For what it’s worth, we thought it might be helpful to reiterate our thoughts on problem solving in the hopes that it might help some small businesses survive in this unprecedented environment. We call it problem solving Barefoot Style:

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals 

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.

The post Businesses in Survival Mode Require Faster Problem Solving appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

FORESTVILLE, Calif.

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.

The post The Barefoot Spirit is an Audie Award Finalist! appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

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 

The post Force Brands – Brand Building Secrets Interview appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Having built the wine brand Barefoot, we learned a few things about branding consumer products. Get your product in front of the folks who will benefit from it. Be clear about what you are selling. Distinguish your product from the competition. Understand and work the distribution system. Deliver a consistent message. If you want to build a successful consumer product brand, you don’t have the time nor the luxury to deviate from this path.

We’ve become experts at branding in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space. But what if you want to build a personal brand? Are there definitive rules like branding packaged goods?

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur.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.

The post The 7 Habits of Highly Brandable People appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

A positive company culture is what we relied upon when building the Barefoot Wine brand into a national best-seller. Here’s how we did it:

1. The money map

When we hired people, they were give an infographic showing the circuitous route the money took to get to them from the consumers, moving through the retailers and distributors and eventually into their paychecks, bonuses and benefits. This was not just a great educational tool from an orientation perspective, but it was a great way to set the stage for a company culture of sales.

2. The two-division company

Unlike the typical pyramid structure with the CEO on the top followed by the C-suite and then the myriad of divisions and departments, our organization had just two divisions: Sales and sales support. Everybody who was not in sales was in sales support, including the CEO, receptionist and accounting, marketing, product development, and production.

Why? Because without sales there would be no income. If you really believe the customer should be on top, put sales on top and have everyone else support sales.

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals 

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.

The post ​7 Steps to Infuse Entrepreneurial Thinking Into Company Culture appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

As a leader, you’re hyper-focused on your company’s productivity, profits, and growth. Wouldn’t it be nice if your employees were as focused on those factors as you and the company’s other executives? Sure, they do what you tell them. They come in every day and perform every task within their job descriptions. But often that’s where the buck stops. If a problem lands in their laps that isn’t what they consider to be “their responsibility,” they pass it on to the next guy or they bring it to you expecting a solution.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can teach your employees to think and act outside of their job descriptions—to think, in point of fact, like owners! At Barefoot Cellars, we found that the key to turning worker bees into solutions-oriented entrepreneurs was simplifying our structure into just two divisions: sales and sales support.

To read the complete article, please visit Training Magazine 

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.

The post Training Magazine – Teach Employees to think like Owners by Scaling Down to Two Divisions appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Over the years, I haven’t improved much when it comes to wine selection, but I have spent a decent amount of time walking the aisles trying to figure out which one to bring home. When I need to grab a bottle of wine at the store, I still ask for help.

However, even with my high level of wine ignorance, when I heard a reference to Barefoot Wines recently, I immediately knew the wine. It made me think of the wine bottles I have seen over the years, with the very distinguishable logo: a footprint. Bottles with a footprint appear in many different locations, and I expect it to be in the lineup whenever I’m browsing the aisles shopping by labels. Read more…

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Last December, my fellow FORBES contributor Robert Reiss, wrote a great piece entitled “The Incredible Story Of Starting The World’s Largest Wine Brand, Barefoot Wines.” The article was essentially a get-to-know two amazing people who launched what is now an iconic brand in a laundry room of a rented farmhouse in the Sonoma County hills.

I had the pleasure of meeting with and speaking with the two founders, Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, last year at a C-Suite Conference in Marina del Rey, California. Read more…

The post 8 Lessons For Budding Entrepreneurs appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Have you put them in the same room with a top performer so they can listen, observe, and learn the techniques, subtleties, and nuances necessary to close a sale? Many salespeople say they have their own style but unless they perform, that style needs improvement. New salespeople are sometimes skeptical about whether anybody can achieve your sales goals, which often are set by folks who have never sold themselves.

When we were in our growth phase building the Barefoot brand, many sales to out-of-state distributers were done over the phone. We had a key salesperson who was not closing. He was busy alright – phoning, emailing and taking copious notes, but not closing. We paired him up with a super performer and put them in the same room for a month so they could hear and see each other work.

