(slow music) - I love creating things, and you know, if I feel that something could be done better, I will
step in and try to do it. - Richard Branson's top
nine rules for success. You see, there are many
entrepreneurs that I study, that I follow, and Richard
Branson is one of my heroes. Not just because he is a billionaire, but he's the only
entrepreneur in the world that has built 12, not one, not two, 12 billion dollar companies
in eight different sectors. I want you to think about this. Just to build, forget
$100 million company, a billion dollar company, in one sector, that is already extremely
difficult in someone's lifetime. To build 12 different companies
in eight different sectors, to be able to do that,
just think about it, how innovative he has to be, how good he has to be as an entrepreneur. So today, I wanna share with
you his top rules for success. - At an early age, I mean I
didn't know I was dyslexic at the time, but I'm
dyslexic, and therefore, when I went off to school, I found conventional school work hopeless. In an IQ test, I would
turn them upside down, and you know, whichever way I turn them, I couldn't, couldn't make sense of them. I decided at a very young
age that I needed to get out of this environment and
carve my own way in life. - So same thing when Richard Branson has learning disability,
where it's difficult for him to learn and
maybe the school system label him a certain way and
probably not labeling him as you're gonna be super
successful and be a billionaire. Same thing with me when
I first came to Canada. I was a C student. I wasn't one of those people
that had a good education or that had a good resume. In fact, I never ever
graduated from college. I never went to university. So that's just me. There's a saying is, C
students, the students that don't do particularly well in school, they are the ones who go out
there and build companies and they are the
entrepreneurs and eventually the B students and A
students end up working actually for the C
students, that happens too. So don't let that hold you back. Just because someone
labels you a certain way or you don't do well in school. And comment below if you
are not an A student. That's perfectly fine. I didn't do that well in school. Richard didn't do that well in school. - To become an entrepreneur is not easy. Ans a a lot of people who
try to become entrepreneurs, they fail along the way, but good ones pick themselves up and they try again, they try again, until they succeed. You know, what an entrepreneur
needs to do first of all is come up with an idea that will make a positive difference
to other people's lives. And if you've got, if you've
got an idea that's gonna make a positive difference
to other people's lives, you've got a chance of
building a business. And then you need to get a
great group of people around you who believe in what you're trying to do. And then you need to just say, screw it, let's do it and get on and try it. - You see, as an entrepreneur, it's not about you being
just knowing everything and you'll be able to do everything. No, first you gotta have a good idea, like Richard Branson said. Then you might have a
chance, not guarantee, but you might have a chance for success. Here's my definition of an entrepreneur. I believe an entrepreneur is a person with a vision who
orchestrates other people's time, money, resources, and talents, to make his or her vision real. Ponder on that. - You know, somebody came
along to the magazine with a tape, and I love the music, didn't have a record
company, sent him to lots of other record companies,
nobody would sign him, and so I decided to form a
little record company around him. And his name was Mike Oilfield, his album is called Tubular Bells, and it did well, so that was the start of our record company. - I could so relate to this. I remember when I was a copywriter. At first I was struggling to get clients, because I was so young, I
was 20 somewhat years old, and with my thick accent and you know, average English, and it
wasn't easy to get clients. And I thought to myself what could I do to elevate, to take me to the next level? A little bit faster,
because I need to make money to pay off my debt and
also to support my mom. And I was talking with
other more seasonal, more experienced copywriters, back then, and they were all telling
me the same thing. Well, Dan, just, you gotta pay the dues. You gotta write for a
lot of people for free for many many years, and then eventually, maybe after 10 years,
you'll be able to charge what we charge, which is maybe, could be five, $10,000 per client. I was charging a few
hundred dollars per client. So I thought to myself,
that's not very good. I don't have that much time. What could I do? I need to ignore conventional wisdom. Instead of taking the
stairs, I want an elevator. Where's the elevator button? I wanna find what is the shortcut? What could I do to accelerate my progress? So I came up with the idea, I put together a little product, a little program called Million Dollar Marketing Secrets of the World's Greatest Copywriters. I know it's a long title. It's not a good title. I was 20 somewhat years old, okay? So give me a break here. But that's the best title I
could come up with at the time. And here's what I did. I interviewed some of the best copywriters on the planet at the time. And I was in my one bedroom apartment, and the way that I would record it is through a little cassette tape player. That's correct, not mp3,
not Skype, not Zune, cassette tape player. One of those. And I would record it
and because I didn't have any recording device, this is
how I recorded the interview. So I approach them, and I
have my phone, landline, and have my recorder like this. So if I interview them for like an hour, that's the whole interview. Now, just to make sure,
because my voice is too loud when I record this way, I would
do the interview like this. For an hour, just like that. And I interviewed 18, 19 of them. I put together this into a product. I was a nobody. I was doing this interview
in my one bedroom apartment, living with my mom. But when I approach some of these big, some of the biggest copywriters
and marketers on the planet, they didn't say no, no one question me, no one was asking me
why, how it's gonna work. I just ask. Instead of giving them a business card, I would give them this
