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.

We have a friend who runs the school of entrepreneurship at a major university. She says that, surprisingly, large corporations are now very interested her grads. Why? The answer is because entrepreneurial grads are more self-reliant and creative compared to grads who do not possess these business acuities. Most importantly, they have their eyes on the money and they understand that the money comes from the customer. You have to remember that entrepreneurship students are not pursuing a degree in entrepreneurship to show it to an employer. In fact they often have no intention of taking a job, but they sincerely want to learn what they need to know to be successful in their own enterprise. They are, by their choice of study, self-reliant.

But if you want to hire someone with entrepreneurial DNA, what do you look for?

Here’s the short list:

1. Performance Pay. Ask them if they want to get paid on attendance (salary), or are they willing to bet a portion their compensation on their own performance. Entrepreneurs don’t have any income unless they are constantly satisfying their customers. Seek out someone who knows they can add significant value to your bottom line. Look for self-confidence and self-reliance. Entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to increase income, profits and growth. They bet their income on themselves because they know their performance will mitigate the risks they are taking and abundantly reward them. So, make sure your company has some kind of profit sharing plan if you want to entice someone with entrepreneurial DNA to work for you.

2. Body Language. Watch how they move. Ask them to get a file from the next office. Do they lumber out aimlessly, take too long, shuffle back slowly, flop down in their chair, and lean on their elbows? Is their posture like a question mark? Or do they move with hustle, determination and purpose? When people sit erect and lean slightly forward, that indicates their engagement and interest. Entrepreneurs exude confidence and it shows in their posture and their body language. They have prepared themselves by learning about your company, and display confidence when they are interviewed and scrutinized by strangers like you. These “tells” are important to recognize because they are physical evidence of your candidate’s attitude and self-esteem.

3. Mistakes. Ask them to describe the biggest mistake they ever made professionally, and more importantly, what they did about it. Listen for whether they fixed it fast and quickly went on with their project, or ultimately blamed others and were “victimized.” Note if they took responsibility. Successful entrepreneurs know that blame is disempowering, while doing what can be done to prevent reoccurrence is staying in control. Learn if they analyzed what happened and modified signs, labels, contracts, job descriptions, policies, or procedures to prevent it from happening again. Entrepreneurs can’t afford to make the same mistake twice. They build their successes on the backs of their mistakes.

Next time we will discuss how you can spot candidates who exhibit resourcefulness, preparedness, teamwork and organization, all essential ingredients of the entrepreneurial DNA.

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 Ways to Spot Entrepreneurial DNA -Part 1 appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Nevertheless, the holiday has been gaining in popularity since it was first registered with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1958. In 1979 Hallmark produced its first Boss’s Day cards but in 2007 increased its offerings by 28%. Boss’s day was originally established in an attempt to promote positive relationships between managers and their employees. The thought was to recognize bosses for the hard work, dedication, and challenges they face on a daily basis.

We think it is something more. We think Boss’s Day should also serve as a reminder to bosses at every level that to be deserving of that recognition they must practice certain policies that promote the respect and admiration of their people. Remember, everybody is some sort of a boss at some time. Whether it’s asking an outside vendor or customer for something you need in order to do your job, or whether it’s training a new employee, you are the “boss.” Here then is the short list of what it takes to be a “good” boss when you are the one in charge:

1. Clarity. You know what you want but can you explain it in no uncertain terms to a third party? A good boss will explain it several different ways with examples. They will put it in the larger context of “why” it is necessary, not just what is necessary. Then they will ask the person from whom they are requesting the action to repeat it back to them so they can clear up any misunderstandings.

2. Respect. Your employee, or the party from whom you are requesting action, has a brain. They can help you achieve your goals. So share your challenges with them and they will surprise you with out-of-the-box solutions. We practiced know-the-need, rather than need-to-know. When you do employ their workable solutions, they feel more engaged and empowered, resulting in a greater desire to help solve more problems

3. Appreciation. When you are the boss, you are in the role of surrogate parent. The people you depend upon look to you as an authority figure not unlike a parent. They want and need acknowledgement and validation. Don’t be afraid to give recognition for a job well done in writing. When you do, you will receive more of what you have shown appreciation for.

