Like a Virgin: Secrets They Won't Teach You at Business School

BUSINESS PHILOSOPHY

I thought it would be helpful to answer a few more of the interesting questions I am asked on my travels.

Three gems come to mind. First, an enduring one from my mother, Eve, who always taught me never to look back in regret but to move on to the next thing. The amount of time people waste dwelling on failures rather than putting that energy into another project always amazes me. My mother also told me not to openly criticise other people. If she heard me speaking ill of someone, she would make me stand in front of the mirror for five minutes and stare at myself. Her reasoning? All my critical talk was a poor reflection on my own character.

In the 1980s Sir Freddie Laker, the British airline tycoon, gave me a great piece of advice on setting up my own airline. He told me two key things: ‘You’ll never have the advertising power to outmarket British Airways. You are going to have to get out there and sell yourself. Make a fool of yourself, whatever it takes. Otherwise you won’t survive.’ He also wisely said: ‘Make sure you appear on the front page and not the back pages.’ I’ve followed that advice ever since. I’ve been very visible and made a fool of myself on more than a couple of occasions!

I’d never embarrass the person who gave it by revealing that, but they know who they are! Look, advice comes in many forms. I believe in never asking just one person but in getting as much feedback as possible. Opinions always vary. By asking several people what they think, you get many angles and can weigh them all. This way, you are never considering just one person’s opinion, so no one piece of advice is ever truly bad.

To remember that it is impossible to run a business without taking risks. Virgin would not be the company it is today if we had not taken risks along the way. You really do have to believe in what you are doing. Devote yourself to it 100 per cent and be prepared to take a few hits along the way. If you go into something expecting it to fail, nine times out of ten it will.

Above all, remember to have fun with it. That keeps you and your colleagues enthusiastic and motivated. One of my favourite sayings (which happens, I believe, to be one of my own!) sums this up: ‘The brave may not live forever – but the cautious do not live at all!’

One of the first times I strapped on a pair of skis the instructor told me, ‘If you’re not prepared to fall a lot you’ll never learn to be a very good skier.’ As an entrepreneur the same rule applies. You have to learn very quickly that there’s no such thing as a total failure.

Looking back on Virgin’s history, our ability to adapt quickly to changes has helped mitigate reverses. You must be quick to accept that something is not going well and either change tack or close the business. We run our companies lean and small with very little red tape and certainly no bureaucracy. Using our mantra ‘Screw it, let’s do it’ we invariably make and implement decisions quickly – usually before our competitors have held their fifth meeting on the same issue.

Though I believe in taking risks, I also firmly believe in ‘protecting the downside’. This means working out in advance all the things that could go wrong and making sure you have all those eventualities covered. We have come close to failure many times and most true entrepreneurs skirt close to it. We almost failed when Virgin was in its infancy and again in the early 1980s. Similarly I have nearly killed myself more than once while failing to achieve world records for boating or ballooning. But through a combination of luck and planning, both Virgin and I are still here.

There are always things in life that you might regret, and there are probably a lot of business decisions I regret – but I try not to dwell on them. I move on to more positive things.

The one missed opportunity that does rankle still was our failure to land the rights to operate the United Kingdom’s national lottery. Our proposal was to run a not-for-profit game, with 100 per cent of the money going to good causes. Although we were granted the licence, the incumbent Camelot cleverly resorted to the courts to delay the process and the Commission handed the keys back to them, rather than face the prospect of no lottery at all for the few weeks it would have taken the courts to sort it out.

We have since moved on and set up Virgin Unite, our foundation, to act as a catalyst to helping others and to galvanise our companies into action. Unite has been crucial in helping us establish the Elders and the Carbon War Room, initiatives aimed at solving conflict and helping to combat climate change.

And, finally, I am often asked: are you a man of habits?

Well, yes, there are a few, but I am certainly not going to put them in writing. I guess, however, being a serial entrepreneur could be described as a pretty big habit!