Love is all you need, in life and in business too

A Cadbury worker during a past demo in central London. Started by a British family in Birmingham, Cadbury company built modern factories, housing, schools and shops for its employees.  Photo/FILE

In Summary

• The beginning of a new year is a time to look back and reflect on the successes and challenges of the past 12 months, as well as remember the people we have lost.
• The passion and enthusiasm we had for our work in those early years shaped the look and feel of our music stores and helped attract the artists we signed to our label.
• If you are thinking of starting your own business, make sure you have a product that stands out and makes a difference in people’s lives — but also be sure it is a business that you love and want to devote your time to.

By Richard Branson
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The beginning of a new year is a time to look back and reflect on the successes and challenges of the past 12 months, as well as remember the people we have lost.

A particularly poignant moment for me in 2013 was when we marked the 40th anniversary of the day that Virgin Records launched “Tubular Bells,” the record that kicked off our company’s successes.

I was also deeply affected by the recent death of Nelson Mandela, who was a good friend and a man who brought about tremendous change in South Africa and around the world.

As I think back over the year, a ’60s song keeps playing in my head: All You Need Is Love. It’s a wonderfully upbeat ballad by the Beatles — a great guide to contentment in life, and one that Mandela would have approved of.

These are some of the lines that I’ve been humming, in no particular order:

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.

There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made.

All you need is love, love

Love is all you need 

LOVE BUSINESS

That’s also a good motto for a successful business. When we started Virgin Records in the ’70s, setting up our office in a church crypt in West London, we lived the lyrics of that song every day.

We were a bunch of hippies doing what we knew best how to do: enjoying great music and our freer way of life. We believed that we could produce music that people would want to buy because we loved it and wanted to buy it.

The passion and enthusiasm we had for our work in those early years shaped the look and feel of our music stores and helped attract the artists we signed to our label.

For more than 20 years we worked with great bands, selling millions of records along the way.

As I look ahead to the coming year, I can see that those qualities that made our company successful early on are no less important today.

While many people talk about profits and productivity as the necessary ingredients, I believe that a business’s long-term success is built on staff who love working there and customers who love the company’s products or services.

It was heartening to hear a number of our Virgin CEOs echo this perspective in a recent meeting at my home on Necker Island — that the spirit of our original group is still felt throughout the company.

HOW CADBURY BEGAN

One of our advisers, Todd Stitzer, the former CEO of Cadbury Schweppes, led a discussion about the purpose of a business.

He told the story of how in 1824 a Quaker family in Birmingham created Cadbury, the British confectionery business, with the goal of being a force for good in the neighborhood.

The founding family built modern factories, housing, schools and shops for its employees. The family also encouraged employees to participate in sports and other pastimes by clearing fields around the factory.

Over the years, the Cadbury family ensured that this stayed a core philosophy of the business, and when Stitzer took over as CEO in 2003, its mission was to create brands that people love.
Matthew Bucknall, the founder of Virgin Active, told us that his goal was to build the world’s most loved health club — by its staff and customers alike.

In such a fiercely competitive market, he explained, the company’s unique selling point is the staff’s spirit and enthusiasm.

If you build gyms with great layouts and state-of-the-art equipment and always make sure to offer the latest classes, rivals can then try to match everything, at a lower price, sometimes to devastating effect. Virgin Active’s people, however, make a real difference.

BUILD SOMETHING PEOPLE LOVE TO LOVE

Similarly, at Virgin Atlantic, CEO Craig Kreeger told us he was focused on building an airline that people both love to fly and work for.

After all, every airline has much the same equipment, and they all offer increasingly similar food, seats and entertainment.

What differentiates Virgin Atlantic from the pack is its crew. They make or break a passenger’s trip and can compensate when, say, a delay occurs.

If you are thinking of starting your own business, make sure you have a product that stands out and makes a difference in people’s lives — but also be sure it is a business that you love and want to devote your time to.

Here is Mandela’s take on success: “Everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.” I hope that you too love what you do! Good luck!

Questions from readers will be answered in future columns. Send them to RichardBranson@nytimes.com.