4. Encouragement. Again like parenting, bosses must tell their people “You can do it!” Show them how far they have come. Tell them that you have confidence in their ability to improve their skill set, achieve the deadline, or produce the deliverables. And again, when they do, be sure to thank them and acknowledge them for their achievements

5. Permission. Give your people permission to experiment, have fun, and make mistakes. Permission is probably the most important ingredient in employee engagement. When you look at mistakes as building blocks and not as blame centers, the people you are depending on will get the message and endeavor to learn from every mistake.

These are just a few of the best practices of “good” bosses, but feel free to add to this list. If it sounds a little parental, it is. Showing concern for the people you rely on and their needs is the basis for a positive company culture. By the way, Patricia Haroski, who founded Boss’s Day? Her boss was her dad!

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 What it Takes to be a “Good” Boss 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.

We have been asked to write a companion to our book, The Barefoot Spirit, which distills out the essentials necessary to create a positive, productive, and growth-oriented culture in corporations. Our new book, The Entrepreneurial Culture, 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People will soon be released. This book specifically targets the corporations and provides them with tools that successful entrepreneurs use to engage and empower their people.

Many of these tools can be applied directly to the existing corporate structure. 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:

1 Corporate Structure: The basic structure of most corporations resembles a pyramid and is ipso facto top-down by its basic architecture and function. Within the pyramid are silos which are mini-pyramids. Each mini-pyramid’s turf is fiercely defended from perceived infringements by the other mini-pyramids. This top-down, turf-war-prone structure can prevent the upward mobility of good ideas and interdepartmental cooperation necessary for real breakthroughs. How can employees be empowered and engaged if they think their boss will sit on their idea, change it, or claim it as his or her own? How can employees come up with comprehensive solutions that involve changes to other departments if they are perceived as “off-limits?”

2 Compensation:  Most corporations today pay a salary which is basically paying for attendance, not necessarily production. Raises tend to be based on tenure, not great ideas, sales, or profits. This results in employees being viewed as “labor,” and as a cost center to be reduced, not as an asset to be appreciated. If two or more employees are responsible for doing the same job, they get equal pay regardless of the imbalance in their production. This discourages employees from working harder or being more engaged. Why bother? It’s not going to make a difference in their paycheck, or even in the appreciation and recognition they receive. Real producers tend to leave for better pay commensurate with their production. How can employees be truly engaged if their compensation plan discourages them?

3 Compliance: Corporate legal departments, in their well-meaning effort to mitigate liability, want “everything” to go through compliance. They look for reasons why things should not be done rather than ways in which things can be done. Of course this takes a long time, because when everything must go through compliance, that creates a backlog. Corporate employees know this and are discouraged from requesting approval for an idea or project. Legal doesn’t want to offer “safe” parameters inside of which ideas can flow without formal review since legal also gets paid by the hour. Some legal departments even recommend against any public written acknowledgement for a job well done in the fear that it may be used against the employer in a wrongful termination dispute. Yet public acknowledgement engages employees by validating their productive behavior, increasing respect from their colleagues, and demonstrating to others what garners appreciation.

Tune in next time to see how we recommend corporations achieve an entrepreneurial culture by removing the fear and introducing a few new cows!

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 Corporate Structure, Compliance, and Compensation Plans Can Stifle Employee Engagement 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.

The post To Get True Entrepreneurial Culture, Corporations Must Pay for Performance appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Dr. Ashley Wolfe, Vice Chair of the California Medical Association’s Council on Legislation, says, “Consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks is the single largest contributor to the obesity epidemic driving new cases of diabetes.” The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that one third of those born in 2000 (and up to half of all Latinos) will develop diabetes in their lifetime. Sooner or later the question will be, “Who should pay for the coming explosion in health care costs?”

Health officials are increasingly identifying soda and sugary drinks as the largest source of added sugar in the American diet. Senator Monning says the health risks are comparable to tobacco. “The health data is conclusive, it’s not speculative,” he said.

