Barefoot Wine | The Barefoot Spirit

The Barefoot Spirit is an Audie Award Finalist!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 05 Feb 2020 18:00:14 +0000

FORESTVILLE, Calif., Feb. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The Audiobook Publishers Association announced today that The Barefoot Spirit Audiobook is a Finalist for the 2020 Business/Personal Development Audiobook of the Year Award. The original paperback version of The Barefoot Spirit, How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand was a New York Times Bestseller and chronicles the humble beginnings of the now ubiquitous Barefoot Wine brand.

The audiobook was nominated based on its content as well as its original audio theatre approach to storytelling. Bonnie Harvey, Barefoot Wine cofounder and coauthor said, “We wanted our message to reach more people, so we presented it in a radio theatre audio play complete with a full cast of actors, scenes, sound effects, and music.”

Michael Houlihan, Barefoot Wine cofounder and coauthor added, “We are thrilled to be recognized by the Audiobook Publishers Association. It gives credibility to this new genre which we call Business Audio Theatre. The best way to communicate business concepts is through story and the best way to communicate story is through theatrical performance.”

Houlihan & Harvey’s company, Business Audio Theatre is looking to attract other founders who want to preserve their legacy and keep their entrepreneurial spirit alive through creative storytelling performed as audio cinema, using their experienced team of professionals.

The audiobook launched on all audiobook retail platforms on September 3^rd, 2019 and has been garnering positive reviews from throughout the business community.

“The Business Audio Theater format has a neat balance between modern technology and the charisma of the old-fashioned radio plays.” – Laura Sicola, PhD, CEO Vocal Impact Productions

“An enjoyable experience filled with the exuberance of the founders themselves.” – Audiofile Magazine

“A Transformative Idea: Business Audio Theatre from the Founders of Barefoot Wine not Just Narrated … Performed!” – Forbes

At 90 years of age, the venerable Hollywood actor Ed Asner, voices the part of the grumpy supermarket buyer who initially rejects Barefoot Wine but ultimately paves the path for its success. Asner said, “I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to be a part of this new genre of Business Audio Theatre!”

Director Matt Weinglass, and founder of Sherwood Players Productions, whose company produced the audiobook said, “I’m excited to see this innovative type of storytelling [Business Audio Theatre] catch on as we continue to bring more business stories to life using all the cinematic resources available to us in our Industry.”

Ryan Foland, Executive Producer & Communications Specialist said, “This is a whole new way to entertain, engage, and educate employees and customers by preserving the founder’s history and principles.”

The 2020 Audie Awards Ceremony will take place at New York City’s Guastavino’s on Monday, March 2^nd, 2020.

“The Barefoot Spirit” Audiobook is narrated by Alamada Karatihy and features Ed Asner and Gigi Perreau with Matt Weinglass, Hazel Paraoan, Ruffy Landayan and Tom Malloy, with original music by Tyler David Gilbert, executive produced by Michael Houlihan, Bonnie Harvey and Ryan Foland and is directed by Matt Weinglass.

For interviews please contact: info@thebarefootspirit.com or (707) 484-1600.

For more information or audiobook samples visit: www.barefootaudiobook.com

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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BookTrib – The Barefoot Spirit Audiobook Review

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 20:19:55 +0000

Here at BookTrib, I’m asked to review a lot of books. You can find me most evenings, weekends and train commutes deep inside a book bristling with Post-It notes. So it was a refreshing change when I was asked to review the audiobook of The Barefoot Spirit (Footnotes Press) by Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, founders of Barefoot Wine. Not just an audiobook, mind you, but a “business audio theatre” book. A what, now?

As soon as I started listening, I understood. This wasn’t just a voiceover artist reading a book out loud for me. Rather, it was an immersive listening experience, including actors playing the parts of various characters, punctuated by sound effects and enhanced with music. In a nonfiction audiobook, no less. I was embarking on a journey of the mind’s eye into an engaging, often funny, informative look into the struggles, ingenuity and humanity behind the founding of America’s top wine brand.

To read the full professional audiobook review, please visit BookTrib

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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A Transformative Idea: “Business Audio Theatre” From The Founders Of Barefoot Wine. Not Just Narrated … Performed! – Forbes

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 20:22:10 +0000

Over the years, I’ve written about, interviewed, and listened to Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, the founders of Barefoot Wine and New York Times bestselling authors of The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand.

Recently their latest project caught my eye, or should I say, my ear. Welcome to the world of Business Audio Theatre, where business audiobooks are not just narrated but performed! Last week I caught up with the dynamic duo at their California Wine Country home. I wanted to know more.

Robert Reiss: You guys built and sold what is now the world’s #1 wine brand. Wasn’t that enough?

