Success

A short list of Richard Branson’s business ventures.

Richard Branson, according to his article in Wikipedia, heads a list of over 200 companies.

When I lived in England for a few months with my family in 99 I was staggered by the amount of businesses he had going. I was also excited about what this meant to Australia, which was just beginning to be touched by the Virgin mega brand.

Australia currently has several Virgin businesses operating including a mobile phone service, credit card operations, music stores, and an airline. All four have been successful in their own way.

Something incredible about Branson’s success (and that of many other billionaires) is that there’s no massive idea. There’s no incredible invention or stroke of genius. He’s just had the habit of going into industries dominated by lazy corporations and breaking the market open. (It’s said that when he goes into a city, he looks at the logos on the skyline and takes on those companies. If Melbourne is any example, this is true to an extent.)

Yeh, Branson is a pie-in-the-sky example. But think about how many car dealerships, takeaway restaurants, real estate agencies or hotels are making cash all around the place. They were an original idea, once - 50 or 100 years ago. They aren’t any more but smart people are still making millions from the concepts.

It’s an encouraging thought.

Thanks David, Markk and The Paper Bull for previous comments.

I have blogged before about business ideas, when saying that to most successful people, having original ideas is unnecessary. They build on concepts and rules of business, as opposed to ideas.

Here’s a couple of ways to get a good business ‘idea’

1. Go overseas, or even just interstate. I have no doubt that the rest of the world - no matter where you live - is packed full of great businesses just waiting to be replicated in your home country. It could be a certain type of restaurant chain, a new model for car rental, a certain kind of eco-tour.

2. Find a model and transplant it into a different field. The best example I can think of is, in the case of England, a chain of curry houses and in Australia, takeaway Chinese restaurants.

I was in England in 1999 and the amount of Indian restaurants over there is quite simply stunning. Every village we passed through had one. English people love their curry. But as far as I could tell, there were no curry chains - anywhere! The supermarkets were climbing all over it, devoting entire sections to the stuff. That’s changing now - I read an article just two days ago in the paper which mentioned an Indian celebrity investing in a chain of curry houses in England. My first thought - finally!

So now the attention turns to Australia, which has a similarly ubiquitous amount of Chinese restaurants. Every food court has at least one, and most have two. They’ve survived the test of time Australia-wide. So where’s the franchise? Sure, there’s a noodle-chain fad. But as for your regulation lemon-chicken, beef-and-black-bean-sauce kind of place, nothing. Nada. I have had my eyes peeled for one for literally more than a decade now. They still do not exist. A franchise chain could smash the market right open Australia wide, especially in food courts. Think about it - What McDonalds did it to burgers, and Subway to sandwiches, one smart businessman will do to Chinese.

3. Steal someone’s idea. Ok, that sounds a little dodgy. But if you see someone attempting a good idea but doing it poorly, I don’t think you should feel any moral qualms about moving in on their territory. (I’m planning on doing just that later this year, actually.) A danger in this is that people often take faddish ideas without researching viability - there’s a whole bunch of car-share companies around the world right now who are burning cash because the initial start up looked successful. 
Further to this, Brad at www.Ideas2Earn.com posts up a business idea every day. Some are definitely viable, although he doesn’t really explore this beyond an eBay or Google search.

(Can’t see the pic? http://matnewton.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/dilbert2007034072810.gif)

While  I’m no public speaking veteran by any means, the times that I have had so far have been quite successful. It seems that I’m one of those fortunate people that has a knack for talking in front of groups of people (some that I know theorise that this is due to my middle-child status.)

There’s enough guides telling you to use inflection, or make eye contact with the crowd. Here’s a couple of extra pointers.

1. Let the audience breathe. You wouldn’t take a deep breath, then another one straight away, would you? It’s impossible. You need to breathe out first. Crowds are the same. They can only take so much great content at once. Mentally they need to relax, settle, and then hear more great content. When you tell anecdotes, show diagrams, photos, or a 2 minute break, you’re allowing people to get ready to ‘inhale’ your next batch of great points.

2. “It’s such a pleasure to be with you today. (Not.)” Cliches cause people to switch off mentally. Go through your presentation, look for the cliches, and delete them. Audiences will be much more interested if you’re presenting something that they haven’t heard before… sounds obvious right? Crank out the cliches and you’ll experience just how fun it is to try and win back the attention of a bored audience. From the very first sentence, say something else. Keep the crowd guessing - maybe bypass the pleasantries and skip straight to the content. Whatever you do, don’t be ’standard’.

3. If you wouldn’t say it in conversation, don’t say it on stage. Remember, an audience is just a collection of individuals. Take each paragraph in your presentation one by one and imagine yourself using that exact turn of phrase in conversation with a friend. Would you expect to lose that person’s attention? If yes, rephrase rephrase rephrase.

Mat’s three steps to hiring the perfect employee