The US department of Health and Human Services, through the CDC’s, has authorized funds for local advertising campaigns to educate the public to reconsider their beverage choices. In Sonoma County California, for instance, billboards are focusing on the issue to raise public awareness. One billboard reads, “You wouldn’t eat 12 packs of sugar, why are you drinking them?”

Comparing tobacco to sugary drinks, the Surgeon General’s warning on cigarettes was just the beginning. After it was clear the warning had a limited effect on reducing cigarette smoking and that the cost of cigarette-related health issues were born by businesses, rate payers and taxpayers, there was widespread support for an increased tax on cigarettes.

The US CDC’s estimate that smoking-caused health costs total almost $10.50 a pack. Since 2002, 47 states, DC, and several U.S. territories have increased their cigarette tax rates 110 times! Today, some states have combined cigarette taxes well over $5 per pack. The increased taxes have been justified by the medical costs. Interestingly, there has been a reduction in smoking that is in direct relationship to the increases in prices, not necessarily the warnings. So once again, if you want to effect change, put a buck on it!

When former New York Mayor Bloomberg tried to ban the sale of large sugary drinks, he was ridiculed as interfering with people’s right to choose whatever they wanted. His ban was overturned by the courts, but, notably, New York has the highest cigarette tax rate in the country. New Yorkers may want free choice but they have demonstrated that they don’t want to pay for someone else’s self-inflicted medical bills. They also have demonstrated that high taxes on products known to drive up health care costs reduce consumption of those products when warnings fail. Will New York be taxing sugary drinks next?

If, as Senator Monning says, “The tobacco analogy is a good one,” and the ad campaigns and mandatory product warnings don’t significantly reduce the consumption of sugary drinks, will the same rational that justified the massive increases in tobacco taxes justify a sugar tax? Is saving money more important to US consumers than saving their health?

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 Is a Sugar Tax Coming? appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

The takeaway for leaders, whether they are politicians, managers, or business owners, is simple. To truly engage your people, educate them beyond what you want them to do and how you want them to do it. Give them appreciation for why you want them to perform in a certain way.

When we were building the Barefoot Wine brand, we found that our people were more engaged when they knew why they were doing a specific job, not just how to do it. We would explain our company’s mission statement, and how each staff member’s performance was essential to achieve the goals of the company.

We would invest hours with our new people explaining the cause and effect that connected their job to the customers’ purchasing decision. We would give them a “money map” showing them how the customers’ money went to buy our product, how it traveled through the retail and distribution companies we dealt with, and eventually ended up in their paycheck. We would detail the reasons why their job directly affected the provision of goods and services necessary for the customer to make a purchase. We would give them the reasons why every team member in our company had to perform excellently to keep our customers coming back. We explained each business associate’s loyalty requirements, from distributers to retailers, from store clerks to consumers, and how our people satisfied all of them.

Some said that kind of training was a waste of time, that new people don’t need that level of detail. They argue that the sooner the new hire starts producing, the better. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it assumes that the processes are already the best they can possibly be, and that there can be no further improvements in customer service or efficiency. It also assumes that expensive mistakes won’t happen due to misconceptions about purpose.

We found, however, that people tend to “make up” reasons when they don’t know the real ones. If they didn’t get it, we would go over it again – and again. When they asked a seemingly simply question about their job, we would listen closely for any misconceptions they held. We wouldn’t just give them the answer so they could thoughtlessly “cut and paste” to quickly get on with their job. We would take the time to sit them down and start from the beginning about the reasons until they connected the dots.

The time we invested in this type of education really paid off. We often heard, “Well, if that’s what we are trying to do, then why don’t we …” and they would streamline our procedures or make them more effective. Sometimes they would even come up with completely new ways of doing things.

Presidents and leaders at every level are only as successful as their ability to engage their people. If your people truly understand why they are being asked to perform, you’ll drastically reduce costly misconceptions and you’ll achieve your company’s goals in surprisingly more efficient ways. Your people will be happier and more engaged because they understand why their performance is essential to the company’s success and that their teammates are relying on them.

Productive people start with good leaders. Happy Presidents’ Day everybody!

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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