Duncan Williamson: Losing my Virginity rbr.html

Everyone knows Richard Branson don't they? He's a world famous businessman, after all. Well, not entirely true as I was presenting a seminar the other week in a country not too far away and no one in the group I was working with had heard of Branson. There, now: an opportunity for Branson and if he cares to contact me that I will let him know where his latest opportunity to market his businesses might reside! For a consideration of course.

This is a fascinating book because it is so frank. In this book, Branson reveals how instrumental his parents were in setting his character: not just genetically but by the behaviours they instilled in him. Father and mother Branson do appear to be parents of another world! Consider the story taht Branson tells of a trip home and of his trip to Bournemouth:

When I was four years old, [my other stopped the car we were travelling in] a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields ... Mum had decided I should cycle to Bournemouth hat [January] day. Mum packed some sandwiches and an apple and told me to find some water along the way. Bournemouth was fifty miles away ... I was under twelve.

He got there and back and expecting a hero's welcome, he was deflated on arrival by this:

Well done, Ricky, Mum greeted me in the kitchen where she was chopping onions. Was that fun? Now, could you run along to the vicar's? He's got some logs he wants chopping and I told him you'd be back any minute.

See page 15 for those treasures! We might all think we had the world's best parents or the most wacky; but this takes the biscuit in my opinion. I know of no parents who were quite so, shall we say, educative in an idiosuncratic way!!!

Well, Branson's mum was hoping to make him independent so from that stand point she succeeded. I gather from the rest of the book that his character was also well rounded by his childhood experiences. I don't think Branson is perfect by any means but he is honest, self effacing and democratic.

The book starts with as much of his childhood as Branson can remember but ends deliberately at 1993: there is the promise of a second installment from 1993 and onwards. I ahen't scoured the book shelves of our retailers yet so don't know if he's written that book yet: I have to admit that I borrowed this book from my brother in law!

This book, then contains the ballooning stories and the business and personal life stories that we should expect. Branson lets us in on a lot more things that I have found with other business type autobiographies. Let's be honest, this is a business book simply by virtue of having been written by Britain's most famous entrepreneur. Much of the book relates to the Virgin empire. We do learn a lot about his family but the business is the focal point of the book.

On the plus side, this is definitely not a how I did it right book in the slightest. Branson works his way through his life in a warts and all way: he tells us that even ten and more years after he started out in business, he was persistently suffering from cash flow problems. We saw Branson on the telly and in the papers believing all was well with his world. The truth is that he was living near the knuckle financially until he sold Virgoin Music to Thorn EMI a long time after it was initially founded. To be fair, the business press know that Virgin wasn't all it seemed but I wasn't devoted to the Virgin empire so that news passed me by.

I do intend to write a separate page of the tips and lessons I got from this book, in the way that I have done with Brian Clough's autobiography ... see Brian Clough: management guru

The ballooning: this came about by accident but once he got involved, he got invovled heart and soul. Every trip was a disaster of sorts and you may feel in fear of your own life merely by reading the tribulations of the best laid plans ... things drop off, things get snagged, people get dumped in the sea ... British web sites made out of string again!

Before he got involved in one of these hare brained flights, Branson asked his erstwhile ballooning partner just one question. If the answer had been different to the one he received, he would not have got involved ... what do you think the question was? It's at the end of this review.

Branson started in business whilst still a school boy: he founded a magazine called the Student. He flogged away at this magazine for a few years but it never really got anywhere although he dropped a number of famous names and interviewed some famous people. It fell apart even though he had massive plans for the idea.

The music business came along relatively early, too: selling by mail order, then opening an Oxford Street shop. Then more and more shops. Pot smoking went on. The shops were different as people were allowed to loll around and sit on the bean bags in the shops. New groups were sold, sex was free ... this is why Branson has the image of being a hippy. He was!! Serious businessman underneath it all though.

I have to say that I thought at many stages throughout the book that Branson really is, even now, a make do and mend businessman. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing either as it does give him an approach and a freedom that more cosntrained and foral business people suffer from.

Branson bought a country mansion very early in the Virgin Music business: mad? Not at all: he did it to build a recording studio in it and to allow the musicians to live there as they recorded so that they could sleep when they wanted and record when they wanted without the stress of tight schedules, moving from home or hotel to studio and back again.

Branson worked with some equally smart and pioneering people and he employed people with vision and talent: again, not necessarily formal and constrained business people; but people who allowed him to do what he wanted to do. He doessay, though, that when they finally got really serious they employed people and bankers who made them more formal and constrained and they did open up new avenues down which they could walk and work.

The book was published in 1998 and takes us through the development of the business empire: from the student to 1993. This takes in Virgin Music and Virgin Atlantic. It takes in the dreadful British Airways ditry tricks campaign that almost finished Virgin Atlantic as it had finished Laker Airways and others. Branson won the court case and BA apologised: the full text of the court judgement is included at the end of the book.

We are given deep details of how the businesses were developed and how the people in the business worked and didn't work together. All fascinating stuff and to some extent brutally frank. One thing that comes though is that Branson takes tough decisions with people he has known all his life: he even sacks his best friend but does it in such a way that the friendship remains unharmed. He takles decisions that protect his friends, too, even though it may not be optimal for the business. How many othe significant businessmen can say the same?

There are several chapters on the ballooning and there's no surprise there: it is seat of the pants stuff and eveyrthing I said above about near death and bits of string do come through strongly: they worked assiduously at getting it right but in some cases things really did go wrong at take off ...

The British Airways story is a shameful one and we should be happy that people like Branson are around to take them to task.

I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who is thinking of becoming a business person: there is much to learn from Branson that an MBA won't give you ... good and bad ... what to do and what not to do ... even the right questions to ask!

The question Branson asked of his erstwhile ballooning partner, Per Lindstrand: do you have any children? The answer was yes, so Branson agreed to fly in a balloon from here to eternity! Is this the question you would have asked and why is it such a smart question?