Dangers of Ill-considered Use of Self-Help Staff. The Power of Books and My Failed Attempt at Meeting Billionaire Entrepreneur Richard Branson!

When I finished my Master of Science Studies at Lancaster University, I joined Lancaster City Council as a full time officer in the Recycling Division of the city’s Solid Waste Management Department. I enjoyed my work with a fantastic team who did all their best to help me feel comfortable and get settled in the work. While I worked there my heart was in Zimbabwe. So I was always thinking that maybe I would make my best contribution to addressing the world’s environmental, climate and pollution problems from Zimbabwe and Africa now that I had environmental engineering degree and sound knowledge and skills for dealing this emerging issue back home. I was always communicating with my family members about this and they were all discouraging me, arguing that things were not very well at home especially economically. I tried to hold on but my thinking was it was better to get back. Another push factor was that I had come to the UK on a student Visa which had expired at the end of academic career. Trying to apply for jobs in other companies was tricky because most companies always asked for my work permit. And I was not sure for how long Lancaster City Council was going to keep me at work with my expired Visa. ?My big dilemma was that If I continued to stay in the UK with an experienced Visa, I would be an illegal immigrant and I would not be able to travel out of the UK an back. In hind sight, if I had stayed I would have somehow managed to regularise my stay. I am still not even sure if I made the right decision because I suspect it was not a wise one. But this is life. You know never really know!

Now I left Lancaster City Council and moved down to South End on Sea just east of London and stayed with my very close cousin. I decided to take this time to put more thought about my moving back to Zimbabwe.

Now, my formal education is predominantly in the sciences but since my high school I have always pursued knowledge in other disciplines such as psychology, business, entrepreneurship, management and many others, just to fill myself in and also out of intellectual curiosity. So while studying at Lancaster I was also buying books in different fields. One the books that I bought was called “The Virgin King.” This book connected me for the first time with Richard Branson and his entrepreneurial exploits. As usual I was most inspired by his unconventional approach to business and entrepreneurship. It was this unconventionality and unorthodoxy that has pulled me into Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson (May his dear soul rest in peace). The most powerful part was I could see evidence of his exploits in real life, from Virgin Stores, to Virgin Trains, to Virgin Airlines to Virgin Mobile and others. When you read about someone or about something and you see it live, the impact on you is massive.

So one day I thought it might be a great idea to meet Richard Branson face to face and talk business before I left for Zimbabwe. My intention was to pitch to him the idea of setting up Virgin Mobile in Zimbabwe. We could do it together on an agreed shareholding and I could even set up a team in Zimbabwe and run the Zimbabwe operation as it Chief Executive Officer. I drafted a business plan and including some cashflow and growth projections.

I had two main challenges. The first was how to get to a point of meeting Branson without being stopped by gate keepers. The second was Virgin has many offices dotted around London and it might be difficult to know where to go especially if you did not make any appointment before hand. Due to his profile, I was certain phoning to make an appointment would not yield much. But I considered that Branson being unconventional, he must agree to meet me. So I made some calls to one of the offices that was kind of the head office. When I said I wanted to speaking to him, I was asked what it was in connection with. I blurted out? it was business and I was asked to explain. I did a little explanation and I was told that Richard did not handle that and Virgin was already overwhelmed with many proposals already. Maybe I could try a few months latter and, again, not to Richard but to some title that I have forgotten. I politely said thank you and hung up.

One down! I said to myself. Then I decided on my next option. I picked up office addresses of all the Virgin Offices and made a Branson Hunting program. I would start with the most promising locations. The “strategy” which was not a strategy was to ambush him. The game plan was storming the Virgin Offices mid-morning during week days. I told myself that if I were fortunate, I would get more information to improve my approach after visiting the first office.

I made my mental preparations that I had just read from a book; things like visualising myself sitting with Richard Branson around a table and enjoying the conversation and him getting excited with my proposal and shaking hands after agreeing to the “deal”. The book called it visualisation. So with this I was one hundred percent I would meet Richard Branson. In fact, in my mind it was a done deal.

So one morning I hope onto the London train and from there took a taxi to the Virgin Offices that I had targeted. When I got there the atmosphere in the reception was very atypical with a lot of music and a very open style. I entered and greeted the first person I met and she sat me down on a sofa. I introduced myself and my purpose. She was looking intently at me all the way. Then without saying anything much or revealing anything, she went asked me to wait while she disappeared into some back office. Then after a while someone came from another door and sat down with me. This one explained asked me if I had an appointment with Richard and I shook my head. She also disappeared back and then came back with three brand news including Richard’s Autobiography “Losing My Virginity.”

The lady handed me the books sat down and explained to me that Richard was very busy and unavailable at that moment but “he appreciates your visit” Second, she said, Richard received many requests and proposals and was already overwhelmed. Besides, Virgin had a department that handled all business proposals and there was a process to follow.

I thanked the lady and left. ?I immediately aborted the whole project for good. ?And I learnt the dangers of belief in grey science such as poor application of visualisation.

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?Simon Bere, 2025