package of cassette tapes. And I would say, hey, this is a program. You can listen to the interviews I did with other successful copywriters and they charge a whole lot of money. Could be 10, $15,000 per campaign. I only charge 3,000, 4,000. And boom, right there, it's
branding by association. And then I built my career from them on, stacking your success. So initially, maybe you're
starting from scratch. Maybe you don't have a lot of resources. It's not about resources, it's
not about having resources, it's about being resourceful. - I'm willing to double down maybe more than I recommend to other people. But there have been
occasions where I've got my wife to sign this bit of paper and she hasn't read, I said the house has been put on the line for
the next business venture. - I think that as an
entrepreneur, a lot of people, they think entrepreneurs,
we take crazy risk. And Richard Branson, obviously,
he takes a lot of risk. I used to take a lot more
risk, but as I have matured, as I'm a little bit now wiser, a little bit more experienced
as an entrepreneur, we still take a lot of risk,
but we take calculated risk. Meaning, before we do
anything, we are not so blinded by our own ego where we just, okay, you know what, I put
everything on the line. We've done that a few times. But then, as you become more successful, now you're not just
looking at the bright side or what's the upside, the first question that I ask is, what's the downside? What's the risk involved? What happens if it doesn't work? What would be the consequences? And can I live with those consequences? So I think we need to, as an entrepreneur, to expect the best, but
also prepare for the worst. - Never use the I word. I mean it's, you know, you're team. We're doing this, we're doing that. This never ever let it
sort of censoring yourself. And just be a great leader of people. I think that is one of the
most important qualities of an entrepreneur and as leadership. And leadership is not easily taught. It's not something that you
can just read from a book. And there are many many
leadership books out there, but what Richard Branson
is talking about it's, there's no I in leadership. It's we, how we do it together as a team. So even with Team Dan Lok, with my brand, although it's my name, but really, Team Dan Lok is not me. The team, Team Dan Lok
is us, is my entire team, my organization, it's my entire team. Every single person has their roles so that I could do what I do. I play a part in it,
but every other members within my team plays a very
very important role as well. - The absolute key is how
good you are with people. If you, if you genuinely
care about people, if you can surround
yourself with people that, genuinely excited about what you're doing, if you can draw out the best in people, if you're good at
lavishing praise on people and not criticizing your people
and inspiring your people. That's something you just
have to do from day one. - Easy to say, not easy to do. I think part of leadership,
it's that the ability to influence, but also to inspire others. It's easy to just, if you have good people and you work with good people
and we want good people, but sometimes how do you
inspire good people to be great when they don't even
believe in themselves? As a leader, how do you
instill that believe in them? How do you let them know
that you believe in them even more than they believe in themselves? That's leadership. That's how you inspire,
that's how you empower. 'Cause I was a control freak in the early stage of my career. I was what I call a rugged individualist. It's, if it's my way, or
there's the high ways, you want something done,
you gotta do it yourself. And I didn't trust other people. I didn't believe that they
could do it better than me, I didn't believe they
would care like I do. And that limited my
company's growth back then. Versus now, that I have this amazing team that it is about people
and then we bring on so many people, I'm counting on my people, and very often in almost all cases, they could do what they do way better than I could do, like their job, no way. I just, I don't know how to do it. Because that's their expertise. That's their passion. That's what they're good at. I know what I'm good at and I focus on the four, three or four
core competencies that I have. So I could focus what I
call my song of genius. I just focus on what my, what
things that I'm brilliant at. The things that I'm not good at, the things that I'm maybe even average at, I would delegate those to my team. - It was a bit like selling a child. I told the staff, burst into tears, ran down back towards my house with tears streaming down my face. You passed this sign
that said Branson sells for a billion dollars, and I
realize life wasn't that bad. People said at the time we were mad to sell the record company, to put the money into an airline. As it turns out, of course
the record industry's collapsed and the airline industry hasn't done too badly for us. - I love how humble he is. Well, you know, most
would think like that, and the record industry collapse, and hasn't done so bad. He built a billion dollar company. Oh yeah it hasn't done so bad. He's so humble, but as an entrepreneur, I think there's an underlying lesson there to be able to see a
little bit further ahead, to know that, okay, what I have is good, where you don't wanna
sell in a down market, you're gonna sell at an up
market, right, as a company. So you wanna think about, okay,
if whatever I'm doing now, maybe the technology might be obsolete, or what about the need in a market place? What about consumer's behaviors? Are there any changes? You need to predict. You need to be able to see
just a little bit further. You don't wanna be reactive when these changes happen, right? You don't want to be like
panicking when these thing happen. You wanna just see a little further ahead, especially now, nowadays with
technology changes like that. You need to see two, three, five years, where things are gonna be. And that's the way I see it. The way I see my business,
the way I see my organization, it's what is going to make us obsolete? What is gonna destroy us? What is going to take us out of business? I want to know and I wanna see, and if I know there's
something that is going to disrupt what I do, guess what I do? If I know there's something
