Richard Branson People Quotations

Through the right people focusing on the right things, we can, in time, get on top of a lot if not most of the problems of this world. And that's what a number of us are trying to do.

The funny thing is people won't let me pay for things. I'll be in a restaurant and the manager will say, 'Oh no, it's on the house.'

Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won't make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa - and it's about getting a balance.

We're introducing separate rooms with double beds in all of our planes so people can actually go with their partner and have a proper night's sleep.

So if we were to set up base in this area, I think you would find that it would bring a lot of people to the area to watch the flights as well as fly.

I am sorry to have let people down.

Some of the magic will be lost now that the girls are only four. It's sad to see people so close split in this way.

I think Chris is an astute businessman, but he is not used to running airlines. Virgin Blue needs people with airline experience.

Two people can play at that game. Cheers!

There are already 30 people in the world who have collected enough air miles to fly into space.

Generally speaking, when someone goes for a record-breaking attempt, you start with five or six people in the plane. He chose to go it alone.

We are used to transporting millions of people ... transporting them safely. And we want to keep that impeccable record so. We know what our priorities are.

Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don't want to.

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.

Realize that the people who are working with you, this is their life. You know, 80% of their time is spent at work. Make sure that they're proud of what they're doing, that they're enjoying what they're doing.

Most skills can be learned, but it is difficult to train people on their personality.

There is no point in going into a business unless you can make a radical difference in other people’s lives.

If you love what you do and if you believe in what you do, others will share your enthusiasm. Passionate people find their way to the Virgin Group, and when they do, we snap them up and try to keep them within the family.

A company's employees are its greatest asset and your people are your product

I was fortunate enough, after many visits to many wonderful, weird people to come across Burt Rutan, who is a genius in the Mojave Desert. And SpaceShipOne was born and had three flights into space that won something called the X Prize. And from there, we're building SpaceShipTwo, which is ... a beautiful spaceship that is very, very, very nearly completed and will be ready from about next Christmas onwards to start taking people into space.

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.

When people are placed in positions slightly above what they expect, they are apt to excel.

To get the respect of people, I think you've got to roll up your sleeves and lead with your people. The absolute key is treating your people well. Looking for the best in your people. Lots and lots of praise, no criticism.

A good leader leads from the front. Don't get stuck in the office. Get out, meet people and listen to their stories.

I'm sure you get the best out of people if you look for the best in them. People don't need to be told when they've done something wrong - they know it without having to be told.

You must have the courage to trust your instincts and be ready to question what other people don't. If you do that, you can seize opportunities that others would miss. Believe in yourself, and use everything you can - including the obstacles - to propel you along the road to success. Who knows what you might achieve?

A company is simply a group of people. And as a leader of people, you have to be a great listener, you have to be a great motivator, you have to be very good at praising and looking for the best in people. People are no different from flowers. If you water flowers, they flourish. If you praise people, they flourish. That's a critical attribute of a leader.

It's all about finding and hiring people smarter than you. Getting them to join your business. And giving them good work. Then getting out of their way. And trusting them. You have to get out of the way so YOU can focus on the bigger vision. That's important. And here's the main thing....you must make them see their work as a MISSION.

Not enough people realize the satisfaction you can get from really pushing yourself to the limits.

Having a personality of caring about people is important. You can’t be a good leader unless you generally like people. That is how you bring out the best in them.

If you get your face and your name out there enough, people will start to recognize you.

I just love every minute of my life. I love the variety. Every minute of every day I'm meeting fascinating new people, learning and working with wonderful teams of people creating wonderful things.

You can't do a good business with a bad person. Find the right people to work with and you can't go wrong.

I am a believer in trying to treat people properly and trying to respond and making sure that I find the time to be courteous.

We have a business that some people feel pollutes, and I happen to agree with them. ... And so on the basis of trying to do good and, you know, hopefully turn a profit, what we did was we pledged that we'd put all the profits from our airline business into trying to develop clean fuels.

I always tell other people to protect against the downside, and not risk roughing on new ventures, but I never stuck to that rule myself.

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've been in Africa, and I've been to hospitals of Africa, and they're not hospitals, they're places where people go to die. And rows and rows and rows of people just dying and the waiting rooms of the hospitals are full of people waiting to get into the beds of the people who died the night before, and they're dying from unnecessary diseases.

We should focus on what people get done, not on how many hours or days worked. Just as we don't have a nine-to-five policy, we don't need a vacation policy.

I'm a true believer in working hard and partying hard. I'm fortunate to be one of those people who can have just as much fun partying without alcohol.

It's far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces, it's difficult to hold your family life together, it's bloody hard work and only one word really matters - and that's surviving.

Commitment is not letting people down. That's very important in life. If you say you're going to do something, make sure you do it. Just try never to let people down.

I have always looked on my businesses not just as money-making machines, but as adventures that can, I hope, make people better off.

A company is people … employees want to know… am I being listened to or am I a cog in the wheel? People really need to feel wanted.

Business leaders take things far too seriously, and forget that most of the time people spend in their lives is at work, and it should be fun.

