Credibility | The Barefoot Spirit

You Build Customer Loyalty by Ditching the Act

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 21 Nov 2019 20:03:50 +0000

In Hawaii, they say, “If you cross someone’s property on the way to the beach, be the first to smile and wave.”

This is great advice on so many levels. It shows that you are willing to take the first step to give the other person permission to take the second. And that’s how defense barriers come down and friendly relationships follow.

In our digital world we find ourselves vying for attention in a sea of overly simplified sound bites. We have a tendency to become minimalist as a form of efficiency. “Just keep it to business,” seems to be the order of the day. And its corollary, “Put your best foot forward,” seems to make sure that our image is photoshopped to perfection.

It seems ironic today, with the big trend toward transparency, credibility, and authenticity, that many of us have found ourselves clothed in pretentions that inadvertently create barriers to the very trust we seek in business.

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.

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5 Ways Today’s Students Can Save Our Democracy

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 18:00:53 +0000

Those of us who experienced the early days of social networking were concerned about the simplistic algorithms that were replacing critical thinking. Suddenly it wasn’t about trusted news sources with credentials and legal exposure. Now it was about the sheer number of likes, shares, and retweets that made the news “credible.”

It didn’t take long for our adversaries to figure out that they could take advantage of this new “system” of perceived credibility. It was no longer based on potential liability, established reputation, or even science, but solely on clicks!

And who was doing all that clicking? We were! We got suckered into 3 major misconceptions:

Entertainment is equal to facts. If it’s interesting but not vetted, the temptation is to share it and be appreciated as the source of the entertainment. You get more “likes” but you can spread falsehoods.
Agreeable posts must be right. When you share any “news” that supports your opinions, even if it’s not vetted, both sides of any issues are being duped!
Popularity = Credibility. Some folks believe that the number of interactions and engagements make posts reliable. However, the interactions can be made up from borrowed accounts or bots.

Now add to that a loss of interest in civics, which is how and why our government was designed to protect us from mob rule on the one hand, and dictatorship on the other. In other words, checks and balances.

Enter a tech savvy adversary with the goal of disrupting our democracy. How to do it? Simple, just undermine our confidence in the institutions that provide those checks and balances, like the executive, legislative, judicial branches of our government and our free press. Create millions of stolen identities to qualify for social media accounts, and use bots to create mega campaigns simultaneously on both sides of every trending divisive issue. Amplify the divisive posts already made by our own people and make millions of new ones.

If our adversaries can get us to lose faith in our 200-year-old institutions and distract us with infighting, then they have executed the age-old art of war – “divide and conquer.” Now they are free to move about the world and pursue their own interests at our expense while we get more cynical and divisive.

So, how do we defend ourselves from this kind of attack? This is not a quick fix, but a sustained effort. We have been working with students over the past five years and we have admired their desire to understand the world and be successful in it. It is precisely our freedom and democracy that provide the solid bedrock upon which they will build their new businesses. It is the enabling environment startups need to succeed.

Now Uncle Sam needs the students to take action to defend these institutions. Here is how it is done:

Accountability. Hold social media companies accountable for allowing false accounts and bot manipulation. Social media companies should not be making money from attacks on our institutions or the sowing of divisiveness.
Healthy Skepticism. Question all posts on trending divisive issues. Look for validation from news sources that have liability insurance and reputations at stake.
Take Civics. Understand and appreciate how our government is organized and why populist demigods cannot legally deliver what they promise. Appreciate and defend the checks and balances that have been put in place. If Civics is not offered in your school, create a club of like-minded students to learn the way our government works.
Vote. Even if your candidate doesn’t make it into the finals, still vote for the “lessor of two evils” so you don’t get the greater of two evils! Learn to compromise.
Speak Out! It’s your life, your safety, and your future that’s at stake. When students speak, the country listens. You represent our future and our new voters. Expose politicians taking checks from interest groups that undermine your future.

If there was ever a time where the future of our democracy was in danger, it is now. The boomers are transplants to the technological age. The students of today are natives. It is up to the natives to get restless! Uncle Sam needs you now!

Who We Are

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

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Fake News Is Easily Spread on Social Media

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 18:00:13 +0000

In these days of rapid change, it’s out with the old and in with the new. In our love affair with all things digital, we have become vulnerable to undocumented and downright false stories. It’s interesting how it creeped up on us. Yes, we all have become susceptible to fake news.

Some folks actually brag, “I don’t get my news from newspapers anymore. That’s so eighties!” We also hear, “I’m two to three days ahead of the news.” We recently had a house guest who considers himself a “digital native,” unlike us who are “digital transplants.” When he came in to breakfast, he glanced at the newspapers we were reading and asked, “How do you use those?”

