But it wasn’t because we were so clever, in fact we made most of the big mistakes! It was because our people were engaged and empowered to make a big difference. They came up with most of the clever solutions that got us through the tough times and over the seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They did more with less, improved our policies and procedures, and used innovation to disrupt a rather stuffy industry.

At the closing talk for the C-Suite conference in San Francisco this month, Michael shared 7 of the tools we used to build an outstanding team that was engaged, empowered, and committed to the success of our business. Here is a brief summery from the top:

1. Hire Good People, Build Great People.

Hire for hustle, integrity, and enthusiasm. Look for extrapolation learners. Test their comprehension. Be prepared to redesign the job to fit the talents of each employee. On the last interview, you do all the talking. Explain the business process and why their job is essential. Then ask for a summary by 5 pm the next day.

2. Overkill on Orientation.

When the cement is wet, you can move it with a trowel. But when it gets hard, you’ll need a jackhammer! Don’t let them develop and harbor early misconceptions about how the business works, where the money comes from, and how the customer must be serviced to get the funds that go in their paychecks.

3. The Money Map

Show them a “Money Map”. Start with the community from which the initial customers emulate. Show the transactions that starts the money moving as those customers purchase goods and services that effect your business. Show all the twists and turns that the money goes through on the way to their paychecks.

4. The Two-Division Company

Give them a second graphic that shows how your company is organized with the customer on top! Then, right under that, the only people they talk to daily, your sales and customer service people (The Sales Division). Then right under that, everybody else in the company, regardless of specialty (The Sales Support Division).

5. Know the Need

Contrary to the popular Need-to-Know basis that most companies use to keep their people in the dark, practice Know-the-Need to demonstrate respect for their intelligence and commitment to your company’s success. Share your sales and marketing challenges and ask them for help. You’ll be surprised at the results!

6. Public Acknowledgement

Communicate their accomplishment in writing. Copy the entire staff. Get more of what you are praising for. Get them the respect of other staff. Send a “message” that everyone can get the same kind of top-level acknowledgment when they perform as well as the one being singled out for admiration.

7. Staff Wide Quarterly Bonus

Reward on a quarterly basis. A year is too long (They’ll forget, sand bag, or give up). A month is too impractical (Months are more subject to anomaly and it’s difficult to get the numbers together that fast). Reward everyone to build team spirit. Make it based on sales, growth, and profitability. We used a variable 401K quarterly match.

Want more details or additional suggestions? Check out our short book on the subject, aptly named, The Entrepreneurial Culture, 23 ways to Engage and Empower Your People. It worked for us. it can work for you. You may just hear them say, “I love working here!”

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 Engage Your People (And Get the Results You are Looking For) 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.

“Voted #1 Best Speakers at the C-Suite Conference!” – Thomas White, CEO C-Suite Network, Radio Host – Nationally Syndicated “Business Matters”

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But all culture and all change starts from the top, and the top execs have to be willing to change in order for these tools to work their magic. Many C-Suiters are fearful of change. They feel that it might cause a “revolution,” result in legal challenges, or run-away costs. So they stifle methods that can empower and engage employees that, in their minds, step on the three sacred corporate cows: Read more…

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 Entrepreneurs’ Organization – Three Sacred Cows of Corporate Structure appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Corporations want to know why they can’t have that culture in their own companies, and they’re under increasing pressure from board members and stockholders to make it happen. They find they have become over-organized and staid in their policies, procedures and structure. They are beginning to realize the very efficiencies of scale, standardization and mitigation of liability they built over so many years have actually disengaged and disempowered their own people.

Employees cannot be pressured into being engaged and empowered, nor can C-Suiters take a magic pill and create an entrepreneurial culture. This is not a fad or an item to be checked off this year. This is an on-going commitment that is contrary to some sacred corporate cows, such as compensation, compliance, and corporate structure. This change will require the introduction of a few new wild mustangs:

1. Pay for Performance. Unless your people are paid commensurate with their performance, they will be skeptical of any other initiatives to foster entrepreneurial culture. Some portion of their compensation must be based on production measured by sales, growth, and profitability. It’s nice to think that your people are driven by factors other than compensation, but the good ones always seem leave for higher paying jobs. Paying for attendance alone says “You get paid the same, whether the company makes a profit or not!” Entrepreneurs simply can’t afford to pay for attendance alone. Entrepreneurs have to hire entrepreneurial thinkers who are willing to “bet” their income on their own productivity.

2. Put Legal on a Short Leash. Too many corporations are virtually “run” by their well-meaning legal departments, who, in their desire to mitigate corporate liability, have actually hamstrung creativity. Instead of finding ways to make things happen, they tend to find ways to stop things from happening. We think legal should be required to develop parameters inside of which formal compliance reviews are not necessary. Further, their compensation should be based, at least in part, on sales, growth, and profitability. Why should they get paid the same whether the company stays relevant and competitive or not? “How can we do this legally?” should be the challenge, not, “Can we do this?”

3. Act Like a Two-Division Company. If the customer truly is on top, how can sales and customer service be on the bottom? All entrepreneurs know that no matter how their companies are officially organized, there is an overriding two-divisional structure and mindset: sales and sales-support. Everybody who is not in sales is in sales-support. This includes marketing, production and administration. Why? Because entrepreneurs are painfully aware of how everyone gets paid. It’s from the customer through sales. Sales and customer service know most about what the market needs, so provide a regular feedback loop that keeps marketing and production informed and relevant.

