Everybody in the consumer products business knows how important the winter holidays are to retail sales. But wait, there’s more, a whole lot more! In fact, the entire year can be divided up into at least nine selling seasons. Each one can have special significance for your product or service. What most selling seasons have […]

About this time of year, many students are questioning the value of staying in school. There’s an increasing chorus of proponents urging them to drop out. They say, “You don’t need a formal education any more, especially if you are planning on being an entrepreneur.” They say, “Just get started, the real-world experience will be […]

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In the past few years we’ve spoken at over 40 schools that teach entrepreneurship. Only one of them teaches Sales – not sales forecasting, not sales management, and not sales analysis, but real, “get out of my office,” to “I’ll take two truckloads,” Sales! As a society, have we gotten so focused on technology, engineering, […]

Last month I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, the founders of the world’s most popular wine brand, Barefoot Wine . What’s most humbling is that they had absolutely no idea what they were doing at first. From the start, with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they had […]

May your new year be filled with health, abundance & fun times.  Cheers! M&B             

Michael Houlihan, Co-Founder of Barefoot Wines, came back exhausted from a sales trip to Southern California in late 1993.  He told Bonnie Harvey, the other Co-Founder of Barefoot Wines, and her mom, Mabel Hurd, it was a disaster because the stores were stocking up for Christmas and New Years. “We sell wine,” Michael said. “And […]

In this digital age, when so much is sold on line, we are in a race to the bottom pricewise. All we want to know is, “Where can I get it for less?” Once manufactures get swept up in that game, the features and benefits of their products seem to get reduced to a set […]

Pruning is an art form with a science behind it. Any good gardener knows that skillful and timely pruning increases the strength and yield of your plant. Pruning can determine the direction of growth and suppress disease. But ya gotta do it! Now is the time to take a good look at your business and […]

Most companies, in their attempt to present the image of stability and security to their employees, will deliberately prevent them from knowing about the challenges the company faces. They fear their people will jump ship if they know that the company is facing difficulties. They put their people on a strictly need-to-know basis. This may […]