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.

Please be polite. Nothing in life should erode the habit of saying thank you to people or praising them.

Give your employees a mission that matches their ambitions. When you challenge people, they surprise you.

London is one of the most exciting cities in the world with so many fantastic pubs and restaurants. I would urge people to get out there and see as much as possible.

I've never sued anybody, though there have been one or two occasions I've wanted to strangle one or two people.

Learning and leadership go together. Too much credit goes to me for what we have achieved at Virgin but the successes happen from working and learning with some of the world's most inspiring and inspired people.

You're offering a great service. People are tuning in. So continue to find great people, continue to do what you're doing. And do it better than your rivals. I know that's easier said than done...

A successful business must have a sound knowledge of its market and work on how its product or service will be different, stand out and improve people's lives. If you can ensure it responds to a real need in the market place, your business can punch well above its weight.

Brave people don't live forever, but cautious people don't live at all.

Commitment is not letting people down. That's very important in life.

A business is simply an idea to make other people's lives better.

You can create a business, choose a name, but unless people know about it you're not going to sell any products.

Good brands reflect the histories of the time and the group of people that made them. They can not be copied. They can not be recycled.

Most entrepreneurs are not doing it for financial motives in the first place. They're just people who love creating.

People have to decide on priorities if they want to get anywhere. The best lessons I learned was to just do it.

I've obviously been born fortunate. I love people. I enjoy every single minute of my life.

Those people who spend their time working on things they love are usually the ones enjoying life the most. They are also the ones who dared to take a risk and chase their dreams.

When you are ready to make your first hires, look for people who understand your passion, want to add to your ideas and can envision ways to make improvements.

Flowers flourish when they're watered, and shrivel up when they're not. People are no different. The best leaders are the ones who look for the best in people.

Whenever I see people getting a bad deal I want to step in and do something about it. Of course, this is not pure altruism - there's a profit to be made too.

The brand is only as good as your products, so.. if people have a good experience on Virgin Atlantic or if they have a good experience on Virgin trains or.. if they have a Virgin mobile phone and they can get straight through to our people and they're well looked after and then they'll try the next product that we launch.

Develop the business around the people; build it, don't buy it; and, then, be the best.

If we can just get young people to do the same as their fathers did, that is, wear condoms

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.

When people screw up, give them a second chance.

Leading by fear is a lot of companies' approach, and a horrible way for people to exist in their lives, when most of your life is spent at work.

I just love life. I mean, you know, I love every second of it. I love people.

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.

There are quite a few things I've done that even I thought might have been one step too far. But if you are willing to make a fool of yourself and make people smile, as long as you do it with a sense of fun, you can get away with it.

Good customer service begins at the top. If your senior people don't get it, even the strongest links further down the line can become compromised.

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

There is so much to be learned from listening to people's hopes, frustrations, and points of view

I truly believe that capitalism was created to help people live better lives, but sadly over the years it has lost its way a bit. The short-term focus on profit has driven most businesses to forget about the important long-term role they have in taking care of people and the planet.

People who think and say we more often than I are a lot more likely to succeed.

Virgin, is how good you are with people. If you're - if you're good with people and you've got - you know, and you really care, genuinely care about people then I'm sure we could find a job for you at Virgin. I think, you know, that, you know, that the companies that look after their people are the companies that do really well. I'm sure we'd like a few other attributes, but that would be the most important one.

I have always lived my life by making lists: lists of people to call, lists of ideas, lists of companies to set up, lists of people who can make things happen. Each day I work through these lists, and that sequence of calls propels me forward.

Choose great people and shine in their shadows

I learnt earlier on that If you can run one company.You can really run any company.A company is all about finding the right people and inspiring those people,drawing out the best in people

People are no different from flowers. If you water them, they flourish. If you are not nice to them, they shrivel up

Being dyslexic can actually help in the outside world. I see some things clearer than other people do because I have to simplify things to help me and that has helped others.

There's no better satisfaction than watching the people around you, who have worked day and night to get something right, realising the dream.

If you can run one company, you can run another. Running companies are about inspiring and driving the best out of people.

Running a business is making a difference in people's lives

However small a company, its founders should try to expand people's opportunities and choices.

I'm a great believer in life to saying yes and not saying no, and hopefully making people smile and just having fun in life.

The entrepreneurs who succeed usually want to make a difference to people’s lives, not just their own bank balances.

With space travel, [it's] no different. You know, in 1990 I read the name Virgin Galactic Airways. Loved the name. And set out to try to find an engineer or rocket scientist in the world who could build a safe, reusable rocket that could take people to and from space and we could start a whole new era of commercial space travel.

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.

The important thing is that you've got a strong foundation before you start to try to save the world or help other people.

Business has to give people enriching, rewarding lives...or it's simply not worth doing.

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.

I think that being a business a leader that treads all over people to get to the top is actually not the way I think to become a successful business leader.

Look for the best in people to build a fantastic team

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.

My parents brought me up with this philosophy. You must do things. You mustn't watch what other people are doing. You must not listen to what other people are doing.