To read the complete article, please visit Forbes

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Last Night at the Pink Taco

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 17:00:43 +0000

Book cast from left to right: Middle row: Case Williams, Jennifer Van Heeckeren, Robert Weiner, Alamada Karatihy, Mary Benedict, Lizette Santiago. Back row: Ruffy Landayan, Matt Weinglass

Last night at the Pink Taco, on the Sunset Strip in, you guessed it, LA, a very special group of Hollywood actors gathered in a reserved table for a very special celebration. The production they had been working on for over a year was finally completed and launched. They were celebrating! And well they should! What they have been working on is no less than a breakthrough in business education, a new application of experiential learning, and the creation of a whole new genre of business audio books, Business Audio Theatre.

The actors weren’t in a movie, but they were in a “movie of the mind.” They performed in cinematic scenes with sound effects and an original musical score. They acted out real life situations that occurred in the early days of the founding of what is now the world’s largest wine brand. And they did it all in audio, where an outstanding female narrator set up the listeners for each scene with descriptions of the sets, the challenges, and the mentality of the characters. This was a private launch party for the Sherwood Players who produced The Barefoot Spirit Business Audio Theater.

We are very proud of the professional job they did as performers. They definitely brought our New York Times bestselling paperback to life in a new, fun, and exciting way. Some of them are starting their careers. Others are seasoned veterans. We hope this opportunity will help them all move forward.

The venerable Ed Asner plays a very convincing skeptical supermarket buyer who originally refuses to take on Barefoot Wine, but ultimately paves the way for its success. Gigi Perreau, the longtime Hollywood actress who actually performed on original radio theater, plays Mabel, Bonnie’s mom and a WWII Rosie-the-Riveter, salt-of-the-earth type, who comes to live with us and pitches in with physical and emotional support.

Our narrator was Alamada Karatihy who beautifully carries the story through all its ups and down, twists and turns.

Interestingly, one of the actors, Tom Malloy wrote his own business book, Bankroll, to help Hollywood actors gain financing for their projects.

The original musical score was the brainchild of Tyler David Gilbert who also did a masterful job of editing… and re-editing! Thank you Tyler!

But like any team, its performance is only as good as its coach. In this case our director, Matt Weinglass, was responsible for leading his troupe! Matt understood what we were trying to do, which was to bring our business biography to life and demonstrate through dramatic performance – and a generous dash of humor – key business principles that can help others succeed. He artfully and skillfully brought all the pieces together to create continuity, purpose, vision, and team spirit. And after all, that’s what the story is all about …spirit!

Many thanks to Sherwood Players Productions and our dear friend and colleague Ryan Foland ,who encouraged and supported us in this new venture!

So now it’s up to you. We produced this new style of business audio book in the hopes that more of you would benefit from the many lessons we learned the hard way – so you don’t have to! Just experience what happens to us in this modern seat-of-your-pants, cliffhanger adventure story about a brand you know. We’d love to get your comments and we would be thrilled if you would recommend it to your friends who can benefit. There’s ten, 40 min chapters with a short “live” interview with us at the end of each, perfect listening for your next jog or commute.

Hear a few scenes from The Barefoot Spirit, now available on our Author’s Direct page and at audiobook retailers everywhere!

To your success!

M&B

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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How Crowdsourcing Built The World’s #1 Wine Brand

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 14:39:35 +0000

Hi! We are Michael and Bonnie, the founders of the world’s largest wine brand. Did you know that we used crowdsourcing to build Barefoot Wine? Sure, it wasn’t called “Crowdsourcing” back then, but it was the secret to our success!

If Necessity is the Mother of Invention, Being Undercapitalized is Surely the Father!

It all started with an opportunity to turn a debt into a business. Our friend, a grape grower, hadn’t been paid for his grapes for three years. The only thing we could get out of the winery that owed him the money was a trade: debt for goods and services. The goods were bulk wine, and the services were bottling services.

We were undercapitalized and astonishingly deficient in industry knowledge. Then, all of a sudden, we had $300,000 worth of grapes and bottling services, but no clue as to what to do to convert those assets into cash. We were humbled. We started asking questions, lots of questions. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were crowdsourcing.

To read the complete article, please visit Crowd Sourcing Week

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Entrepreneur – It’s Official: Customers Prefer Sustainable Companies

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 19:53:23 +0000

When we built the Barefoot Wine brand, we lived and died on the latest Nielsen ratings. So if you are in the packaged goods space, you want to pay careful attention to the latest Nielsen report “How and Why Sustainability is Gaining Momentum with Customers.”

For the purposes of this report, Nielsen chose to study purchases of three of the most common fast-moving consumer goods, coffee, chocolate and bath products, because of their differences from each other. What they found was that products with sustainability claims generally outperformed the growth rate of total products in their respective categories.

For instance, based on sales for the 52-week period ending 3/24/2018, the weighted average of all three categories showed 3 percent more growth for sustainable products. Sustainable coffee 11 percent more, sustainable chocolate 2 percent more and sustainable bath products 13 percent more than the total of their respective categories.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Problem Solving, Barefoot Style: 5 Steps to Approach Any Problem

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 02:10:13 +0000

The success of the Barefoot Wine brand is living testimony to the problem-solving methods Bonnie Harvey and I employed in our early days. You can use these same methods to help overcome the problems your business faces on its journey from start-up to build-up and from build out to enterprise.

