Catarina's World

“My wife loved George Clooney’s suggestion”, said Richard Branson and smiled.

Richard Branson personally advertisng his companies

Richard, as you know, is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. His Virgin Group today consist of 200 companies with 50,000 employees in more than 30 countries. Their combined revenue in 2008 was around 17 billion dollars. Not bad for a man who started out selling Six Pistols records at car boot sales in the 70s.

Richard’s advice to future entrepreneurs is, point one excluded, different from the usual advice about how to succeed as in building up a company:

1) Take calculated risks.”You have to really believe in what you are doing because if you start a project believing that it may fail, nine times out of ten it will”. “Cautious people don’t live life to the full”, Richard says and adds that he always tries to figure out what could go wrong and try to balance that out.

2) Challenge the big players “Make jokes at the big established companies expense and use humour and sex in your marketing. Launch yourself as a Robin Hood in ways that make the big players look silly”. How many of you would actually dare to do so? It’s not enough that the idea appeals to you, would you actually have the guts to go ahead with what he advices?

3) Failure doesn’t exist Act swiftly when something goes wrong. “Our capacity to promptly adapt to changes have enabled us to overcome most mistakes”, Richard says. “You have to quickly take responsibility for a venture that’s not working, change direction or wind it up”.

4) Be casual and easy going. Have fun and make sure your colleagues have as much fun as you do. Develop equanimity.

5) Don’t regret – move on. “People spend to much time thinking about what mistakes they have made instead of using their time and energy to start new projects. Failures are useful tools that enable success”.

6) Don’t employ yes sayers. “Find people who dare to stick out and have a mind of their own. They are much more value for money”.

7) Be a live advertisement for your company. Be a bit of a clown, have fun or you will not succeed. That’s the advise Richard Branson was given when he started Virgin Airlines with no money to spend on marketing. Someone added that he should make sure his name was on the front page of newspapers and not in the adverts.

Psychologists claim Richard Branson has the F factor – fame, fortune and fun. Many people want to identify with him, not least since he’s regarded as down to earth, honest and simple.

He is a person who does things his own way and not how “they teach you at Harvard business school”. Richard Branson is actually a high school drop out. His way of doing things goes against all the advice about how to become an entrepreneur you can find. So who’s right and who’s wrong? None of the people advising you how to succeed as an entrepreneur are as successful as Richard Branson is. Need I say more?

Have you got what it takes to go your own way as an entrepreneur, build up your company and succeed? Or do you know anyone who has? How many CEOs do you know that employ people they cannot control that have a mind of their own? Could you turn yourself into a live advertisement? What new and interesting fields have you found where you could become a new Richard Branson? Or maybe you have a better concept for succeeding than he has? Are you, after reading Richard Branson’s advice, ready to trade places with him? Or will you opt for a less challenging way of succeeding?

(Photo: Ourmedia)

Am amazed at the abundance of get rich quick schemes being peddled on the internet. Even in Linkedin groups. Do people really believe that people like Warren Buffett, Donald Trump and Richard Branson made fortunes by joining a get rich fast scheme?

Do people really believe the Warren Buffetts of this world became billionaires by joining a get rich scheme?

Every day you come across offers stating that by paying, for instance, $29.95 a month you will soon be earning a fortune. Not to mention spam emails promising all kinds of wonders for a fee.

It would be great if it was that simple, wouldn’t it? But unfortunately becoming a millionaire takes time and, as a rule, there is no such thing as getting rich swiftly.

Instant gratification is rare when you are building up a fortune. To succeed you have to be able to think long term. Failing that, it’s unlikely that you will ever become wealthy.

However, in today’s welfare society most people unfortunately want money for nothing. Actually even think they are entitled to it. No wonder the Madoffs of this world are so successful. The only thing achieved by most people paying for get-rich-schemes is make money for the owner of the scheme.

Well to do people understand that they are much more likely to strike it rich by understanding how money works as opposed to counting on luck. The odds of winning the lottery are much lower than when you invest prudently in, for instance, the financial markets. Even now, providing of course that you know what you are doing.

