Entrepreneurial | The Barefoot Spirit

How Resourcefulness Can Help Your Business Survive Major Disruptions

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 16:05:01 +0000

Since some of us are still locked down, we may as well have some fun perfecting one of the two most commonly heralded ingredients of entrepreneurial success, resourcefulness.

The other one is tenacity, and together they make an unbeatable duo that most successful entrepreneurs will readily credit for their success.

But for now, let’s just explore resourcefulness (or self-reliance).

Spoiled?

This is almost a lost skill when we live in an age of “push button — get banana” and “write business plan — get financed.” What happens when the buttons don’t work so well and the investors starts to pull in their horns, sort of like now?

To read the complete article, please visit The Busines 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.

The post How Resourcefulness Can Help Your Business Survive Major Disruptions appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Solve Business Problems with What You Have at Hand

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 11 Oct 2018 17:00:59 +0000

We recently had the opportunity to speak to the Aalto Fellows, a group of the top students from Aalto University in Finland. They were in Silicon Valley for the entrepreneurial tour and we caught up with them at Stanford University. What was most impressive about this group was that it was organized and financed by the students themselves! What better way to get a taste of true entrepreneurship?

We knew that by the time we spoke to them they had heard many entrepreneurial stories from some of the top companies in Silicon Valley. We knew that they had heard from many of the entrepreneurial academics about what it takes. And we also knew that they had heard from the VCs who “built” the Valley about what they look for in fundable projects. So, what were we going to tell them that was new and different, valuable and practical, memorable and applicable?

Most of the businesses they visited were wildly successful “unicorns” financed by VCs. They had plenty of assets and resources right from the start. Of course, they had to give up quite a bit of their equity to get their financing in the first place. And, of course, for every unicorn there were 19 failures that nobody ever talks about.

Is it possible to bootstrap your business when you’re under financed? Is that, in itself, a proving ground to learn how to solve business problems without tons of resources? We believe it is. It’s what happened to us and it can happen to anyone.

When you’re undercapitalized and running out of runway, you have no choice but to get creative, and you have no choice but to get resourceful. You must learn quickly how to communicate with your creditors in such a way that they will extend your credit and terms instead of putting you on a cash basis.

Sure, you can be resourceful, use a laundry room for an office and a door for a desk as we did. Sure, you can hire your family and make trades for goods and services as we did. But that only goes so far. Sooner or later you’re going to need some financial help. We found that help in our three key relationships.

Vendors

We looked at our accounts payables, and it didn’t take long to realize that in our business, the glass company had the most at stake. The more wine we sold, the more glass bottles they would get to sell us. That’s right, they would get to sell …and make more money! So they were a natural strategic ally …if we could just convince them that we were trustworthy.

We decided to meet with them on a quarterly basis and share our plans and challenges. We showed empathy for their concern that we would pay our bills on time. When our cash flow projection indicated that we were going to be late, we called them way in advance and alerted them. We offered a payment plan based on our receivables to bring our account current, and we always did!

They felt comfortable extending our credit and terms. They enabled us to expand nationally without having to raise outside funds. This is a clear example of how soft skills can earn you hard cash!

Employees

We looked to our employees to solve problems, develop innovations, and remain excited and loyal to our company. Rather than putting them on a need-to-know basis, we did just the opposite. We put them on a know-the-need basis. We figured they couldn’t help us if they didn’t know what our needs were.

Once we had a serious problem. The good news was that we had been authorized in a giant chain store in Florida. The bad news was that they put us, like all new products, on the bottom shelf (nobody looks down there). The scary news was that if we didn’t sell a hundred cases in 90 days, we would be out of the chain … FOREVER!

One of our people joked and said, “Well, we’re ’Barefoot,’ we’ll just go after the foot traffic!” “HaHa!” we laughed. But then somebody else said, “Wait a minute, that’s not such a crazy idea, why don’t we just put decal footprints down the wine aisle and turn them into our position on the bottom shelf?” We used those footprints all over the country. And that idea came from the receptionist!

