When Nige Met Sir Richard

It was September when the invitation came through. Would Sue and I like to join Sir Richard Branson and his senior team for a weekend in Jamaica to help re-launch the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship in the Caribbean? Well, of course, we said yes and so it was that very early on Wednesday, 6 November a driver arrived to take us to Gatwick.

sir-richard

I didn’t really know what to expect. We’d offered some help to the Centre and on the first day I spent several hours doing some 1:1s with local entrepreneurs who were being supported by the Branson Programme. The challenges and issues these people face are exactly the same as we do here in the UK and many of the sessions that day had a very familiar ring to them (fear of taking on staff, little or no use being made of their database, a start up doing everything except going out and getting customers (!) and a lovely lady who had absolutely no idea how to sell).

On Friday, we visited the Centre itself in downtown Montego Bay. It was in a state of some disarray as the (very formidable) local management team were getting it ready for the weekend’s proceedings. I handed over the Six Pack that I’d taken for them and was hugely impressed by Lisa Lake, the CEO, and her team. The weekend, I learned was going to be about a celebration of the success that the Centre has had over its first two years and also a catalyst for much bigger impact, not only in Jamaica but across the wider Caribbean, over the next two years.

On the Saturday morning, we were collected and taken on a tour to visit yet more of the entrepreneurs who had benefited from the work of the Centre over the last two years. It was a hugely inspiring trip. Jamaica is by no means a third world country but it does have lots of challenges and the focus of the Branson Centre – to support the development of small businesses to create jobs and contribute to the economy – is having a very significant impact on the lives of those involved.

Over the last two years, the Centre has accepted 85 entrepreneurs onto their 12-week Launch Pad Programme and 55 of those have successfully graduated and been invited to ‘Take Off’ when the mentoring parts of the programme begin. Those 55 businesses have, between them, created over 50 new jobs and experienced almost 200% revenue growth since they started the programme so the fundamentals are clearly working here.

Future plans include the development of a virtual platform to impact more countries in the Caribbean with the intention that the Centre is supporting more than 400 entrepreneurs each year from 2015 onwards.

I have no doubt that our visit was ‘sanitised’ to some extent in so far as all the entrepreneurs we met had enjoyed success since joining the programme but it really was hugely impressive.

Later that afternoon, Richard flew in from New York. Before meeting with us, he had to spend three hours filming part of an advert for Virgin Media with Usain Bolt and it was around five o’clock when he walked barefoot and dressed all in white (it was almost celestial!) across the lawn of the extraordinary villa that he was staying in to greet us.

Now, I have met Richard before and his charisma is something to behold, but he had clearly been very well briefed as, when we shook hands, he let me know that he knew about my eight businesses and, in particular, the Entrepreneur’s Circle.

We were joined by a very select group of around 20 others (mainly the great and good of the Jamaican business community and the senior leadership team at Virgin Holidays, who had also flown out) for a very relaxed, informal gathering.

It was a thrill to sit on the sofa, overlooking the Caribbean Sea and plot and plan the best ways to develop businesses and help entrepreneurs right across this region with one of the most important business figures in the world. We had a great chat.

It wasn’t all business of course. We were joined by Richard’s son, Sam Branson, who’s a very smart cookie and much more articulate than his father. They are very keen on the legalisation of marijuana(!) and even more so on Virgin Galactic and getting people into space.

When Richard told us all that he was expecting the inaugural flight to take place next year, I did remind him that he’d been saying “next year” for several years now and was this really going to happen? His answer was quite an important lesson I think for all of us. He said: “It’s true that I have been saying that but I think it’s really important, as entrepreneurs, that we talk it forward. You
know, I almost called my autobiography ‘Talking it Forward’ rather than ‘Losing my Virginity’ because it matters that much. So many people in business are shy and inhibited about what they’re trying to achieve and it does them no favours. In many cases, it actually holds them back.”

It was a good answer but I’ve still got no idea whether Virgin Galactic will be flying in 2014 or not!

I can report however that I resisted the temptation to buy a ticket. It’s not about the money and I’m sure it will be an incredible experience but I still feel that I’ve got a really important journey to focus on here on Earth – plus, of course, NASA have lost 3% of their passengers over the last 50 years and that does make me nervous.

The cocktail soiree turned into a bit of a party and we left that night feeling the whole trip, if it ended now, had been hugely memorable and very worthwhile. But things got even more interesting  on the Sunday…

Sunday morning started with the big formal event of the weekend at the Branson Centre. Over 80 of the entrepreneurs that the Centre has helped were in attendance and there was a ‘Pitch to Rich’ contest in which three of them presented their case for some investment from the great man. He ended up lending each of them $10,000 on the basis that, as the loan was repaid, the funds went into a pot to be lent to other entrepreneurs from the Centre – a neat solution and a great idea.

As the formal proceedings finished, we toured a mini exhibition area in which around a dozen of the entrepreneurs were presenting their wares. The holdall that I’d carried the Six Pack in was, as a result, well filled for the return journey.

The weekend concluded with lunch on a beautiful private island and I was delighted to be seated next to Richard during the whole lunch. It was fascinating. He is hugely passionate now about Virgin Unite (his main charitable organisation, which along with Virgin Holidays, supports and funds the Branson Centres) and Virgin Galactic. He has relinquished all executive responsibilities across the rest of the Virgin Group but retains a keen interest in what is happening. We compared stories of our respective failures in business and I was hugely heartened that some of his are way bigger than some of mine.

We talked about letting go – something that’s been essential in the development of his businesses over the years. “A good leader doesn’t try to do everything themselves,” he told me. “A good leader lets other people make mistakes and I think that’s really important,” he added.

One of his big strengths is his ability to stay focused on the big picture and I just love the way he lets others sort out the detail – something he’s been doing for 40 years.

His commitment to practically helping other entrepreneurs came through in spades and you can’t help but be impressed by the synergy that sees the Branson Centres supporting the countries and communities that have enabled Virgin Holidays to have so much success over the years. It’s a smart move but one that the ad agency guys on the trip (Saatchi) and the in-house marketing team at Virgin are struggling to incorporate into their message. It will be interesting to see how that develops.

I agreed, over lunch, to effectively give the Branson Centre in the Caribbean access to our EC Vault, which ought to rapidly accelerate the growth of the Centre across the Caribbean. I figured that we’re never going to make a commercial business of EC in that part of the world and there’s an opportunity here for us to genuinely do some good and also forge stronger links with Richard and the Virgin Group, which seems like a sensible thing to do.

After lunch Richard was whisked off to catch his jet back to Necker Island – he clearly loves that place so much. It’s his home now and he actually spends very little time in the UK. It was nice that he overstayed lunch by some 45 minutes (“this hardly ever happens,” his PA told me, “he must have really enjoyed it”).

We began our rather more conventional journey home, flying back overnight on Sunday into London after what had been a hugely memorable four days and one that has excited and inspired me in equal measure.

I don’t pretend for one instant that I’ve been able to capture everything of substance or spirit in this article that we were part of in Montego Bay but the trip made me very proud to be an entrepreneur. It was great to spend so much proper quality time with Richard and so many of his team at the Branson Centre, Virgin Holidays and Virgin Unite added so much to the trip. I’m looking forward very much to working more closely with them in the months ahead.

Watch this space.