We told him we use newspapers to discover stories we weren’t looking for that broaden our experience and education – hard to do in a digital feed with personal settings limited to only what you are interested in. We use newspapers to get news from sources that put their professional journalistic reputation on the line. And we use newspapers to vet out yesterday’s sensationally trending stories for accuracy.

Fake news has found a willing host in this post-truth world. It doesn’t have to be vetted, it just has to be trending. If it appeals to your world view or if it’s entertaining, shocking, or challenges the establishment, it doesn’t have to be accurate before it is shared. Facts are taking a back seat to being current. It’s more important to be part of the trending news than to be part of the accurate news. And by sharing it on social you can be part of “the latest!” The more it gets shared, the more “credibility” it has. As Dan Rather says, “And the truth has no chance of catching up with it.”

Now we can chose the type of news we want to see and the way we want to see it. Have we opened ourselves up to false news that merely appears to be like the news we have chosen to read? Is our desire for entertainment and validation greater than our respect for the truth? The producers and disseminators of fake news think so.

Stanford University released a study last month that reported that students in grades 7-12 found it difficult determining the credibility of stories on social media. Over 80% could not distinguish between actual news and advertisements designed to look like actual news. This is our future! Being a digital native obviously comes with some potentially damaging vulnerabilities. It is fast, it is popular, and it is wrong. What makes this OK to pass onto others?

So how do you protect yourself and not add gas the flames of a false fire? Here’s a few mitigating questions to ask before you hit that “share” button:

Reputation. Is anyone’s reputation at stake as the source of the story? Who loses credibility if it’s wrong?
Source. Is this coming from an established and reputable news feed, or is this coming exclusively from social media?
Pandering. Am I being pandered to because I want to read a story like this and the source knows I will share it before it’s vetted? Am I being used?
Sensational. Is this story so sensational that it’s entertaining even if it’s not true? If so, does that make it OK to pass along?
Aging. How long has the story been out? Be skeptical about fast breaking “news.” It may be too early to be confirmed as correct.

Getting your news on line comes with some serious vulnerabilities and personal responsibilities. Those “old” newspapers that are no longer stylish have editors and journalists who could lose their reputations printing false stories. Now, you are the editor!

Who We Are

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

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Standing on Ceremony Can Lose the Sale

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 17:00:57 +0000

Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose the sale. Why? Because the buyers simply don’t like you or your approach. Sometimes in an effort to be professional we can be read as mechanical, sterile, and heartless.

Sure, it’s a thin line between too much information and not providing enough to gain credibility. But there comes a time in every sales process when you have to show enough of your true self to be considered authentic and sincere by the purchasing party. Buyers want to identify at some level with the folks who are selling them. They want to know something that they have in common with the seller. It helps them justify the purchase. It helps them gain a feeling of trust.

Seasoned salespeople know from experience just how much is enough and how much is too much. First of all you have to be relatively confident with yourself and your product. Some people have issues with becoming personable at all. They think they can hide behind ceremonious form to avoid any kind of personal exposure. But their prospect may feel uncomfortable and ultimately see the form itself as tedious and they soon lose interest. This is what’s wrong with form letters and standard approaches.

Some people think that being mysterious will somehow lure others in and make them want to know more. We have found this approach tends to be read as insincere and somewhat devious. Prospects who don’t even know you now are faced with an added barrier to open communication – mystery. They wonder what your true motives are. We have found that they not only don’t want to discover the mystery, but they want to get away from those who try to use this or any other kind dramatic tactics.

The winning approach is to find something you have in common with your prospect before you ever go into your pitch. You’ll be glad you did because in the process you will learn how your prospect communicates and what their priorities are. This will help you immensely to craft a tailored approach for each of the unique prospects you meet.

We did business over the years with many Japanese colleagues and buyers. In their business culture, it is considered rude to pitch before some commonality has been established. It was not unusual for us to spend the first entire session talking about, you guessed it, the weather. After that it was sports or favorite movies.

Today, when we cold-call a prospect for a speaking event we like to set it up on Skype or some other video conferencing service so we can see each other. That increases the human touch right there. Then we usually ask them about the weather they are having and share ours. We also have learned enough about them and their company previously to comment favorably on some current event that effected them, like, “Congratulations on that recent merger,” or “You guys are really making a difference with your new program.”

Keep the conversation light to establish engagement, humor and trust. Remember their judgment about you takes place in the first 20 seconds and thereafter tends only to validate that initial impression. So take the time to establish friendly relations first. People want to cooperate with people they like. It’s as simple as that. So do they like you? What have you done to make yourself believable, likable, and friendly? We have found that initially folks must “buy” you before they will ever consider buying your product or service. First make friends; then make the sale!

Who We Are

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

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