Buyers

In our business, our buyers where the distributors and the retailers. The distributors wouldn’t buy unless the retailers would buy. The retailers wouldn’t buy unless their customers would buy. Most VC financed companies would earmark a large chunk of money for advertising to get the word out to bring the customers into the retailer stores.

We had no money for advertising. At first, we were scared that our product wouldn’t move fast enough for the retailers because nobody had ever heard of a brand called “Barefoot.” But then we got a call from a neighborhood group looking for cash donations for kids’ after-school park. We had no money, so we gave them product. We told them we hoped they would use it at their fundraiser and perhaps it would loosen up some checkbooks or they can auction it off for some slides and swings. Sales took off in their neighborhood.

We tried it in another neighborhood. It worked. We tried it in another city. It worked. In fact it worked so well, we took Barefoot Wines across the country without commercial advertising. Because we showed empathy for our customer, we gave them a social reason to buy our products.

Conclusion:

These techniques might not work for everybody. Every business is different. But there is a golden thread that weaves its way through all these examples and you can use it in your business. It can reduce your need for cash. It can reduce turnover and engage and empower your people. And it can bring you the customers you need to achieve a positive cash flow and beyond. That golden thread is empathy. The more you use it, the less money you’ll need!

We’re excited to announce that our new business audio book on this subject is soon to be released.

It will be unlike most business books that focus on companies that have a lot of resources. Instead, it will focus on the true story of the building of the Barefoot Wine brand which is a testimony to empathy and resourcefulness.
It will be unlike most business books that give you list after list in prescriptive text: the three things to do, the five things to never do, and the seven things your customer wants from you. Instead it, will be a series of stories designed to entertain and educate.
And it will be unlike most business audiobooks that have a narrator droning the story in your earbuds. Instead, the characters in the stories will be played by real actors, dramatically bringing the scenes to life as you jog or commute.

If this sounds like fun, you can find out more at www.barefootaudiobook.com

Who We Are

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

The post Solve Business Problems with What You Have at Hand appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Entrepreneur – The Top 4 Reasons Startups Fail, According to 14 International Accelerators

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 01 May 2018 15:00:40 +0000

As speakers, advisers and trainers in the entrepreneurial space, we’ve been particularly excited by our December survey of the principles of 14 international accelerators. We wanted to know, from their point of view, what were the key factors in startup success … and failure. As far as we know, this is the most recent study conducted on this subject. Although these folks are from all over the world, it’s amazing how much they agree when it comes to why startups fail.

Inadequate Testing

Inadequate Testing was by far the most mentioned reason for startup failure. This factor is identified by several other terms like not getting started, not understanding how to access the market, and not understanding the barriers to entry. But Greg Wright, founder of HATCH pitch, put it quite succinctly: “Failure to test and validate hypotheses and assumptions,” and its corollary, “Premature scaling (seeking/obtaining funding too early, ramping production/team/advertising before achieving product market fit).”

Keith Hopper, CEO of Danger Fort Labs, adds, “Not addressing an important enough need that customers are willing to pay for.” Ben Hsieh, program manager of Nest and Jason Cole, CEO of Da Primus Consulting, both agree that “not finding product market fit” is a main cause of failure.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur

Who We Are

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

The post Entrepreneur – The Top 4 Reasons Startups Fail, According to 14 International Accelerators appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

The 4 Core Competencies of the Barefoot Startup

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 18:00:07 +0000

If you managed to survive the entrepreneurial process from ideation to monetization and you were asked to boil it all down into core competencies, what would you say? How would you even begin?

We faced this exact challenge. Our employees, business associates and clients all kept saying that we should break our journey down into its essential parts and expand upon those parts. So, for a year we kept tossing around ideas, thinking about how we could get these concepts across to startups.

