Fun & Famous

7 THINGS MAY HAS LEARNED FROM RICHARD BRANSON

On Tuesday evening, I was at the Ziggo Dome for an inspiration session with the overarching theme of sustainability. Now, I missed that theme with three of the four speakers. One, Richard Branson, was the director of an airline, the other, Anita Elberse, researched the ingredients of success, and the third, Bear Grylls, climbed Mount Everest, which is not very sustainable and, in my opinion, somewhat pointless, but okay. Who am I: a bag-consuming monster, also not really useful. But hey, I don't pretend to be sustainable or really useful either.

Maybe not necessarily promoting sustainability, but it was inspiring nonetheless. Especially Sir Richard Branson, who was masterfully questioned by Eva Jinek. And this, dear people, is what you can take away from his life story.

1. Be happy with your limitations

Richard Branson is dyslexic, a limitation that was not yet recognized at the time. He was bullied at the boarding school he attended and was blamed for everything, which led him to drop out of school at a young age. So far, not very joyful news, but the good thing is that he had nothing to lose, wanted to show the world that he was not crazy, and thirdly, he could think disruptively. The beaten path did not work for him, which is why he could look at things fresh and differently.

2. Screw it, just do it

Branson was already the big man behind Virgin Records (which he spontaneously set up by importing albums and selling them in stores where there were cushions and you could smoke marijuana) when he wanted to take a flight to a tropical island where his girlfriend was waiting for him. The flight was delayed by nine hours, and he could not afford that delay because he hadn't seen the girlfriend in question for three weeks. So he booked a private plane, humorously wrote Virgin Atlantic on it, and made it on time to see his girl. The next day, he called Boeing to ask if they had any planes for sale because he thought that would be nice, an airline. “Screw it, just do it.” That is his motto.

3. Make sure you are different

If you are going to do something that already exists, you need to make sure you are different. There were already enough airlines. But there was no fun airline, like Virgin. That’s why he made bars in his planes, called the business class the upper class, and they had funny salt and pepper shakers. The latter were stolen so much that his financial director said they should replace them with something more boring. To which Branson replied: ‘Of course not! We’ll put underneath: ‘Pinched from Virgin Airlines’ and so there will be advertising for our airline on every dining table where the ‘stolen goods’ are placed.” And for a tight marketing action, this was very cheap. By the way, we think KLM is also wonderfully keeping up with the times, all thanks to this.

Branson also once launched Virgin Cola. Not a success. Why? There was already Pepsi, there was already Coca Cola, and both had much more power in this industry. Aside from a can of nice cola, he had nothing extra to add, so that didn’t work.

4. Hire people who are better than you

Then you can be sure that your company is in the best hands, and you can make new plans.

5. Promote people from within

From receptionist to cleaner; if you see that people have qualities, train them and promote them. This way, you have the most loyal employees who really know your company well.

6. Work from home

If you want someone else to run your company as if it were his/her own, you need to stay out of the way. Otherwise, that person will always want to act from your mindset or come to you for advice. Let go and really give that person a chance. You hired someone who is better than you, so it will be fine.

7. Stay in the picture

Of course, Branson also thought it was a fun idea to cross the ocean in a hot air balloon, but he mainly did it as a marketing stunt. If you are in the picture, people remain interested. His wife, by the way, thought it was a less good idea and clearly stated that if he were to die during one of these actions, she would not attend his funeral.