"I've Got a Golden Ticket!"

A few years ago I snuck into an event in Miami, Florida where Jane Pauley was interviewing Sir Richard Branson.  Amidst my work today I found the notes I took in 2005 and felt inspired.  I thought I’d share them with you.

By the way, he’ll be in LA October 26th thanks to Dan and Luis at Perfect Business. Connect with me beforehand if you decide to go.

Human interaction is an art…

Branson is interested in “creating things I can be proud of.”

Success is easier with 300 businesses than it was with just a couple. It’s all survival in the beginning.

The secret to success is learning new things.

Spend 3-4 months learning everything about that new business…. ask yourself “how can I benefit others.”

Business is a way of life.

“A brand is only as good as my product…  “In that sense customers will try the next thing I launch.”

Bring attention to your brand. One thing he does is creates crazy stunts.

“Companies that look after their people are companies that do well.”

Most important thing in working for a company is to ask yourself, ‘is anyone listening to me? am I being ignored?’

Employees first, customers second.

Create an idea I’d like to be a part of. BE the consumer.

“The best never disappears.”

Have a charitable organization, more than just a business.

Be attentive to employee concerns.

Master the art of delegation …”I’ve had 300 seperate companies and never had a company go bankrupt. Reputation is important.”

Give freedom and stake in the business to your team when starting a new company.

Customer Service is gold. Get out there and talk to your customers.  Connect with them. Don’t stay behind a desk. Personalization.

The internet is the most powerful tool.

Use every resource possible.  When he started the airline he says everyone thought he was crazy. Always try to protect the downside.

Lastly Branson said… he is still nervous… even now.

Books that have inspired him. Mandela’s biography and “A Short History of Nearly Everything”

Click here for a FULL transcript of the interview

You guys decide. Here are the sequence of messages:

Would you think you are the winner if you received these?

"Keep trying"

"Congratulations!"

"Sorry, winner selected"

Thank you everyone for your support on Facebook, Twitter, your emails….  So my attorney contacted KIIS FM on my behalf after they didn’t show care while talking to me.

And here’s a paragraph from the KIIS response to this situation: (By the way I am more than happy to share the full email at request. Just don’t want to crowd the screen.)

Ms. Devora is not a winner in this contest and it is clear that she knows she is not a winner…… (Yea since you guys have told me you made an internal mistake I can see that you are not honoring the winning message. That’s no secret. But the screams of excitement when I received the winning message and having witnesses seeing me texting in suspense hoping I would win. Plus staying up the whole night waiting for the “call you soon” phone call. That can not be faked.)

The fact that Ms. Devora spent so much time and effort trying to guess a future winning word does not mitigate the fact that she did not follow the contest rules as posted. The rules are clear.  The Text For A Trip word is revealed each and every hour and KIIS FM never revealed the word “Branson” – and we have airchecks of every word revealed as part of this contest to prove this point.  We also have the text records that we received from Ms. Devora (based upon the cell phone number that she gave us via email) that supports our contention that she entered the contest and attempted to be a winner on at least two occasions and then she apparently attempted to try another word, apparently at random, to win the contest.

Let’s get something straight, I have NEVER entered any sort of radio contest and don’t have a clue as to how they function other than I heard the DJ say text a word to a specific number so I did and I kept getting  “Try Again” messages until I received the “Congratulations” message and then in disbelief I tried again and it said “Sorry we have our winner”. And I thought to myself OMG I actually am the winner. That’s when the screams of excitement started. SO Mister KIIS FM I am not psychic. I only played your game to be with my hero on my birthday. And whether your systems made an error or not how can you possibly feel okay allowing any listener the joy of winning something so important only to have a tech glitch. The thing is that even if the DJ messed up and said the keyword by mistake, just the fact that I received a winning message should be reason to care.

And no I wasn’t offered any sort of consolation prize for playing.

For those of you who don’t know I won a trip two nights ago through KIIS FM in Los Angeles. See the winning photo on yesterday’s post. The next day they called to tell me opps they made an error. How can anyone get away with saying I’m a winner and then take it back. Its not concert tickets. Its a trip with my hero, Branson, on the best airline in the world.
Then in this social media world I of course share the joy after “winning” so you can imagine how embarrassing it is to say to my friends, family and acquaintances “opps”.

I talk again and again about where the value really lies in social media. Business people think they’ll monetize off the plentiful numbers but have yet to find a model that does so effectively. After this whole experience its more than apparent that the power in social media is a power for and by the people. When we get duped by corporations we are told to trust like Clear Channel and KIIS FM we finally have a way outside Consumer Reports to stand up for ourselves and scream that this just isn’t right.

I’m thinking about throwing my own contest. Maybe I’ll ask Tony Hawk to fly Virgin with his number one fan. And we’ll do the contest right. I just hope that at the end of all this Virgin tells KIIS to screw off just like they have expressed to me.

Birdman to the rescue