Richard Branson Quotes

Learn to use your brain power. Critical thinking is the key to creative problem solving in business.

You don't have to be one of the Elders. You don't have to be well known. You just have to be determined to care about people. That's all it takes.

When you are making a decision about how best to serve your customers, your own experience is often a better guide than a more sophisticated analysis of the market.

I was the kind of entrepreneur that never really felt I made it. When Mike Olefield's "Tubular Bells" [Virgin Records' first release] sold 8 or 10 million copies, I suppose, at age 19, I could've possibly retired on the money. Instead, I immediately pushed the boat and took that risk again.

If you are a new startup company, try not to arouse the interest or suspicion of your competition; especially if they are a bigger company. They can crush you while you are still in your startup phase. Lie low while still strengthening your bottom line.

Being an entrepreneur simply means being someone who wants to make a difference to other people's lives.

Companies need to have a lot more flexibility with their people... . If somebody wants to golf around the world for two months, okay, well, maybe on an unpaid basis, let them do it. That sort of flexibility I think is incredibly important because most of our time, we spend at work.

People do not mind people who try things and fail. If you're a good entrepreneur, you're not going to succeed in every single thing you try. You've got to try to succeed at more things than fail.

If I'm setting up a new business I'll spend three or four months learning everything there is about that business, everything there is about that subject and then I will find good people to run it on a day-to-day basis, but whilst they're running it at least I know what they're talking about when they come back to me.

The balloons only have one life and the only way of finding out whether they work is to attempt to fly around the world.

Meet regularly with your business team and brainstorm. Intricate business problems are mostly resolved at brainstorming sessions.

From the first days of my career as an entrepreneur, I have always used my own and my team's lack of experience to our advantage. In fact, at our first venture, Student magazine, we used our newcomer status to secure great interviews and generate publicity - people were excited about our new project and wanted to get involved. Our inexperience fed our restless enthusiasm for trying new things, which became part of our core mission.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

If you look after your staff, they'll look after your customers. It's that simple.

In the same way that I tend to make up my mind about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, I also make up my mind about whether a business proposal excites me within about thirty seconds of looking at it. I rely far more on gut instinct than researching huge amounts of statistics.

Everybody has a camera on their phone these days, everybody wants a selfie or a picture, and the moment one person starts taking a picture everybody congregates around so I've become quite a fast walker. I don't like saying, "No," to people but by walking fast one might be able to avoid the first photo.

I would not be able to change a sparking plug and I would not be able to fly a spaceship or build a rocket or whatever. But what I am good at doing is finding brilliant people and surrounding myself with brilliant people.

Happiness is the secret ingredient for successful businesses. If you have a happy company it will be invincible.

The war on drugs has gone on for about forty-five, fifty years - and it's been a complete failure. If you had a business that was failing so badly, you would change course. And it's just incredible that governments continue along the same course.

There are no quick wins in business - it takes years to become an overnight success.

A little humour is good for the soul - regardless of how old you may be.

As a leader of people, you have to be a great listener, a great motivator, be very good at praising and bringing out the best in people.

In the '80's my gut feeling was that airlines were crap. I hated spending time on planes. I thought we could create the kind of airline I'd like. So we got a secondhand 747 and gave it a go.

Surprisingly, a large number of people who fell out with their partners contacted us, saying that they would love to fly on a Virgle spaceship. But out of April Fools' jokes come real things, and I wouldn't be surprised, within the next 50 years, [if] there are one-way trips heading out into space with people on it. It would be very exciting.

There are millions of people out there who would love to become astronauts, who'd love to go to space - they'd love to look back at this wonderful world from space. That will be the engine that will enable us then to develop spaceships to transport people around the world at tremendous speeds in an environmentally friendly way.

Sometimes the riskiest decision you can make is to do nothing.

Innovation happens when people are given the freedom to ask questions and the resources and power to find the answers.

What matters is working with a few close friends, people you respect, knowing that if times did turn bad these people would hold together.

We have the enormous opportunity in our hands to make a positive difference for business, people, and the planet.

My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself

I'm sure if Brawn GP keep plying me with champagne and putting gorgeous Virgin girls either side of me, you never know!

When people warn me against doing something once my mind is made up, I grow increasingly determined to try it.

Any successful entrepreneur knows that time is more valuable than money itself.

When you are starting a business or going down any challenging endeavor, you are bound to encounter challenges. You are going to hit many roadblocks and obstacles. These are obstacles that would make any sane person want to throw in the towel and quit. If you want your business to succeed, you can’t do that (duh).

You know I think if the people who work for a business are proud of the business they work for, they'll work that much harder, and therefore, I think turning your business into a real force for good is good business sense as well.

Unless you dream, you're not going to achieve anything.

Look for the best in people to build a fantastic team

When we start a new venture, we base it on hard research and analysis. Typically, we review the industry and put ourselves in our customer's shoes to see what we could do better.

I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator.

Screw it, let's do it - Just get on with it and do it

And obviously, from our own personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge.

Don't become a slave to technology - manage your phone, don't let it manage you.

Most of our businesses do succeed, but if something completely fails, then as long as we bow out gracefully and pay off all our debts, and nobody gets hurt, then I don't think people disrespect Virgin for trying. The public appreciates someone having a go; it appreciates the attempt. Who's been a success in life who hasn't failed?

I was dyslexic, I had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons I left school when I was 15 years old. And if I - if I'm not interested in something, I don't grasp it.

By working hard, by making the right moves, you can create your own luck, I think. But certainly luck plays a part.

Create the kind of workplace and company culture that will attract great talent. If you hire brilliant people, they will make work feel more like play.

Listen more than you talk. Nobody learned anything by hearing themselves speak.

I don't live my life thinking about "if only." I just try to think positively about the future. We'll never know for certain what would have happened if we'd gone to Iraq. The important thing is that we've got to do everything we can to prevent other wars.