Barefoot Wine is now the world’s largest wine brand, but it had very humble beginnings. Bonnie and I started out in a laundry room in a rented farmhouse. We had no money and no knowledge of our industry. But these two apparent handicaps turned out to be the keys to our success.

Because we were underfinanced, we were forced to become resourceful. Because we were unfamiliar with our industry, we were forced to ask lots of questions.

To read the complete article, please visit Strive Magazine

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Whatever Business You Think You’re in, Your Employees Should Be Oriented on Your Customers

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 21 Jun 2018 22:02:23 +0000

We recently had the pleasure of spending the day with 65 MBA students from Nanyang University in Singapore.

Twenty-five percent of the class were part-time students who were already running their own businesses. They asked most of the questions because they obviously had the most immediate concerns.

One question that was particularly telling was, “How do you to get the most out of your employees?”

We’ve given many talks and worked with many companies on this issue, plus we have our own experience building the Barefoot Wine Brand. We had virtually no turnover during the last several years before we were acquired. These were also the same years that the brand made leaps and bounds in the marketplace and overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Most of those solutions came from our own people.

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Force Brands – Brand Building Secrets Interview

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 21 May 2018 16:57:30 +0000

Founders Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey didn’t set out with the intention of creating the world’s largest wine brand. At the time of Barefoot Wine’s founding in 1985, they both lacked the money and the industry knowledge necessary to launch a brand of any kind. Instead, they relied on innovative, entrepreneurial tactics that would later prove to be more than successful.

Their unconventional approach to brand building led them to disrupt the wine category with a unique perspective on retail; leverage an alternative to commercial advertising; and forge partnerships with 25,000 retail stores across 50 states and 28 countries.

Read on to discover the story of Barefoot from its founders — the things they wish they knew then; how they approached hiring; and why they believe that a brand’s reputation is the key to its success.

To read the interview, please visit Force Brands

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5 Ways to Tell If You Are You Persistent or Just Stuck in a Rut

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 18:00:59 +0000

Most successful startup founders will tell you that it’s going to take a lot of tenacity to succeed. They will all generally tell you that persistence is the better part of valor when it comes to winning. We agree. It takes a great degree of resolve and patience to see the results you are looking for.

Sometimes you must persevere against the odds, struggle along until the time is right, and hold out for that big break. Perhaps the market will change, the buyer will change, or finally the amount of time you put in begins to result in traction.

Getting things started is difficult enough, but what about getting something new started, something the market hasn’t seen before, or doesn’t know it needs?

That happened to us. Our product was disruptive, broke all the rules, and identified a market no one was addressing. We had to spend several years doing missionary work just to convince buyers that they could make a profit on our product. What if we got tired of the uphill battle and quit? There would be no Barefoot Wine today!

Disruptive startups require founders who doggedly push on in the face of adversity and predisposition. But at what point does persistence become narrow-mindedness? At what point does priming the pump become beating a dead horse? How do you really know when it’s time to give up, pivot, or “rethink your drink?”

Here are 5 indicators to help you recognize the difference between determination and getting stuck in a rut.

Small Successes. Are you having ANY success at all? Is there a direct relationship between the amount of time, energy, and money you put into an initiative and the rate of success? If you see increased sales each day, week or month, you may be justified in sticking to it. If not, move forward on another approach.
Leapfrog Successes. Can you see customer demand beyond a nay-saying gatekeeper? In spite of what you are being told, do you have evidence that there is a need for your offering? Is it your offering itself that needs alteration? Or is it your approach to market penetration that needs a revamp?
Time and Money. Sometimes the decision to pull the plug will be made for you. You simply can’t afford to continue to stick to the path you’ve chosen. You run out of time and money. If you can’t establish an increasing cash flow within a year, you may be forced to change your course. There are a ton of great ideas out there that never made it to the market because the founder simply ran out of runway.
Blinded by Determination. Are you missing easier ways of succeeding because you are so dedicated to your course that you are narrowly focused on the path you’ve chosen? If an alternative presented itself, would you recognize it? Yes, most times sheer persistence is required, but keep your eyes open for more efficient ways of achieving your goals.
Outside Opinions. Entrepreneurship is lonely, especially when you know your idea will fly and few others see it. Sometimes you just need some support to keep you going. Find a supporter you respect to help you shore up the path towards your end game. Share your approach to identifying and accessing the market. Ask for their suggestions. They may see something you don’t. They can give you an objective view.

Knowing when persistence has led you to being stuck in a rut is difficult especially when you keep hearing stories of other startups that finally got traction. What if they gave up right before that happened? After some amount of time though, there is a point of diminishing returns. The sales just aren’t there to support the enterprise. Do you stubbornly continue because you want to justify all the time, money, and energy you have put in so far? Or do you recognize that channel vision may be blinding you to alternatives?

We hope these indicators can help you make that difficult decision to push on or shove off.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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