Lesson #3: Keep Flying High

Article Overview: “Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming,” says Branson.

Lesson #3: Keep Flying High

“Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming,” says Branson.

Branson is no stranger to failure. Known for his often wild and dramatic ideas, Branson always knew that he would encounter letdowns along the way. But, the secret to his success has been his ability to make a strong recovery. More than perhaps any other entrepreneur in the 20th century, Branson has been able to successfully move from one venture to the next even after experiencing bitter disappointment.

Branson’s determination to succeed despite the obstacles stems from his childhood. The first major challenge that he had to overcome was his dyslexia. At the age of eight, Branson still could not read. “My dyslexia was a problem throughout my school life,” he recalls. After suffering regular beatings at the hands of his headmasters for his below average academic performance, Branson vowed to fight his handicap. “Although my spelling is still sometimes poor, I have managed to overcome the worst of my difficulties through training myself to concentrate,” he says.

Branson did not let dyslexia stand in his way. Having overcome a major life obstacle, Branson was now armed with a new confidence that he could take on the business world. Despite his overwhelming success with Virgin, his professional pursuits did not always end as Branson envisioned. For every successful Virgin enterprise or music group there also seems to be a failure. From Virgin Cola to Virgin Vodka to Virgin Cosmetics, Branson has experienced his share of business duds.

Virgin Vodka, launched in 1994, did not find commercial success, largely because it lacked brand added value. Whereas Virgin Atlantic had such unique features as on-board massages and free ice cream going for it, Virgin Vodka could not stand up to its competition. Similarly, despite being priced 20% below Coke, Virgin Cola only achieved a 3% market share in the UK. These companies have since virtually disappeared off the market. Branson was also forced to sell Virgin Cinemas and Virgin Cars, two ventures that he could just not make profitable.

“If you are trying to do something for the first time, it’s always an enormous challenge, and there is no guarantee of success,” says Branson. “You never know with these things when you’re trying something new what can happen. This is all experimental.”

But, that is precisely the Branson philosophy – try new things, branch out, and when you can’t find success with one venture, you simply move on to the next. He understood that an integral part of being an entrepreneur meant being willing to not only accept failure but to also be able to rise up and start again. After launching Virgin Vines in 2005, a hip new wine brand, Branson said, “We’ve got an engaging, edgy, vibrant, fun product. It may or may not work, but we’re going to give it our best shot.”

Branson was not afraid to take risks. Some paid off while others didn’t, but in never giving up, Branson demonstrated the rewards that are possible when entrepreneurs are not afraid to keep on going.

Related Articles
  4 Rules for Excellent Landing Page Experience
  Who Is Your Proud Family?
  Lesson #5: Create the Market Where There Is None
  Airline Attitudes
  Three Marketing Lessons from Realtors
  The Gravity of Failure
  Under Promise and Over Deliver
  Entrepreneur – How Not To Have A Bad Employee?
  Develop your talents even if bored
  What Does Your Gut Say?
  What's Too Good For You?
  Are You Aware Of The Noise In Your Business
  Will the Ghost of Harold Kutner Still Haunt the Corridors of the New GM? (Commentary)
  Failure Comes From Not Following Your Additive Rules
  Lesson #1: Never Compromise on Your Goals
  Sales Training London Pyrrhic Victories Ben Franklin said
  What Do You Imagine?
  Selling swimming pools is the same as selling what you sell
  The Highest Leverage Investment in a Business is...
  Getting Rich Is An Exact Science

Article Tags: academic performance, beatings, bitter disappointment, branson, business world, commercial success, dramatic ideas, duds, dyslexia, free ice cream, headmasters, massages, music group, obstacle, overwhelming success, professional pursuits, virgin atlantic, virgin cola, virgin cosmetics, vodka



Related Forum Posts
Re: Flying Saucers: Good invention or not? Buy one in 2009 - Flying Saucers wow, I never thought I'd see the day! That is very fictional, but completely tempting, well if i had the money it definitely wouldn't hurt to own one in your...garage?
Re: How many nationalities are on the forum? - Hi there, It is amazing the languages have come into the posts. Now Jude was asked, how many languages she speaks. Please, come and tell us. I speak English, German and French. German is my mother tongue. Some thirty years ago I spoke fluently French. Now English has taken that place and I can better understand French than speaking it. English is now my daily used language. German in second place. However, I never grasped the German grammar very much. Why? The Swiss German Dialect is nothing to be compared with High German. At that time hardly anybody wrote the Dialect. Today it is the 'in thing' to write the dialect. (Letters, stories etc) But we have to be able to read High German, because every book, newspaper etc is in High German. Finally, I guess there are a few more who can vote for their nationality.
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) could be compared to a big popularity contest: A High School Computer Geek and a High School Football Captain who are trying to promote a party. The computer geek tells everyone in school & even hands out 100's of flyers about his party Friday night...what happens? his friends end up showing up and a few new people...even the new people leave right away because it is not what they are looking for. The High School Football Captain ends up just telling a few good buddies, and within hours the entire school not only knows about it, but everyone wants to come, and everyone does come & stay. One defenition of "optimize is "To make as perfect or effective as possibe." How effective are your article marketing campaigns? Could you be distributing content (that is what search engines index) more effectively? In a perfect world, who would you want promoting your website, web pages, and web content? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is determining this perfect & effective way to do this. Jeff
Re: FILL IN THE BLANK: One thing I did to grow my business today - Congrats guys! High five from the jungle cat!
Re: Are Economic Recessions Good for Franchising? - well, I can't give you any verified stats at the moment. But, it's a fact that as more and more people face layoffs they look in the direction of franchising. These are folks that need the security of a proven business model and have resources to jump into a franchise. It's a clear trend that has been witnessed in past recessions. My concern is that we are not in a simple recession... If you look at a recession as a big storm that will create some havoc and disrupt lives, then the events we're facing in the near future could be a supersized hurricane. We're heading into uncharted waters. High fuel costs, which will probably fluctuate for a while then jump again High debt loads... now in the trillions Sinking housing market... how low will it go? The US war machine is in full swing... with eyes on IRAN All of these factors are clashing to create the Perfect Storm and I don't like it one bit. I tell ya, there's a bunch of madmen at the helm. So how does this bode for franchising? jeez... I don't know... I'm gonna get myself a double scotch on the rocks. Cheers.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Hypotheticals, Scenarios and Foresight

Selling On Ebay The Good The Bad And The Ugly

Emotional Energy is Our Engine

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.