Focusing on why so many startups failed seemed to be a good place to start. Did they all have something in common? What were the areas that most of the “failures” failed to master? Surprisingly, they all lacked competency in one or more of 4 key areas. So, we decided to focus on those areas and prioritize them in The Barefoot Startup’s GPS (Guiding Principles for Success). Here’s a brief summary:

Monetization Strategy. Crazy as it sounds, many startups never ask the fundamental question, “Why am I doing this anyway?” Is it a lifestyle? Is it a legacy? Or is it to monetize on brand equity? If you’re setting your course on an eventual acquisition, merger, or public offering, the steps you take at the beginning of your journey will be critical to your survival. They will determine your expansion plans and the steps you take to maximize your brand equity. This choice means that your goods or services must be scalable, and your business can run without you. It means that your files reflect your acquirer’s due diligence. And it also means that you know and establish the metrics and milestones you need to become an acquisition target or, as we say, “Get your peanut in front of the elephant!”
Cash Flow Management. The goal here is to reduce your need for capital. Do you know how identify and utilize your “hidden” assets. Ideally, your buyer’s will pay you before you need to pay for your supplies and overhead, and this is possible. But for most of us, we need to juggle! And we need to spend every dime on the bills before we pay ourselves. This is why outsourcing, reducing overhead, and pay-as-you go are so critical. This is why income and cost projections are so essential. You need to establish revenue, even if its small, before you ask for investors’ money. Do you know how to establish strategic alliances with your suppliers and your buyers, to reduce your need for capital?
Personnel Management. The goal is to reduce turnover, the #1 hidden cost of doing business, and to engage and empower your people. How you find good people and build great people are covered in our video. We believe it is essential to overkill on orientation from day one to demonstrate where the money really comes from, including all the hands, hoops and twists it has to go through to get to them. Paying for performance encourages better performance. Paying by the hour encourages longer hours, not necessarily resulting in productivity. Nurturing a culture of permission, encouraging innovation, and giving public acknowledgement for a job well done are absolutely vital to building a productive and supportive team. Sharing challenges with the entire staff on a know-the-need, rather than a need-to-know basis will unlock your personnel assets to solve problems on the fly.
Distribution management. Do you know how to get your product or service to the market, and more importantly, keep it there? Distribution is everything from supply chain management to sales. Sales is not just to your end user, but to your own people, your B2B customer, their B2C customer and eventually to their (and your) end-user. Understanding and delivering what each person in the chain requires can make the difference between access to market and being shut out. Not understanding the true cost of sales is the biggest single reason for startup failure. Start small, make your mistakes in a small place, learn from them, and get your act together before you take your show on the road. Don’t scale fast to fail fast!

Are you interested? We know that these 4 core competencies, so often overlooked, are so important that we spend an entire hour on each one in our online video course, The Barefoot Startup’s GPS (Guiding Principles for Success). Check it out.

#BarefootStartup

Who We Are

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

The post The 4 Core Competencies of the Barefoot Startup appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

5 Ways to Get Good Ideas Out of Your People

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 17:00:54 +0000

Companies ask us, “How can we get the entrepreneurial spirit?” The real question should be, “How did we lose it?” When their founders started in that garage or basement so long ago, there was no question in their minds, if they didn’t make sales, they’d go out of business. But something changed along the way. They lost the entrepreneurial spirit!

What happened? Did they get so carried away with the specialization of human resources, they forgot what their founders knew – that sales are essential to survival? Did the various siloed specialties, like engineering, marketing, R&D, and admin, actually begin to believe that they were more essential than sales?

The specialties began to organize, have their own groups, their own conferences, their own publications. And as they became isolated and insulated from sales, they began to take sales for granted. “Sales can’t happen without my skill set,” became the refrain. Or worse, “Sales? That’s not my job!”

A “good idea” was thought to be all about improving some part of the production process. But did the folks who executed and improved those processes know why their process was essential to sales? Probably not. Management might say “They didn’t need to know.” But knowing why you are performing a process is the backbone of the entrepreneurial spirit. Sales is the reason!

