my work and my personal life; so by way of introduction to whats to follow, these were some of the more interesting exchanges:

Q: Whats the first thing you think of when you wake up?

A:Like most people, I think about the time! Often followed by What country am I in?

Q: Which single word gets you out of bed in the morning?

A:Its three actually, Richard. Stop that! in my wifes Glaswegian accent.

Q: Which is your favourite band?

A:Okay, Im biased but it has to be the Sex Pistols and Mike Oldfield, who were both the genesis of Virgin Records oh yes and Genesis, too.

Q: Which was the first record you bought?

A:Im embarrassed to say, I think it was Cliff Richards Summer Holiday.

Q: Best country you have visited?

A:Tough call, but probably Australia. I just love the Aussies zest for life a wonderful, vibrant country.

Q: Favourite country?

A:Much as I adore living in the British Virgin Islands it has to be the UK. Its been very kind to me over the years.