compliance | The Barefoot Spirit

5 Principles For Solving Problems

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 16:22:09 +0000

When we took on the building of the Barefoot Wine brand, we really didn’t understand the problems we would have to overcome to be successful.

We had no idea how long it would take, the opposition we would face, or the enormous hurdles we had to clear in compliance, distribution, and personnel management.

Every day there were new fires that had to be put out. Every day there were unexpected bills hungry for bucks. And every roadblock challenged our very approach to problem solving.

After a while, we began to develop actual problem-solving principles that gave us structure and a set of standards we would apply to future problems. As we solved problem after problem, we slowly improved our approach to problem solving itself.

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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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Don’t Block Good Ideas from Getting to You!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 18:00:36 +0000

Often the best ideas to solve problems, cut costs, and improve sales come from your own people – but they never get to you. Why? Because you have inadvertently allowed your company’s structure to prevent them from doing so.

Employees, vendors, and customers are loaded with good ideas to help you succeed. But are you willing to listen? If you think you know more about your product than anyone else, or that accepting ideas from others is somehow implying that you, the product creator, don’t have all the answers, you may be losing out on a goldmine.

This mindset is counterproductive to improvement. You may be making a statement, but losing a deposit.

You may think, “Oh, that’s not me. I want every good idea I can get my hands on!” But you may have permitted subtle roadblocks that effectively block those good ideas. If you unintentionally allow your company to grow into a “know-it-all,” top-down structure, you are blocking good ideas from getting to you and your decision-makers.

When we are helping a company with positive suggestion to improve their product or service, we often hear, “Nobody ever told me that before,” to which we respond, “Well, you can’t say that anymore!” But now we know two things about this company: first, “good” ideas do not flow easily; and second, they believe customers only complain and never offer useful suggestions.

It is easy to see how this happens. Production is charged with taking raw materials and developing them into products, which they hand down to Marketing. Then, Marketing develops plans to sell the products and hands them down to Sales. Then, Sales is charged with executing those plans. And then, if there are any dissatisfied customers, they go to Customer Service who is charged with resolving their complaints.

This is the classic pyramid structure. We say, “Pyramids are for dead pharaohs – don’t bury your good ideas under one!”

To remove the roads blocks that prevent good ideas from getting through a top-down structure start with a bottom-up philosophy and let it percolate into every level in your company structure.

Start by putting the customer on top. Every company says they put the customer on top. But to do this in practice requires turning that pyramid upside down.

Every call from your customers is a golden opportunity to get good ideas. So, change Customer Service from “complaint resolution” to “customer intell.” Create a formal upward path of communication that regularly allows those ideas to get to your production and marketing people.

Salespeople become more than the folks who execute the marketing plans. They get customer feedback, they witness market dynamics, and they see competitors’ strategies. Sales must be encouraged to collect and pass on this critical info to marketing and production.

Well-meaning Compliance, HR, and even 1^st and 2^nd line Managers can discourage and even stop good ideas coming from your own people. Good ideas wane when not acted upon quickly. To speed up the process, ask you compliance people to identify parameters inside of which staff suggestions can get fast-tracked. Then, actively encourage suggestions, followed by written memos of appreciation to those with the best ideas. Copy the entire team. This acknowledgement gives your people more appreciation for what that person did, and they will all know that if they do the same, they too will also get acknowledgement. This encourages them to be engaged and creative.

Your customers, employees, and vendors have valuable suggestions that can help you succeed – if you only let them. Get out of the way and let ideas flow!

Who We Are

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

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5 Barefoot Problem Solving Principles

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 27 Oct 2016 17:00:37 +0000

When we took on the building of the Barefoot Wine brand, we really didn’t understand the problems we would have to overcome to be successful. We had no idea how long it would take, the opposition we would face, or the enormous hurdles we had to clear in compliance, distribution, and personnel management. Every day there were new fires that had to be put out. Everyday there were unexpected bills hungry for bucks. And every road block challenged our very approach to problem solving.

