Emulating Richard Branson


In 1998 when Virgin’s Richard Branson’s first book was published, my mentee Gavin Newsom and I (way before he was San Francisco’s Mayor) stood in line together at Borders bookstore to have Richard sign “Losing My Virginity.”

I asked Richard if he would write the Foreword for my first book “The Rebel Rules” and he said yes. I was shocked at how open he was to my request and it’s part of the reason I’m so welcoming to entrepreneurs and authors who approach me. I call it “karmic capitalism,” what goes around comes around. 

I’ve never visited Branson’s Necker Island, a private luxury resort that is popular with corporate groups and ritzy celebrations. He took what was meant to be a family home and turned it into a raging success as a hospitality experience. During the past few weeks, we’ve had a number of small corporate groups come to our new Santa Fe campus and enjoy an experiential retreat unlike anything they’d done before. The pool parties and meetings at my ranch home are core experiences of these retreats, so I guess it’s not a surprise that three different guests have recently told me something like, “This is your Necker Island.” To be honest, I’d never thought of MEA in that way as we’re not nearly as expensive nor as exclusive. But, it’s ironic that my Baja second home became the nucleus for our MEA campus in 2018 and that I now primarily live in a home on the MEA ranch in Santa Fe. One of the most common pieces of feedback we receive is that coming to MEA – in either a public workshop or a private retreat – feels like you’re a guest in someone’s over-the-top home. 

So, that got me wondering, how successful is Necker Island? So, I went to their website looking for a four-night stay taking the whole island any time between now and year-end and there were only two dates – one in September and one in December – when it was even available. That’s pretty impressive. Necker has 24 king-bedded rooms and 6 singles in a bunkhouse (25 total rooms) with a maximum capacity of 48 people which is somewhat comparable to our Baja campus and far less than we can accommodate at the two retreat centers at our Santa Fe campus (where we have 43 rooms and 58 beds). Guess what the price is to take all of Necker Island for four nights. $596,400. That’s about $6,000 per room per night (and that’s assuming you’re taking all 25 of the rooms). Ouch! That’s the cost to stay with us for a week and we offer both our own curriculum and programming as well as little ‘ol me to help create a transformational experience. 

Reflecting on my recent experience at the 84-year-old Rancho La Puerta and now thinking of the 40-year-old Virgin (Necker Island, as it opened in 1984) has given me some confidence that we’re onto something with our ranch, especially since neither of these venerable resorts can say they were profiled by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Greatest Places to Visit two months after they’d opened. I just need to remember that success takes time and that if you’re creating a great product, you’re just accelerating your path to success. The good news is we have a very busy fall. 

If you want to learn more about our private retreats (we accommodate groups as small as 8 people), check out Private Groups part of our MEA website. Or, if you’re looking to bed-down in a celebrity’s hotel or resort, check out the hospitality of Richard Gere’s Bedford Post, Francis Ford Coppola’s many hotels, Marlon Brando’s The Brando, Johnny Depp Little Hall’s Pond Cay, or David Copperfield’s Musha Cay.

-Chip

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