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8 Steps to Making Mistakes WRITE

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 17:00:19 +0000

One of our favorite talks is on making mistakes write. Not just right R-I-G-H-T but WRITE like W-R-I-T-E! When we started our business, we made so many mistakes, we got good at it. So, it seemed natural to us to develop a process for making mistakes.

Our business was successful, but it was built on the backs of mistakes. When we started our company our standard contracts were three pages long, but when we sold it 20 years later, our contracts were 37 pages long! That’s how many mistakes we made along the way.

And that’s not the half of it! Beyond contract clauses, our mistakes actually improved all of our company’s documentation. Why? Because we never wasted a perfectly good mistake!

Here’s our short list to making mistakes write:

1. Permission

Give yourself and all your people permission to make mistakes – as long as they make mistakes in a way that improves your company. Most new hires come from families, schools, associations, and former employers that frowned upon mistakes. They may have been punished, embarrassed, or worse, fired! Is it any wonder that they don’t want to admit a mistake has happened? Is it any wonder that they go for the quick fix, and just throw on a patch and say, “Yea, there was a problem, but it’s all straightened out now.” Change that attitude with a culture of permission. And sure, if they are just incompetent, they gotta go. But even the most competent people are scared to admit to a mistake.

2. Admission

Yes, admit that a mistake was made. Prevent exacerbation and cover-up. You are judged more favorably when you own up, apologize, make amends and present a plan to prevent a reoccurrence. We call this “Aim, don’t blame!” Blame is disempowering and makes you a victim. Take charge and aim at what you can do to prevent the mistake in the future. Basically, take responsibility and clean up your own backyard.

3. Cause

Behind every mistake there’s a miscommunication, a misconception, or a misrepresentation. Identifying those causes is the first step in making mistakes write. We all make assumptions about the other person’s behavior and when we are wrong, things go wrong. Someone smart once said “A-s-s-u-m-e: It makes an ASS out of U and ME!” When you can put your finger on the cause, you are on your way to improvement.

4. Documents

To prevent future mistakes in the areas affected, identify all the documents that need to be created, corrected, or improved. Yes, that’s right, documents. Maybe it’s a clause in a contract. Maybe it’s a checklist, a signoff sheet, a job description, a policy, a procedure, a label, or maybe it’s a sign above a low hanging ledge that says, “DUCK!”

5. Write!

Write down the mistake, the cause, and the all revised documentation that needs to be incorporated in to your business environment. Be sure to involve others in the writing process. Get opinions and suggestions from folks in your company and from other companies and institutions. Then, develop new policies and procedures that make the mistake less likely to reoccur. Most mistakes can improve several documents at the same time.

6. Approve

It doesn’t do you any good to document new ways of doing things if they are lost in the effort and just filed away. No. You must distribute the new policy and get everyone involved to agree and sign off on it. Sometimes folks outside your company may be required to give their approval. This is a positive way to defuse faulting others and dissolve hard feelings. Creating a notebook where these sign-off sheets are kept is also a great onboard-training tool for new hires. They can quickly see the mistakes made in the past and how and why the new documentation and procedures exist to prevent them in the future.

7. Acknowledge

When someone on your staff makes a mistake, but makes that mistake “write,” give them public acknowledgement. Folks thrive on validation from a higher authority and the appreciation of their peers. You can do this with a simple memo circulated to the whole team, “Mary identified a ongoing problem with our procedures and improved them to prevent a reoccurrence.” Now three things happen. First, your people know who Mary is, what she does, and how she improved the company. Second, they know that they too will be celebrated when they permanently fix a problem. And third, Mary is encouraged to continue improving your company.

8. Repeat!

We had a senior exec who chided us for this policy, “You guys are trying to make everything idiot proof.” We quickly answered, “No we’re not. We’re just trying to make things idiot resistant!” To which he quipped, “That may be true, but even now, as we speak, they’re building a better idiot!” He was right! It’s a moving target out there. So we kept adding clauses until our contracts were 37 pages long!

You and your people are going to make mistakes. Why not make them write?

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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How to Take Control by Aiming, Not Blaming

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 20 Jun 2017 20:00:27 +0000

Behind many seemingly outside problems are inside solutions. But with your ire focused on the other guy, you can easily overlook what you can do to mitigate the situation.

“It’s not our fault,” becomes the order of the day with its cousin, “There’s nothing we could have done.”

When we blame others for circumstances that negatively affect our business, we are disempowering ourselves and our people from finding solutions to the problem.

Sure, it was easy to throw our hands up in the air and point our finger at the other guy. But we encouraged our people to take that pointing finger, swing it around until it pointed right back at us, then ask, “What can we do to prevent this from reoccurring?”

We found that somewhere in our own files were written documents that needed to be changed, updated or newly created. Making the problem less likely to reoccur was what we were aiming for. We call this philosophy, “Aim, don’t blame.”

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

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

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How to Get Ready to Sell Your Business — Even if You Don’t Plan To

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 18 May 2017 17:50:15 +0000

There’s much talk these days about the business plan, yet the sale-of-the-business plan seems to get little attention.

Right now is the time to discuss the eventual transition and the due diligence checklist. Planning ahead for your potential acquirer’s required list of documents is an effective blueprint for the organization of your files and records.

You may say, “I’m never going to sell my business,” or even, “I’m giving the business to my kids so I won’t have to worry about the buyer’s due diligence.” But knowing what an acquirer wants to see and why will give you a big head start on what records are important to anyone who will own, manage, or invest in your company.

It is essential to have these documents in order from day one, because you can’t afford to wait until Mr. Big comes knocking. What are you going say then? “Oh wait just a minute… please stay interested! I know I’ve got that information around here somewhere!”

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals

Who We Are

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

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Listen to and Learn from your Sales Staff

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:31:44 +0000

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

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

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