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If you’re going to fail, fail well ? it simply means success is just around the corner.<\/p>\n
The Collective Magazine looked to Britain\u2019s brilliant business tycoon Sir Richard Branson for a few cunning and shrewd tricks and how to\u2019s.<\/p>\n
So you\u2019ve failed. The big idea, with all its hopes and expectation, is toast. On the shrinking perimeter of your dreams, creditors encroach; your phone\u2019s ringtone is switched to silent.<\/p>\n
Congratulations. The doorway to opportunity beckons.<\/p>\n
Think not? Think again.<\/p>\n
For the true entrepreneur, only the ruination of a painstakingly conceived plan will reveal the key to starting anew.<\/p>\n
Like the 19th-century anarchists who believed order only emerges from earth well scorched, a genuine opportunist knows there is no better time to demonstrate their creative agility than when the landscape of their vision is smoldering with post-apocalyptic promise. And there are few who rise phoenix-like from the ashes of an abject flop with the panache or consistency of Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, who never lets a failure pass without turning it into a stunning commercial reversal. Or at least ensuring that is how it\u2019s perceived.<\/p>\n
By the time Branson turned 30, the sultan of self-promotion had lost millions investing in pubs, shops and film production. Shackled by debt, Sir Richard\u2019s bankers revolted. Sell assets or declare bankruptcy they demanded. But the faux-hippy son of a Surrey stockbroker was not easily intimidated. He turned instead to the independent controllers of his offshore trusts, persuading them to provide the guarantees necessary to obtain a \u00a31 million loan from the Bank of Nova Scotia (commonly known as Scotiabank).<\/p>\n
Crisis averted. Confidence returned like the rising sun, along with a renewed enthusiasm among formerly sceptical lenders to finance his next loopy venture. Call it luck, call it genius, whatever it was, the cavalier restoration of imperilled credit was to become a Sir Richard Branson hallmark. For the bearded epitome of Cool Britannia, failure merely signalled that it was time to roll the dice again.<\/p>\n
But what can aspiring entrepreneurs take from Sir Richard\u2019s brush with debt delinquency?<\/p>\n
Perhaps the first lesson is that the sooner one\u2019s ambitions are financed with other people\u2019s money the better. While borrowing carries risks, embarking underfunded seems, to Britain\u2019s bearded business magnate, counterintuitive.<\/p>\n
In a YouTube video \u2013 one of dozens featuring the Virgin boss expounding on the topics of business and success, management and marketing \u2013 he says this: \u201cThere is a very thin dividing line between success and failure and most people who set up a business without financial backing, fail.\u201d<\/p>\n
The message is clear. No matter how successful, you are always on the precipice, so best get used to living with vertigo. Sir Richard certainly has.<\/p>\n
In 1994, he launched Virgin Cola, claiming it would sell 1 billion cans per year. He never came even close, even when he ordered the product to be sold in a bottle designed around the feminine dimensions of Pamela Anderson.<\/p>\n
But when the time came to extract Virgin from its partnership with the firm manufacturing his cola, Sir Richard had the last laugh, disputing every clause of the signed contract, playing hardball and finalising the divorce on advantageous terms.<\/p>\n
Similarly, his foray into financial services with Norwich Union lasted a year and ended in acrimony but his investment in Virgin Direct as it was branded was essentially rescued by Australian insurance giant AMP, which made an ultimately ill-judged decision to buy 50 per cent for \u00a3450 million.<\/p>\n
This is not to imply that the tycoon has always had a parachute or lifejacket handy. When Sir Richard bought MGM\u2019s UK cinema chain in partnership with Texas Pacific Group, the business mogul inspected the actual premises only after handing over the money!<\/p>\n
In June 1996, Sir Richard gave the green light to the creation of Victory Corporation, a holding company intended to produce jeans and cosmetics. Virgin paid \u00a31000 for 11 per cent. Sir Richard\u2019s business partner stumped up \u00a33 million for 89 per cent and was charged with raising an additional \u00a345 million from other investors.<\/p>\n
At the 11th hour the additional funding deal fell through, forcing Victory to seek a share market listing on London\u2019s AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market). Sold to investors through an IPO at 58 pence each, the shares debuted at 52 pence. By August 1998, they were less than 10 pence.<\/p>\n
Then there was Virgin Trains, which bought, and lost, on the cross-channel rail operator Eurostar and two franchises to operate rail routes in the UK.<\/p>\n
The reality was that in the mid- to late-1990s, of all Sir Richard\u2019s myriad businesses, only two were making money \u2013 his airline and Virgin Radio, both of which relied on monopoly franchises awarded by the government.
\nBut Sir Richard\u2019s confidence and chutzpah can do things with reality that Einstein might\u2019ve envied. His incessant accusations about Virgin Atlantic\u2019s rival British Airways (BA) using its monopoly power, market share and dirty tricks to prevent him bringing competition to the skies have been overwhelmingly successful. A gnat to British Airways\u2019 eagle, the entrepreneurial mastermind has nonetheless dealt Virgin Atlantic into the kind of bargaining position a much larger airline would\u2019ve envied.<\/p>\n
The result of his hectoring and guile is the carving out, by politicians, of a duopoly at London\u2019s Heathrow airport to admit Virgin Atlantic at the expense of BA. Like all good business leaders, Sir Richard never underestimates the capacity of legislators to be sold a good story. Nor does he underestimate the importance of the key people around him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing in running a company is to remember a company is a group of people,\u201d he says in a Big Think video, adding: \u201cPeople are like flowers.\u201d He goes on to say if you water flowers they flourish and praise has the same effect on the people around you.<\/p>\n
Of course, the true Bransonian response \u2013 be it success or failure \u2013 is to \u2018say it with bikinis\u2019 and have a damn good time. It seems that the toothy tycoon has coped with his myriad failures by never accepting they can or should derail his dreams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you’re going to fail, fail well ? it simply means success is just around the corner. The Collective Magazine looked to Britain\u2019s brilliant business tycoon Sir Richard Branson for a few cunning and shrewd tricks and how to\u2019s. So you\u2019ve failed. The big idea, with all its hopes and expectation, is toast. On the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1176"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1234,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176\/revisions\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ubune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}