Sir Richard Branson: An Inspiration To All Of Us

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.”
– Sir Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson: One of the Most Influential Leaders

Sir Richard Branson has always been an inspiration to me with his ability to strive for success, fail and continue to rise above the rest. A high school dropout, he was determined to put forth his ideas into business and create a magazine publication called the Student. Ironically, he has always been a student with each new venture and never had any trepidation to dive into a new opportunity. He is a true inspiration to all of us. “It’s easy to give up when things are hard but we have to keep chasing dreams.”

Richard is an influential leader willing to stand up to a challenge, coach and listen to his team, while he takes full responsibility for his actions. He isn’t an engineer or inventor such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg. Yet, Sir Richard Branson predicted a new opportunity in the market to create better customer service with a competitive advantage. Following the launch of his magazine, he created a mail order record company called Virgin to fund the publication. This lead to the Virgin Group that later launched the success of Virgin Records.

Sir Richard Branson realizes the importance of his employees and offers guidance and support to his teams across the globe. He takes pride in his work, but on many occasions he is willing to give up control, as well as sell his businesses. It says a lot about one who is able to delegate for the future success of the company. In fact, Sir Branson is very passionate about music and was very apprehensive about selling Virgin Records. However, this helped him to dedicate the time to create his next venture called Virgin Atlantic. He decided to innovate the transatlantic travel experience with cheaper flights and became the first airline to offer in-flight entertainment. Branson never followed the crowd, but rather became a leader of the pack, as he defied the standards of the industries and believed in his team to guide him onto the next adventure.

Branson is a leader of over 200 companies and continues to enter unchartered waters by hiring professionals and cultivating their talents. “Shape the business around the people. If a flower is watered, it flourishes. If not, it shrivels up and dies.” It’s unfortunate in these tough economic times that companies have put much strain on their employees. They are being overworked and underpaid with limited resources. Today is a significant time to invest in human capital and it’s important for one to take a subjective approach to identify the strengths and weakness to make an effort to empower employees by providing the proper training and resources. On many occasions, Branson has valued his employees’ contributions and allowed them to flourish.  He is focused on empowering his staff to shape the organization, as well as create harmony among the people working for the company. It’s important for more organizations to follow his example to improve cost and time efficiencies, training, customer service, audience engagement and employee morale. Today, many professionals aren’t being valued for their hard efforts. This can lead to a breakdown of productivity in the workforce and poor customer relations. Additionally, many professionals are lacking the skills to remain competitive. It’s important for employers to adhere to new educational policies and procedures, as well as recognize the transferrable skills of others to apply on the job.

Today, Sir Richard Branson is a billionaire and recognized as a well-respected businessman. He has always remained humble and continues to give back to the community. Recently, he launched Virgin HealthMiles, an organization to partner with employers to incentivize their employees to live a healthier way of life. Richard Branson is one to never give up on his dreams no matter how difficult the challenge. He literally shoots for the moon establishing a company called Virgin Galactic to host trips for passengers to become astronauts and gain experience into outer space. He is one entrepreneur that continues to beat the odds and truly amazes others and myself as an influential leader.

Source of Branson’s Quotes: Richard Branson’s (CEO Virgin) management style and CIOs, http://mubbisherahmed.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/richard-bransons-ceo-virgin-management-style-and-cios/(October 24, 2011)

Life Is Boring Without Marketing

If It Wasn’t For Marketing – This Blog Would Be Blank

You may not notice in your daily morning routine, but from the minute you wake up to grab your favorite cup of coffee, to the clothes you wear and the car you drive, or the phone you use to call a friend – It’s because the power and influence of marketing. Yet, why is it that so many companies are first to cut the marketing division and not always consider it as an imperative part of the organization? Marketing makes something stand out on its own and makes people want more. It certainly should be credited for stimulating the economy, rather than creating an unwarranted expense. It taps into one’s emotions, beliefs and may make one feel good today, tomorrow, or in the moment. It creates an image, feeling, or derives a sense of belonging to a certain crowd.

