- He's a businessman,
investor, and is involved in over 400 companies. He takes on big companies,
breaks the rules, and likes to go after world records. He's worth an estimated $4.9 billion. He's Richard Branson. - And here are his top
10 rules for success. (swooshing) - I mean, I am dyslexic and therefore I think I've been very good at keeping things simple because, yeah, as a dyslexic
I need things to be simple for myself, and therefore Virgin, I think, when we launch a financial
service company or a bank we do not use jargon,
everything is very clear cut, very simple, and I think
people have an affinity to the Virgin brand because
we don't talk above them or talk down to them. I mean, I think that lots of
people do not have the courage to try to start a business. And all I would say about it, I've written the book
called Screw It Just Do It, and it basically is
trying to say to people, just give it a try. Actually sometimes a very,
very small amount of money is all that's needed to start a company. My mother found a bracelet on the street and she handed it in
to the police station, and after three months
the police let her sell it and the couple of hundred
dollars was really critical at a critical time in the
development of our business. So all I say is just give it a go and good luck with that one. That I think the most important thing about running a company is to remember all the
time what a company is. A company is simply a group of people, and as a leader of people you
have to be a great listener, you have to be a great motivator, you have to be very good at praising and looking for the best in people. People are no different from flowers, if you water flowers they flourish, if you praise people they flourish, and that's the critical
attribute of a leader. You know, there is a very
thin dividing line between success and failure when you
start a business from scratch and if you don't have enough
money to pay the bills you go the wrong side
of that dividing line, and if you can somehow get
enough money to pay the bills you stay the right side
of that dividing line. You know, I've always been
running, either running faster than perhaps I should, and
I have great difficulty saying no to things so I
keep on taking on new things, and we've just managed
to stay the right side of the dividing line over the
last 50 years of business, but equally in those early days when you're starting a
business without any financial backing, it's easy to slip the wrong side, and, in fact, most entrepreneurs
do slip the wrong side and the important thing is
then just pick yourself up and start again, and if it
doesn't work at that time then keep going until you do succeed, and not to give up. I think the next stage is
to be a great delegator and not try and do everything yourself. 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 are
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 off and think about the next big picture. You know, 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. You know, the moment you've
got more than one business you can't be hands on doing everything. I don't actually think that the stereotype of a businessperson
treading away with people to get to the top,
generally speaking, works. I think if you treat people well people will come back for more. And it's a very small world. I actually think that
the best way of becoming a successful business leader
is dealing with people fairly and well, and I'd like to think that's how we run Virgin. I love learning, I've never actually thought
I was starting a company as such, I just saw situations
as I traveled in life where I felt I could improve on the way things that have been
done by other people. So, one of my favorite phrases
is screw it let's do it, and I've used that phrase a lot of times. And we just love going in and trying to shake up industries and doing it better than it's been done before. Yeah, when we launched
Virgin Atlantic 30 years ago the New York Times did a
review, and they did some market research and they said, first of all, with a name like Virgin it's not going to go the whole way. (everyone laughing) But secondly, they did
market research where it said only seven percent of people would fly on a airline called Virgin,
and we put our hands up and said, seven percent
would be just fine, and so we carried on with it, but there were a lot of skeptics out there and there always will be lots of skeptics when you want to start something new. Everybody will tell you
why it's a bad idea, why you shouldn't do it,
why you'll lose everything you've got, and in the end
you just got to at them and try to prove them
wrong, but good luck. I think the word business, it becomes a business, but
what you're doing is you're painting a picture, you're trying to create something to make a difference in other people's lives,
you have a blank canvas and you're filling in every
little bit of that canvas to get every single little detail right, and if that canvas sings
out at you at the end and it's a beautiful
picture, your business is going to be successful. If bits of the canvas are not quite right, your business may fail. So if you set out to change people's lives you've got to get every
single little detail right, you got to make sure that
the people that you're working with 100% believe
in what you're trying to do and you got to make sure
that what you're trying to do is worthwhile spending your time on, and in the end of the day
you want to be sure that the people's lives you've affected, you've really bettered
it, you've affected them and benefited them, and
if you get all that right hopefully you'll be able to pay the bills at the end of the year. - [Man] I would say the
overarching and key thing that really binds the group
together is the idea of not just playing the game,
but changing it for good. I think Richard embodies
the principles better than anyone I've ever worked
with and anybody that I know because he's very focused on the business, on starting new businesses, on making sure that he's
got the right people in the businesses, but also
on doing things differently and really changing the game. I think that it's the combination of those that sets him apart as
the great entrepreneur of his generation. - Thank you guys for
watching, I made this video because Arlene D. asked me to, so if there's a famous
entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave
it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know
which of Richard Branson's top 10 rules you like the most. Leave it in the comments and I'm going to join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. - Continue to believe. - And we'll see you soon. (laughs) (swooshing)
