Why this obsession with sales? It’s how everyone gets paid – everyone! Without sales, there would be no need for production, marketing, R&D, HR, legal, admin, and CEOs – nobody!

Why is the Barefoot Spirit so important today? Because many of us have actually lost our focus on sales in favor of engineering, programming, technology, legal, HR, and production. We have gotten to a place where we think that a killer app, a disrupting technology, or a new financial model is somehow more important than sales. They’re not.

In fact, in what we call the Barefoot Startup, the product itself is determined by sales. The design is not complete until after a thorough understanding of what the market wants and how the market will be accessed.

Today many believe that business success is based on securing financing. It’s not! You can secure financing and never make a sale. You can have a burn rate that quickly smokes investor dollars without sales.

We have allowed ourselves to believe that getting into a major box store is in itself  a recipe for success. It’s not. It’s only the beginning, not the end. Real success is staying in the market with sustained and increasing sales.

In fact, we have seen companies that have discounted the importance of sales and elevated marketing – who will gladly take a bow when sales are up and blame “those salespeople out in the field” when sales are down.

Today, you can even get financing with a cool idea, no real sales plan, and no sales experience. Startups are not alone in this thinking. Investors abound who take sales for granted. They shouldn’t.  The startup failure rate is on the increase. According to Small Business Trends, over 50% of small business startups fail in the first four years.

No one’s idea, no matter how brilliant, is going to sell itself. All ideas must be sold and more importantly resold on an ongoing basis.

Today, much of the focus is on the cost of goods, when it should be on the cost of sales. If you can’t service what you sell, you are soon off the market. If you can’t achieve a positive cash flow quickly, you are back trading more of your precious equity to the investor just to keep the lights on.

The current thinking seems to be that if you have a good enough idea, and a catchy marketing plan, you just hire some people to sell it. If they don’t, just fire them and hire some more. Right? Wrong. With that attitude, you never find out why your idea didn’t sell – until it’s too late!

How has this happened? Sales itself has gotten a bad name. Nobody wants to be “salesy!” Nobody wants to face personal rejection. Sales is generally not taught in school. And salespeople are seen as shifty characters, out to trick you, only after your money, and with very little to offer in return. Good salespeople offer excellent customer service, and should be the highest priority for a startup, not the last.

From startups to enterprise companies, the time is right for the Barefoot Spirit. Now is the time to focus on the top priority for success, sales!

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 Why is The Barefoot Spirit So Relevant Today? appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

An Established Brand. Brand recognition is incredibly motivating for shoppers. By flying the franchise flag over your car wash or other business, you may be able to draw in more customers than you would with an independent concept. Investors should think of both the positives and negatives of working with an established brand. In most cases, increased brand awareness is a positive thing, but if the brand has been blemished in recent years, becoming affiliated with it may do you more harm than good.

Novel Ideas. When you create your own company, you have a large outlet for your creativity. You don’t have to worry about whether or not a certain product or service is allowed under your franchise model. If you decide to open a car wash, for instance, you can invent your own methods and techniques to make your clients’ cars as clean as they can be. On the flip side, however, you will also have to invent all of your own ideas from the company name to the company logo. Luckily, there are organizations in place that can help you with that. Logo Garden, for example, helps independent entrepreneurs create logos. Other companies can be used for website design, advertising and key development themes.

Franchises May Be Recession-Proof. Entrepreneurs often become interested in launching their own company in the midst of a recession. Due to lost jobs or pay cuts, prospective business owners want more control over their earnings. Starting a mom-and-pop business during an economic downturn can be scary, but opening a franchise during this same time period can be incredibly liberating. According to Forbes, a recession can be a bonanza for a franchise. The combination of relatively cheap real estate and better locations give franchise entrepreneurs the edge that they need.

Cost. The ultimate factor in your decision may be the cost of your project. If you opt to take the franchise route, you will have to pay a franchise fee, but overall, your costs may be cheaper than opening an independent shop. Franchises have greater purchasing power than their independent counterparts. Because franchises purchase in bulk, you will get on discount on all of your products and supplies.

Potential for Success. If you like to control your own potential for success, an independent operation may be better for you, but if you want to rely on a concept that has a proven track record for success, you may want to opt for a franchise. In addition to providing you with a model of success, a franchise may provide you with additional training and other support.

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 Franchise Vs. Mom-and-Pop Business: A Guide to Smart Investment appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

In the previous post we examined some of the ways your well-meaning office, marketing, production and accounting staff may come up with “cost-saving” suggestions than can actually hurt sales. 

When little things go missing or the package gets simplified in the name of production efficiency, you may hear “It hasn’t affected sales”…yet! Or, “Our sales are still strong” implying all you were doing wasn’t necessary anyway, but the customer notices, even subliminally. 

Eventually a competitor will move into the void. Beware of hubris from your non-sales people especially when sales are climbing.

Only when your Sales Support staff works directly with your Sales staff will a complete picture emerge. 

Here are 5 suggestions to keep those “cost saving” ideas from hurting sales:

1. Put your non-sales people in the field so they can appreciate what the customer really wants and see first-hand what your sales people are up against. Make sure your sales people are with them to point out the nuances of the market, the distribution system, and the existing advantages of your product and package. Ask them to share what they discovered. They will be less likely to inadvertently damage the selling points by “cheapening” your product or your package. 

2. Run everything by your sales people that affects your product and its image. Before you allow a change or “improvement” to the product or the package, check with the folks who have to actually make the sale, overcome the objections, and talk directly to the decision makers and the end user. Top-down thinking, when it comes to product, package design and even promotion, can undermine what has taken years to establish. 

3. Show them the money! It’s critical that your non-sales people appreciate where the money comes from that pays their salaries, bonuses, and benefits. It comes from the customer, and nowhere else. When folks are hired, present them with an info-graphic that follows the money trail backwards from the customer through the distribution system, through the marketing and sales system, through the supply and production system, and winds up in their pockets. It seems obvious, but it is soon forgotten especially as your company gets larger. 

4. Pay your non-sales staff bonuses based on sales. Once they see the relationship between sales and their own compensation, they will have a personal interest in the details of what exactly makes sales happen in the field. You’ll be surprised at the many ways they find to assist your sales people, and their suggestions will be coming from a better appreciation for sales realities. They will want your sales people to sign-off on their “cost saving” suggestions. 

5. Acknowledge good Ideas that reduce costs and actually increase sales. Publicly identify and praise suggestions that work with testimonials from your sales people. Announce “Our Sales Support staff has done it again!” to single out the person or team that came up with the idea and the sales people who worked with them. This type of public validation from you sends a powerful message to your staff that you appreciate their sales-wise ideas. 

In today’s market, if you’re not adding value, you’re losing value. You don’t “save” money by reducing the real or perceived value of your product. It’s essential to continue to communicate your product’s value, quality, authenticity and dependability to your buyers and end-users. Run all “good ideas” by your sales team first!

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 Listen to and Learn from your Sales Staff appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.