What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur, Genius Networking, and More With Richard Branson

• Joe Polish introduces friends, Yanik Silver and Marie Foleo
• Joe introduces Richard Branson—founder of Virgin Group
• What makes a successful entrepreneur?
  • Have a desire to make a difference to other people’s lives
  • Try to fill the gap in the market
• What are the business principles that have worked really well for Virgin?
  • It is like painting a picture—create something to make a difference in other people’s lives
  • Make sure that the people you’re working with believe in what you’re trying to do—100%
  • Make sure what you’re trying to do is worth spending your time on
  • At the end of the day, you want to be sure people’s lives have been positively affected.

“Affect them and benefit them” – Richard Branson

• What is one piece of advice you wish you had when you were just starting your first business?
  • Be a great people person. If you genuinely care about people, you can surround yourself with people who genuinely care about you.
• What did you do to take it to a whole next level?
  • Be a great delegator—delegate tasks to people who are better than you, then think about the next big picture
  • An entrepreneur is not a manager
  • An entrepreneur is someone who is great in conceiving business ideas but then handing over those ideas to great managers

• On Marketing…
  • Be confident and definitive about your product—if you don’t believe your product is worth shouting about, no one else will
  • Use yourself to put the company on the map—the cheapest form of marketing is self-promotion—try to get yourself on the front page of the newspaper 
  • Offer ideas that make people smile
• On uniquely fun DNA, Branson infuses his companies with…
  • The chairman of the company need not take themselves too serious when it’s time to have fun.
  • Employees enjoy working for a company and perform better when the companies they work for are both fun and energetic.
• Never forget that a big part of business is having fun
  • If you’re having fun with people and getting to know people in fun situations, you can unveil a lot more about them and their wants than you could during a formal meeting
• Richard Branson believes social and economic problems can be solved in many instances by entrepreneurship
  • Business can solve social problems
  • Entrepreneurs create jobs and help take people out of poverty
• Is there any consistent mistake that entrepreneurs make in business that they could possibly avoid?
  • 8 out of 10 businesses go bust because of gambling
  • People fail to think about the worst case scenario and properly guard against the downturn
• Virgin Mobile
  • “We have a strong brand and we can piggyback on other people’s infrastructure using our brand.” – Richard Branson

• How do you manage everything? Time management? Priority management?
  • Delegation—making sure everything runs without you
  • It is essential to stay healthy and fit
  • 50% of my time is sort of setting up “for profit” organizations to tackle some of the bigger problems of the world.
• Balancing family and business
  • Richard always works from home—his kids grew up with him and Virgin
  • Given advances in modern technology, no one should be confined to an office.
  • Spend the majority of your time time with family and friends
• What makes Richard Branson, Richard Branson?
  • The fun. The energy. The electricity.
  • People need to enjoy life more than they think they should

• Being powerful, influential, and persuasive  
  • “I’ve managed to build a good reputation—I’m someone people can trust”- Richard Branson
  • Richard loves people, and loves spending time with them
  • The fun adventure side also helps the brand be more interesting
• On social entrepreneurship and charitable philanthropy as the second phase of entrepreneurship?
  • Any business is fully focused on survival in the early years
  • After survival, the next phases are growth and altruism
  • Charitable philanthropy is absolutely a legitimate industry

• The thing Richard is most proud of in his businesses…
  • Virgin Galactic—which will be the first business to make commercial space flight a real thing.
  • Virgin Galactic will make it easy and affordable for families to go to space

• Why Richard started with Virgin Unite, and what he hopes to accomplish with it?
  • To make sure commercial organizations are committed to making a difference.
  • Virgin Unite will be run exactly like a business. There will be no room for foolish waste. Each penny will need to be well spent rather than wasted.  
  • Virgin Unite will support organizations for generations
  • Visit www.Virginunite.com and get involved