Few of us earn a fortune by only changing our time for money. You have to find ways to make your money work. Investing successfully is hence an important part of a millionaire’s success. But make no bones about it, it involves a lot of hard work.

Millionaires have learnt to think long term, save and rarely spend money on unnecessary things.

Learn how to make money work for you and make sound long term investments. Millionaires do what most people just think about. To strike it rich you have to act and have a long term plan.

The most difficult aspect may be to accept the importance of doing small things on a daily basis and not get rewarded until later in life. Once accepted, that’s what makes you spend less and start making sound investments even when you don’t have much to invest.

Look at the Chinese in general. Their main priority is saving. They work hard and I can’t help thinking of a street in London where there were two laundries next to each other. One run by Chinese and one by Brits. The Chinese worked 24/7 while the Brits stuck to business hours and were closed on Sundays. Needless to say it didn’t take long before the Brits were out of business while the Chinese kept on thriving.

Maybe what’s most alarming is that there is obviously a huge market for get rich schemes. There wouldn’t be so many offers available otherwise. Apparently people even give away the details of their bank accounts. Only to find that they have been robbed. Having said that the dishonest people peddling such schemes deserve nothing but contempt.

What do you do on a daily basis to increase your wealth? Are you making sound investments? Or are you hoping that luck will make you a millionaire swiftly?

(Photo: CNBC – Flickr)

It’s beginning to seem to me that we are making the art of succeeding as a leader too complicated. There are umpteen theories that all have one thing in common – they work for some and for others they don’t.

Would Virgin group be what it is today if Richard Branson hadn't mastered the art of communication?

Most people who suddenly find themselves in a leadership position swiftly realize that the top position is completely different from what they imagined. And worse, there is no manual.

There is no school for becoming a successful leader. New leaders frequently feel lonely since there are fewer people privy to high level information. It can be overwhelming. So much so that the fact that a leader’s success depends on communication is frequently forgotten.

Richard Branson is an excellent example of a very successful leader who masters the art of communication. To the extent of jumping from high buildings to get the attention needed to promote a new Virgin venture. Don’t think anybody would dispute how successful he is. But the confusion caused by all these theories and schools of leadership actually led one guy straight out of university to have the audacity to make a comment in a discussion on Linkedin that he had a lot to teach Richard Branson. Indeed? What are the odds of he, or anybody else, becoming as successful a leader as Richard is? Pretty slim, I’d say considering that very few ever become as successful as Richard Branson is. And the success of Virgin is very much down to Richard’s exceptionally good ability to communicate.

The tasks of a leader is, simply put, to vision where a company is heading (strategies, future accomplishments, managing the destiny of the organisation and so forth), find the people the organisation needs to fulfil it’s vision, make choices and take decisions. Leaders also have to continuously serve, learn, correct, evaluate and motivate.

And how are you going to succeed with all that if you don’t master the art of communication ? Both internally and externally it’s the most powerful tool a leader has. It’s crucial to communicate with others about trends that affect the future of your business and stretch your thoughts by discussing your ideas with friends, associates and other great thinkers.

Ideas are an extremely powerful force. By communicating ideas to people you engage their minds and help them see new possibilities and new opportunities. Strong and evocative ideas energize people and incite action. As leaders, our ideas are important. Leaders need clear ideas and philosophies about how to win in the marketplace, how their organisation should operate and how to develop their people.

Leaders succeed because they are able to focus and deal with the 5% of issues that are crucial, build support and create followers, put out fires fast and finish what they started. How would that be possible without communicating? Especially since many decisions are instant so a non-communicative leader would fail miserably.

Successful leaders spend much more time communicating their decision than actually taking the decision. Lots of time is also spent on coaching and motivating others. And, tedious as it can be, repeating the decision to get maximum effect. But despite that most people wrongly believe leaders spend most of their time making decisions. Leaders who only take decisions will fail miserably since communication is the key ingredient. Not communicating enough is hence the main reason for failure and not, as many believe, that they were following the wrong theory. And don’t forget that leaders live in the future so the more your communication enlightens you about tomorrow the better a leader you will be!

(Photo: Flickr linniekin)