After a while we began to develop actual problem solving principles that gave us structure and a set of standards we would apply to future problems. As we solved problem after problem we slowly improved our approach to problem solving itself. In fact, we began, in a crazy way, to lose our anxiety over the inevitable problems! It became kind of a game! We were challenged with something new and unheard of, but we took comfort in the knowledge that we had a set of principles to handle it, no matter what it was.

Here are our 5 Barefoot problem solving principles:

Take Inventory. That’s right, just like a shipwreck on an abandoned island, take account of everything you have on board. Get ready to be resourceful. Think about how your assets can be used to overcome the challenges you face. Your assets are more than property, money, and products; they are also your people, your customers, and your suppliers. You may have a strategic advantage in a seemingly unrelated area. Don’t overlook any hidden assets, including your own knowledge and experience.
Get Out of the Box. And the quickest way out of the box is straight up! Take the 10,000-foot view. Look beyond your walls, beyond your business, even beyond your industry. Check out the entire landscape. Who has overcome a problem like this in another space? How did they do it? What similarities apply? Are you even defining the problem properly? We believe one way to the solution is the best definition of the problem, so look at it from every angle.
Who Else Benefits? If you solve the problem, who else will the solution assist? And conversely, who is hurt if you don’t solve the problem? By asking these questions you can discover your strategic allies who share an interest in seeing the problem solved. For instance, you may have a supplier who benefits by your growth, and may be amenable to providing additional credit or extended terms to help you overcome a hurdle or grow your business faster so they can sell you more products.
Look at Your Other Problems. If you believe, as we do, that the elegant solution solves more than one problem, then reverse the premise and put all your problems out on the table with the one you are trying to solve. By looking at them all together you’ll begin to see relationships between them. And it is in those relationships that the solution often lies. We’ve been amazed how this tactic can turn on the lights with breakthroughs we wouldn’t have considered otherwise!
Know the Need. Instead of putting your staff, your suppliers, and your associates on a “need-to-know” basis by hiding your problems under the veil of security, practice “know-the-need.“ Involve your stakeholders in the problem solving process. They have an interest in the solution and will appreciate the respect you demonstrate for their intelligence and creativity. Crazy ideas that come out of fun brainstorming sessions often result in problem solving at its finest.

So bring on the next problem and give these principles a try. They worked for us and they can work for you!

Who We Are

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

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As Businesses Grow, They Risk Losing Their Entrepreneurial Spirit

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 17:00:12 +0000

It’s not how you get the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s how you lose it! Every garage startup must have the entrepreneurial spirit to survive. Many successful businesses were once garage startups, and they once had that spirit. But somewhere between the four stages of businesses growth, our friend Jim Canfield of Renaissance Executive Forums calls “startup, buildup, buildout, and enterprise,” the entrepreneurial spirit can lose its luster.

The entrepreneurial spirit is the spirit of the entire team, and is represented by their commitment to customer service, resourcefulness, and going the extra mile to make sales happen. There is no question in the minds of start -up entrepreneurs, in a garage, undercapitalized, and having to make do with less, that they must make sales happen no matter what or they will be out of business – fast! They all know the customer comes first.

Then, if they are fortunate, dedicated, and diligent, they progress beyond the startup phase and into the buildup phase. Now they have a few solid customers that keep them going. Their volume picks up. They begin to see some pressure on production, customer service, and supply chain management. In an effort to satisfy these demands, and in the name of efficiency, they begin to specialize their use of human resources. Thus begins the degradation of the entrepreneurial spirit.

With a few more big customers, they enter the buildout stage. Now they are expanding their offerings and their markets. Division of labor is now a must. One of the divisions is called “sales” and another is called “customer service.” But even though the customer feedback necessary to keep the company’s products and service relevant comes almost exclusively through these two divisions, they are now being relegated to the bottom of the pyramid, which is quietly and quickly growing on top of them. The focus is now on production rather than sales. Sales begins to be taken for granted by the other divisions of labor who no longer feel responsible for sales. In fact, they are convinced that what they do is as, or more important, than sales, even though their very paychecks come from sales! Now, when referring to sales, you hear, “That’s not my job!” The entrepreneurial spirit begins to fade further.