The super performer continued to close sales, but now the underachiever was watching this happen right in front of him. So now he had peer pressure and daily demonstrated examples of how it was done – with a variety of tough customers. He improved big time! In fact, he went on to become our top salesperson!

We have a friend who was looking for ways to reward his salespeople for hitting and exceeding their sales goal. He thought a great reward would be to have the performers get their own office and no longer have to work in a big bay with other salespeople. The plan seemed to work at first. Everyone tried harder and sales went up. The top salespeople got their own offices and were the envy of the rest of the sale staff. Many of these top performers became even better performers as a result of having the privacy of their own offices.

But a funny thing happened out on the main sales bay. Sales started falling off. Why? Because the folks the salespeople were looking up to, the top performers, who were inadvertently teaching them and supplying the peer pressure to perform, had been moved out of the room!  Now the room was filled only with newbies and low performers. Comments were made such as, “It was just a bad day,” or, “Nobody else in the room was capable of hitting the numbers,” or even worse, “The goals are unreasonable.” They certainly had a majority in the room with which to commiserate.

Ultimately our friend changed the policy and kept the top performers circulating through the main sales floor. He also paired up newbies with established salespeople one-on-one in their offices where the experienced salesperson could show the newbie winning sales techniques and give them friendly support by critiquing their calls and offering suggestions about alternative ways to handle objections. Sales improved all the way around.

A key ingredient necessary to turn a good salesperson into a great salesperson is confidence. When they hear and see a top performer demonstrate pride in their product, empathy for the customer, and social skills in action, they know it’s possible for them to do the same. They’ve seen “blood from the beast,” and now they want it for themselves too!

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.

The post Demonstrate Sales to Your Salespeople to Give Them Confidence appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

This week we were the Executives in Residence at one of Canada’s premier universities, the University of Lethbridge, with campuses in Calgary, Edmonton, and Lethbridge.  In addition to delivering keynotes to several hundred students, faculty, and business leaders, we are also speaking to individual marketing and business management classes about the lessons we learned building the Barefoot Wine brand.

One professor asked us to speak about how we conducted marketing research and acquired information before the launch of our product.

When Barefoot started, we didn’t have a preconceived idea about what we wanted to do. We knew only that it was going to be a wine product.  Barefoot Wines was the end result of our efforts to collect a long over-due debt for a grape farmer. Instead of cash, we did a trade for bulk wine and bottling services.

Now we just had to transform the raw materials into cash to pay the debt. But not so fast! This meant that we had to find a buyer for a finished, branded product. We had no idea what was needed or how it should look, but we knew that the chain stores were buying wine in huge quantities, so that was where we started.

We did something that in retrospect seems obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to any marketers with previously designed finished products. Rather than pitch the features and benefits of what we created, we asked the largest buyer in our region what he needed. What he told us was the key to accessing the market in the first place. Never mind the way the brand developed and succeeded. It had to get into the market first.

We acquired the critical marketing information we needed, not from pouring over piles of data, not from extensive focus groups, and not even from interviewing successful brand owners in our industry. We didn’t have the funds nor the time for that approach.

Instead we asked the consumers what they wanted, the warehouse workers how to assure correct deliveries, the clerks what products got the greatest reorders, and the bottling line managers what labels they bottled the most. We asked the retail buyers what price the market would bear for what kind of package and product. Then we worked backwards to develop our product, logo, and budget.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but due to our time pressure and being industry outsiders, we actually collected better, more current, and more relevant marketing information than if we had approached the challenge in a more traditional way.

In fact, the Barefoot brand concept could not have originated from within the wine industry at that time, nor could it have originated from any conventional approach to marketing research. It would have been prejudiced by the way questions were formulated and the way things had been done in the past.  In an effort to copy or compete with other successful brands in the space, Barefoot would have turned out just like them. Barefoot was out-of-the-box because it’s founders where never in the box and had the audacity to ask everyone who touched their product for advice. They collected marketing information from the people who physically dealt with products in their category every day. Most had never been asked before.

We laud the management and marketing curriculum at Lethbridge University because it incorporates the experiences and learnings of real-life successful entrepreneurs who overcame the toughest challenges in new and creative ways. We are honored to be a case study and adjunct to their commitment to create the next generation of business leaders.

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.

The post University of Lethbridge Teaches Marketing and Management with Real World Experience appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.