Marketing Adds Personality

The world would be a boring place without creative marketing professionals considering the attributes of a product and/or service, and evaluate how the audience would react. Although there are some new social media tools to experiment for free, a level of investment and time is necessary to be successful with an integrated marketing message using different channels to reach and listen to the audience.

Marketers can help identify a need, or create a want in the marketplace to target a specific demographic. It’s all because of marketing that with color, copy, music, design, price, partnerships and packaging adds a new dimension to make something special. All of these pieces come together with the product and technological development. The support of sales, distribution and customer service that collectively creates a valuable experience for the consumer.

Marketing Makes It Memorable

Marketing professionals offer expertise to make your product, attract people, and promote your business to  stand out. Recall that you would not “Just Do It” without the influence of marketing. – Life would be boring without marketing.

Thousands of people are drawn on a regular basis to its innovation and clever simplicity that Apple creates -Life would be boring without marketing.

Jennifer Aniston's Smart Water Video

Jennifer Aniston’s new SmartWater video campaign was one of the most popular hits the last few weeks mimicking the popular online videos of the past that turned into a phenomenon - Life would be boring without marketing.

Seven, Citizens, True Religion jeans a few popular jeans worth over $100 retail for a pair despite they are all cut from the same cloth - Life would be boring without marketing.

Celebrity Megan Fox Spotted in True Religion

Gucci, Gucci goo for you, or is Guess more your style? Marketing is what makes things unique, creates desire and can seduce you with its sex appeal.

Marketing Is Worth The Long-Term Investment

Professionals in finance are provided competitive compensation for their time to conduct analysis for the company. Why do marketers tend to be laid off first when cutbacks are necessary and it’s hard to justify the expense? Sales professionals are praised for bringing revenue into the business. Yet, if it wasn’t for the proper marketing and how the product is perceived in one’s mind vs. another, people may not be interested to buy it.

A good marketing professional needs to be equipped with the proper talent and tools to get the job done. It’s important for marketers to be current and resourceful for purposes of creating something on the spot. People in the marketing profession struggle to get the proper designers, web producers and other support staff for the execution and production of projects. Yet, there are those companies that embrace marketing to create the vision for the strategic direction and help guide the entire organization with new insights.

Marketing Allows You To Listen, React and Create

The new media allows YOU to market, but it still takes skill, education and experience to handle the job well. Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and other mediums, it provides access to information to enable individuals to give and take control of their brands. Yet, some companies still think it should be an inexpensive process. Soon after experimenting on their own, they realize it takes the proper team and allocated investment to implement. At the end of the day, one must have a keen sense to listen attentively to respond to consumers, analyze metrics to evaluate behaviors, while have a unique talent to generate ideas that gets the job done.

The Buzz Brewing in Boston Business

The Revolutionary War Started in Massachusetts to Shape America.
A New Revolution in Boston Is Going To Change The Way We Do Business.

This past week, MITX sponsored the FutureM event as a way to bring people from different industries in marketing to meet, network and learn from others in the start-up community. It was also an occasion for existing business to learn how marketing will be central to the growth of our future economy using many tools from mobile applications to social media. Yet, still many marketers are not familiar the best course of action for implementing their programs across these new mediums and attended this event to learn better practices to reach audiences.

The future of doing business is brewing in Boston, as it’s own digital revolution battles against Silicon Valley start-ups and is becoming a place for great talent to continue to thrive and come together. The trend would be that many people from across the world would take advantage of the institutions across this great State of Massachusetts to eventually leave, to as one might say, “Go West, my friend,” to find new hope and opportunities for business growth in technology. A few years ago, Jeff Bussgang created StayInMA, as an organization to help students attending and graduating many of the universities across the area to help support their dreams, collaborate with area resources such as MITX and others, as well as provide financial assistance to attend many informative events in the area. Since the economy took a turn for the worst and has impacted many of all ages, the people of Boston have rallied together in a battle to keep the dream alive and support new business initiatives. I’ve come to known many of the people involved with Mass Innovation Nights, Brew Boston, Mass HighTech, MassChallenge, GreenHorn Connect, Bostinnovation, DartBoston, Future Forward events and others, that are helping to generate buzz in Boston that germinates growth in the area to build a new revolution for others to follow.

“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed” – William Gibson