We’ve distilled out the essentials of the entrepreneurial culture we created at Barefoot to be applied to any corporation in our new book, The Entrepreneurial Culture, 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People. It will be released in early September, 2014, with the launch of Jeff Hayzlett’s new on-demand C-Suite TV, and will be available through the C-Suite Book Club. It’s the perfect companion to our New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit, How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. Check it out!

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 Entrepreneurial Culture is In Demand! appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Nowadays it seems even the big corporations want to make the shift to a more entrepreneurial culture. So we put together a companion to The Barefoot Spirit  just for the C-Suite. It’s called – you guessed it– The Entrepreneurial Culture, 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People.

We will be announcing it this week with several media appearances in New York, including the taping of a new TV show run by Jeff Hayzlett (the former Chief Marketing Officer of Eastman Kodak) called C-Suite TV. We are very excited to have our new book launch coincide with the launch of the C-Suite TV and C-suite Book Club in early September.

We saw a great cartoon recently where a haggard employee was sitting at a bar after work, complaining to the bartender, “Sure they want me to be creative and innovative, but I’ve got a career to think about!” One of the chapters from The Entrepreneurial Culture suggests entrepreneurial compensation to solve this problem.

 Chapter Four

Use performance-based compensation, and share the wealth.

Allow us to be blunt: we don’t think that set salaries are a great idea. When you have a compensation plan based on an hourly rate, you’re paying for attendance, not production. Regardless of how much they do or don’t accomplish, your employees will have an “I was there, pay me!” attitude…and can you blame them? Instead, our experience has shown us that performance-based compensation is better for everyone– you, your employees, and your company as a whole.

We created a pretty radical pay system at our company for a simple reason: We were a small company that needed to sell large quantities of merchandise, and we couldn’t afford unproductive people. So basically, we asked employees to bet on their own productivity. (Or as Michael told job applicants, he was asking people to bet on themselves.)

For salespeople specifically (and to a lesser extent, sales-support people), we offered a small base salary and told new hires, “The more you sell, the more you make. There’s no limit.” And in order to ensure that our employees didn’t ease off when they felt they were making “enough,” we set up an increasing incentive, so each step—though harder—would be worth a lot more than the last.

Here’s an example of how it worked: If someone sold, say, 100 cases in April 2000, and 100 cases in April 2001 (these numbers are unrealistically small for simplicity), their commission would be the same in both years. But if they sold 10 percent more – 110 cases – they would get $1 for every case over that 100, or $10 more.

If they sold 20 percent more in April 2001 – 120 cases – they would get $2 per case for every case over 100. Not just $1 for cases 101-110 and $2 for cases 111-120; they would make $2 for each case, or $40 more. They didn’t just get higher pay for additional growth, they got the boost for all the growth. It kept multiplying. So, 30 percent more – 130 cases – would earn $3 times 30 cases, or $90, and on up. (And again, keep in mind that these numbers are unrealistically small!)

At various points, we were chastised by other businesspeople who felt that we were “overpaying” salespeople. This was partially due to the fact that several of our top salespeople made more than we, the owners, did! Yet when we looked at the numbers, we knew we were doing the right thing.

Our unorthodox compensation system didn’t stop with our salespeople, either. Performance-based pay also applied to our sales support-staff (i.e., everyone who wasn’t a salesperson). In addition to their salaries, these employees received bonuses based on quarterly sales.

At first, many members of our sales-support staff were skeptical. For example, one bookkeeper claimed that it wasn’t fair to be paid a bonus based on quarterly sales because bookkeepers could not affect sales. Turns out, that claim wasn’t entirely accurate. Here’s what happened: Soon thereafter, one of our salespeople got a last-minute meeting with “Mr. Big,” a supermarket chain buyer, at 8:00 AM the next morning. And because the bookkeeper in question knew that his bonus would be affected by the sale, he made sure that the salesperson had all the necessary reports by 7:00 AM. Needless to say, our salesperson came back to the office with the purchase order.

Here’s another example of how pay-for-performance motivated our sales-support staff. One day, a gentleman walked into our reception area wearing an aloha shirt and Bermuda shorts. Although he appeared to be on vacation, this man was checking out our wine display and everything written on the walls. Our receptionist, who knew that her bonus was based on sales, proactively asked the visitor if he was a wine buyer. When the man shared that he was actually a big wine buyer for a 30-store chain in the Southwest, our receptionist immediately introduced him to our national sales manager. And because this wine buyer was relaxed, on vacation, and in discovery mode, he ended up putting our product in all of his 30 stores! You can bet that our receptionist really savored that particular quarter’s bonus.

Overall, performance-based pay really helped us grow, and best of all, the increased “pay” was “found money” that cost us nothing.Plus, we reduced turnover, which is the #1 hidden cost of doing business. Think about it: when members of your team leave, you don’t just lose those employees; you lose their hours of training, their institutional knowledge and their relationships outside the company. In the case of salespeople, you can lose customers who are more loyal to your former employees than the product they represented. Plus, it can be costly to look for and train new candidates.

Basically, our compensation system meant that producers couldn’t afford to leave, and non-producers couldn’t afford to stay. Meanwhile, we constantly attracted new go-getters who were willing to bet on themselves.

It’s simple: How you treat your employees directly correlates to how successful your business will be. If you treat them like a commodity—if you’re stingy with pay, recognition, and benefits—they’ll do only the bare minimum to keep their jobs, and eventually, they’ll leave.

We suggest you use performance-based compensation, too. Yes, every company and every industry is different, but if it’s possible to earn profits, it’s possible to tie those profits to your employees’ salaries and bonuses—and we guarantee that you’ll see results! Sharing the wealth never looked so good!

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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