Richard Branson: Learn From The Experts: Richard Branson, Virgin, by Alun Hill

• Report rights infringement
• published: 04 Jan 2017
• views: 65

Richard Branson: Learn From The Experts: Richard Branson, Virgin, by Alun Hill Of all the world’s current billionaires, probably none are as unique, and successful because of their uniqueness, as Sir Richard Branson. If there’s one guy who just wants to have fun and is making money doing it, it’s him. Branson founded the infamous Virgin Group, made up of nearly 300 companies as diverse as it gets. Beginning of a Billionaire Richard Branson was born in London in 1950. His mother was a ballet dancer and flight attendant, and his father worked in law. He was never really a good student – in fact, he was a terrible student and he’ll readily admit it. After making the rounds at various private schools around London, Branson was ready to drop out of school when he was only 15 years old. His headmaster told him that he’d either end up in prison or become a millionaire. He did go to prison before making his first million, but today he’s worth approximately $5.1 billion. Branson wanted to do something fun and entrepreneurial upon dropping out, and starting a magazine sounded like a great idea. Student magazine would be for teenagers, by teenagers. His father told him that he could only drop out of school if he sold a certain amount of advertising for this new magazine. He quickly sold $8,000 in advertisements and launched the national magazine in 1966. The first edition was distributed for free, covered by the advertising profits. Student actually didn’t do so well financially, despite Branson having interviewed some big names in music during the late 1960s like Mick Jagger and K.D. Lang. Branson recognized that things weren’t working out and started approaching the business from a different angle – a tactic he continues to do to this day. The album advertisements were the most successful part of his magazine, so in 1970 Branson started selling albums through the mail under the trade name Virgin. One of his employees at the magazine suggested the name because none of them really had any business experience at all. This mail-order record business became a hit, due in part to the fact that he was selling these records for much less than the brick-and-mortar chain stores were. But this practice hit Branson and he still wasn’t profiting off of it. One day during a drive to export records to Belgium, Branson realized that once those albums were marked for export he didn’t have to pay the 33% sales tax on domestic sales. Branson turned around back to his shop and sold these albums marked as exports without collecting tax. Branson’s plan to avoid taxes seemed to him the perfect way to get out of debt. He wasn’t the first to do this though, and customs officials were wary of it. They noticed on one of his export forms that he wrote he exported 30,000 records in a single Land Rover. There’s no way he could have done this, so customs set up a sting and busted him for tax evasion. Branson was thrown in jail for a night and his mother re-mortgaged the house to bail him out. The lesson was a good one for Branson. He had run his business on petty cash and without any record-keeping up to that point. So he started to get organized and, doing things legally, was able to profit enough to not only pay off the 60,000 pound fine, but to expand and open more stores. The stores started to do extremely well for Branson. In 1972 the next logical step for Branson, because it would be fun, was to start his own record label. He called this new record label Virgin Records and bought a large estate near Oxford where he put in his own crude recording studio. He helped pay for this by renting the studio out to anyone with money to do so. The first album that Virgin Records released, a progressive rock album Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield, went to the top of the charts in 1973. It stayed on the charts for almost five years. This album put the name Virgin Records on the map. Branson signed many controversial bands that other labels wouldn’t touch, including the Sex Pistols. The popularity of the Sex Pistols had a lot to do with the success of Virgin Records during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Virgin Records would go on to sign more new wave music groups, such as Culture Club, Devo, the Human League, and Simple Minds. A 1977 trip to Jamaica brought Branson and Virgin into the reggae industry and led him to sign dozens of artists. Jamaicans couldn’t accept checks for payment so Branson sent cases full of cash to pay them. This is one of many examples of how Branson’s unconventional, “outside-the-box” ways have brought him success. Transportation Branson doesn’t want to do anything that isn’t fun. His whole life is about having fun doing new things. So you can imagine how shocked Virgin Records leadership was when Branson said he wanted to use almost half of the company's profits to start an airline because it would be "fun".