He is the babe numero uno of the business world, with his trademark golden locks flying off some news page or the other round the year and across the globe. And in recounting his adventures as a global billionaire, Richard Branson does a nifty job of taking on the self-myth, sometimes pumping it with yet more air, but occasionally puncturing it as well.
Why does the media pay him so much attention? To launch off Virgin Home Loans, Branson turned up in a bathrobe. When unveiling Virgin Mobile?s partnership with MTV, he went further and did a ?full monty?, with only a cellphone for cover. Whether he is abseiling down the side of a Las Vegas tower at 100mph (disastrously hitting against the building twice and landing in front of the press grey and dishevelled), announcing the $25m Virgin Earth Challenge to global warming, being mauled by Coca-Cola in the soda wars, opening his first business in India all geared up with drums and a tacky costume or just weekending with his wife in the Maldives, the man is a photographer?s delight. Not to mention, sinfully addictive grist for the gossip mill.
Ok, so he is undoubtedly gifted at popularising the Virgin brand, but is this good business? Is he a good businessman? The Economist has found that, despite all the hype, the group does not make much money and that its mainstay air-travel subsidiary will face harder times ahead as the aviation industry continues to struggle. Others have called Branson?s empire chaotic. Trains and airlines, holidays and nightclubs, credit cards and cell phones, music and mortgage, it?s true, the man seems to have endless ambition.
Business Stripped Bare offers a spirited defense of Branson?s business model. Of the top 20 brands in the world, 19 ply a well-defined trade. Coca-Cola does soft drinks, Microsoft gets computers, Nike makes sports shoes and gear. All this is well and good. But Branson says that as the exception on this list, Virgin has created more billion-dollar companies in more sectors than any other company over the last 35 years.
Interestingly, Branson doesn?t seem to be hooked to holding on to all the companies he devises from scratch. For instance, after turning Virgin Records into the largest independent record label in the world, he sold it to EMI. This has become a pattern for him, and he seems to prefer it to the mergers and acquisitions expansion model. Looking back at his nightmarish efforts to build up a cheap and cheerful Virgin Express off the Euro Belgian Airlines he had acquired, he gives one of those pithy little axioms with which the book is replete: ?If you?re in the mood to buy a new business ? wait. It can take a long time to change a business culture. Are you sure you wouldn?t be better off starting one from scratch??
All the adulation showered on Branson of course has a flipside. For example, his green credentials are constantly being stained as self-regarding. When, earlier this year, a Virgin Boeing flew with one of its engines running on a mix of babassu nut and coconut oil, many saw this as yet another of Branson?s self-promotional stunts, with little to do with a real interest in futuristic aviation biofuels. And it is indeed germane to ask if a man who makes his big bucks off carbon-spewing machines, can be legitimately green.
Branson?s position is worth quoting, especially as it grooves into yet another business lesson: ?We cannot unmake air travel?or space travel for that matter. No one in business can unmake anything, any more than a band can unmake a song. Can you unmake your hangover? Your indigestion? Your children? Your last week?s work? No. Welcome, then, to the first law of entrepreneurial business: there is no reverse gear on this thing.?
When Virgin West Coast took off from London Euston to Glasgow in 2004, it invested in new trains that gave off 76% less carbon dioxide per seat than domestic airlines and the most emissions-efficient rolling stock in the world. It?s via such incremental outlays on greener technologies that Virgin claims to be doing a credible job for the environment.
Plus, Branson says that if we all stopped flying tomorrow, that would be politically and economically catastrophic. What if people just stopped going to Africa? How many jobs would that cost? How many people would that push back into poverty? Last year, following on a disputed presidential election, when the tourism sector dried up in Kenya, how toxic an economic and political mix was that? Green Bransonomics 101: invest in cleaner energy sources and fuels rather than idealising a return to the Stone Age.
What?s certain is that the man sure knows how to stay ahead of the curve. For instance, with this book, he has beaten the other moghuls to put his take on the ongoing economic crisis in print first. Particularly interesting is a clear account of how Virgin went all out to buy out the embattled Northern Rock, with 1.2 billion pounds in new cash from Virgin, Wilbur Ross, Toscafund and First Eastern, plus wrapped sovereign bonds from the Bank of England. Branson is bitter about the government?s decision to nationalise Northern Rock, calling it a politically expedient solution that will haunt various administrations in years to come. And there is already an increasing sympathy for his argument, just as opinion is gaining ground against the Fed?s decision to refuse Lehman Brothers a bailout.
Final axiom:?Move on. If it means taking a hit, take it on the chin. Don?t even think about it again.? That?s a lot of Zen zing for a kid who wouldn?t have left school to become an entrepreneur if he hadn?t been dyslexic.