that is gonna kill the business, I want to be the one that
kills me own business. Meaning, I wanna be the
one who is a disruptor. I wanna think ahead. I wanna think two, three,
five, 10 years ahead. So that I want to be there first, so I don't need to wait,
just like Blockbusters and Netflix, very good example. Blockbuster didn't see how Internet, how video streaming would
disrupt the industry. They thought they are in the video rental, or game rental business, when in fact, they're in the entertainment business. And where consumers are going, how they're consuming content, how they want to consume content, the executives of
Blockbusters don't see that. I don't wanna do that. I wanna see, that is what's
gonna put us out of business. I want to be the one who
puts us out of business and we invent my business
model every few years. Every few years. That's how I see it. - You know, if you wanna
be a true entrepreneur and build a lot of different businesses, you've got to be a great delegator. Try to find people who are better than you all the time, try to find
people who are better than you to put you out of business effectively. So whatever you're spending
all your day doing, try to find someone who's
better than you to do that, to replace you at it,
so that you can go often think about the next big picture. An entrepreneur is not a manager. An entrepreneur is somebody who is great at conceiving ideas, starting ideas, building ideas, but then handing over to really good managers
to manage the businesses. - I am not a micromanager. I'm a visionary. I think of ideas, I come up with ideas, but I need implementers
within my business, managers, to execute my mission. But I'm the creative type. So I'm very very clear
that's what I'm good at as an entrepreneur, like
Richard Branson said. You are always thinking
about and expect idea, right? And then you're thinking about
where the company's going. You're not necessarily the one
that's doing the day to day. In the beginning, when you are
running a smaller business, you have to be doing everything. You are the janitor,
you are the bookkeeper, you are the salesperson,
you are the accounting, you are the legal,
you're doing everything. But as you grow, you
have a team around you and you have to learn how to delegate. I believe at first, as you
grow, you're doing everything. At first, maybe you wanna delegate things that you're not good at. Things that you're terrible at, which those should not be difficult to find people to help you out with that. Guess why? You're terrible at it, right? And then later on, you can delegate things that you are maybe average at, things that you are average, and then later, you delegate things that you are good at, that you're actually pretty good, you have some experience. You've been doing this for a while now, you have some skillsets. And then later on, you delegate what you're actually great at. And these might be then
things that actually took your company from
this point to this point. But if you wanna go from here to there, so you go from here,
here, and if you're there, you need to then delegate
even what you're great at. You wanna find people who
are even better than you. So then you only focus on
the vision and you focus on what you're brilliant, brilliant at, meaning only you can do
that no one else can do, which is setting the
vision for the company, finding good people,
attracting good people, allocate your resources, raising capital, developing, establishing those
high level relationships. Those things, as a CEO,
you cannot delegate. - How many Virgin brands? I think we have about 350
Virgin brands around the world. We suddenly realized we actually have something which is something
we've got to protect and we've got to nurture. The brand is, ultimately
is what Virgin's all about. I wasn't thinking, right, let's just take this brand into lots of different areas. I just felt we can do
better in health clubs, we can do better in mobile phone business. We want Virgin to be a company
which we could be proud of, but we, more to the point,
we want Virgin to be the greatest force of a
good company in the world and making a real difference in the world. And that's something that everybody who works for Virgin
can be really proud of. - I think we all have a primary question that drives us every single day. As an employee, maybe the
primary question you have is when am I gonna get my
check, or how many vacations I wanna take a year, or
how I'm gonna pay my bills. Every single person has a primary question that you play, it's almost like a CD, you play it in the back of your mind, that you ask yourself these questions, sometimes consciously,
sometimes unconsciously every single day. But I think as an entrepreneur, you notice Richard Branson said it many many times. Was his primary driving question? Comment below, see if you know. It's the same question that I
ask myself every single day, and that is how can I make it better. That's what drives us. 'Cause that's our obsession. Whatever we do, we see at industry, we see something, we see
something within the company, we see something within our people, how can we make it better? It could be just a little
5%, 10%, here and there, but how can we make it better? And as other people thought,
or you cannot make it better than that, then we ask, how
can we even make that better? How can we make it better? That's what drives us. And I believe that's
what drives entrepreneur. They see something, a product, a service, a need in the marketplace
that's not being fulfilled, that doesn't meet their standard. They say, hey, I can do better than that. I can create something better than that. I can fulfill the need better than that. And they go and execute and then put together a team of people. That's what entrepreneur,
that's what entrepreneur does. That's all entrepreneur does. So primary question, how
can I make something better? So those are the top
nine rules for success for Richard Branson. If you like this video,
make sure you comment below. If there are other people
that you would like me to make a video on, kind of like this, sharing their rules of
success and my perspective and my insights from my point of view, comment below, put in
their name, and let me now. Until then, I'll see
you in the next video.