Now comes the enterprise phase where professionalism, compliance, status, tenure and structural procedures become more important than sales and customer service. Salespeople are “outside” in the field, and everyone else is “inside” in the office. Inside office people have greater access to the decision makers and become even more removed from sales. “What’s the matter with those salespeople? Why can’t they just do their job?” is the common refrain when sales are down. But everybody in the office is taking a bow when sales are up! And who is the first to get laid off when sales are ‘bad’? Yup, it‘s the salespeople! What’s wrong with this picture? The entrepreneurial spirit is lost, a victim of its own success!

But by understanding how and why this happens, companies can begin to reverse engineer the entrepreneurial spirit back into their companies. They must start by returning to the backbone of the entrepreneurial spirit, sales. Put sales back on top! Think of the company as having only two divisions; sales and sales support. Sales support is everybody who is not in sales – accounting, production, marketing, HR, legal, admin, the receptionist, everybody! Enforce this relationship by providing quarterly bonuses to sales support staff based on sales, growth, and profitability. Acknowledge their contributions to these three essentials. And create official lines of communication between sales and customer service on the one hand, and sales support, on the other. Make sales everybody’s job – again!

Who We Are

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

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The Top 5 Challenges to Going Global

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 18:09:28 +0000

As our world gets smaller, more and more entrepreneurs are going global. But just what does that mean in terms of entrepreneurship? Sure, it seems easy enough when you market through e-commerce. It’s almost a given that you will be selling internationally as the internet seems to be boundless. But what if you are selling a real product with dimensions and weight? Now you are selling a product in international commerce. You can get degrees in international commerce, but if you are like us, you may find yourself thrown into it, especially if your product is a hot seller in the US. We are often asked what where the main challenges we faced selling internationally. Here is our short list for you to consider:

Compliance. Make sure that you or your agent is licensed to do business in the foreign country with all the various agencies that require licensing. Labeling is a big deal. Most countries want metric weights and measures, and many want terms in their own language. Your US trademark won’t protect you there. You’ll need a trademark in each country in which you intend on doing business. In fact, you may have to buy out a trademark sitter who isn’t even producing a product but has your mark already registered in that country.
Shipment. Find a freight forwarder who specializes in your type of product. They should know the myriad of documents required. When using ocean-going freight, be sure to account for the time necessary to make the journey. You may well be shipping weeks in advance to prevent run outs. Most international shipping is done in 20-foot containers that hold 850 to 1,050 cubic feet. For the most part, your pricing and quantities are based on this. You may want to use refrigerated cargo shipping containers to transport your temperature sensitive items.
Receivables. Extending credit is always a big risk. You are not likely to take buyers to court in a foreign country and they know it. The instrument that we used successfully is a Letter of Credit which works very much like an escrow account. It’s written on a US bank with orders to pay you upon the presentation of certain documents, one of which is a signed ocean-going bill of lading which proves the goods have left the US.
Duties and Dollars. Import duties are usually due before the goods can leave the dock of first landing. Depending on your type of product and the political situation, the other country’s import taxes and tariffs will vary widely. In some countries you can ship your goods to a duty-free zone within the destination country and maintain possession of them in your name until they are removed by you or your buyers, at which time the taxes are due. Even with the ever-changing exchange rates, your foreign buyer wants long-term stable pricing.
Brokers. International brokers will approach you at trade shows and ask for the rights and the exclusive to a foreign market. They may offer to take care of all the details. They will work on a percentage of sales. Be careful! You don’t want to give the exclusive to a non-producer who just wants all sales to go through them. We found few who will actually go out into the market and merchandise products at retail. Sometimes it’s much better to invest in your own sales representative in that country.

Selling to a global market is challenging. If you can master the 5 steps here, you will be well on your way to successfully selling internationally!

Who We Are

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

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