We were honored to be the Keynote Speakers for the 75^th Anniversary Summit for IdeasAmerica. These are the folks who brought you the suggestion box in the early 1940’s and have advocated for employee-authored good ideas ever since. We decided that our message should encourage them to explore the cultural conditions that allow for, and promote, the engagement of employees.

Here’s our short list:

Overkill on Orientation. It’s not just where the bathroom, coffee, forms, and go-to person are. It’s how the money that’s in paychecks, benefits, and bonuses gets to your employees. Show them a graphic “money map” that identifies everyone who touches your company’s products or services, and what each one wants from your company. They will see more clearly how they fit in.
Pay for Performance. At least some part of your employees’ compensation must be tied to sales, growth, and profits. When you put all your people on the same bonus plan, you create the comradery of a well-practiced team with the same goal. The most effective bonuses are given quarterly – long enough to get the numbers and short enough to stay attainable.
Know the Need. Some companies are convinced that their people don’t need to know about sales, marketing, or competitive challenges. But when your people get the big picture, see how they fit in, and realize that you view them as a valuable problem-solving asset, they become more creative, and more loyal.
Grant Permission. Mistakes will happen. Make them permissible, as long as they are followed by immediate improvements to the company’s processes and procedures so they will be less likely to reoccur. Grant permission to brainstorm and entertain “crazy” ideas to solve problems. They often lead to a bright idea and a practical solution.
Give Acknowledgement. Make acknowledgement both public and written, and copy the whole team. Everyone will know more about who is being praised and have more respect for that person. They will likewise anticipate public praise when they solve problems. Some studies show that being appreciated is even more important than salary.

We salute IdeasAmerica and acknowledge the fine work they continue to do for both American and international companies. With a bit of encouragement, your people will provide a plethora of good ideas!

Who We Are

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

The post 5 Ways to Get Good Ideas Out of Your People appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

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.

The post As Businesses Grow, They Risk Losing Their Entrepreneurial Spirit appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Premature Infighting Over the Divvy Can Result in Nothing to Divvy

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

Even before the launch, and even before the funding, many start-ups suffer from infighting over who gets what and under what circumstances – as if the launch, proof of concept, and the achievement of positive cash flow are all a given. They’re not! In fact, many times the divvy is a function of the road ahead, which is an unknown, for the most part, for months!

We advise our clients not to argue over pie in the sky until there are peas on the plate! Just achieving positive cash flow is such a challenge, all the proponents should be focusing on that first.

We have seen too many businesses fail to achieve positive cash flow, but boy did they have infrastructure. No positive cash flow but big overhead – staff, offices, an HR department, lots of people with lots of titles. Why? Because, they say, “That’s just how it’s done.” It isn’t, really! The way it’s “done” is to achieve positive cash flow first and then earn all the other corporate luxuries. You really can’t afford to load yourself up with tons of bricks, mortar, structure, administration, employees and employee benefits until your company is solvent.

The big advantage of focusing on cash flow as your first and only goal is that you will have a better chance of being around long enough to have the luxury of arguing about pie in the sky. By focusing on achieving positive cash flow in the beginning, everyone’s mindshare will be free of office politics, communication issues, and turf wars. Also, and probably most importantly, you won’t be using up precious startup capital on premature overhead.

We like to say, “The day after launch, it’s the cash flow report and not the business plan that runs the business.” Stick to the inglorious task of making sales happen – all of you. Everyone in the company must focus on sales, either making them or supporting them.

We actually blame this “pie in the sky” phenomenon on the funders as much as the proponents. The proponents may have gotten the idea that other things were more important than achieving cash flow from the movies, the entrepreneurial success stories, and the press.

That’s dangerous enough, but now add to that misconception VCs who should know better. Many seem to be overly impressed with the business plan, the structure, and administrative staff. Maybe that is why so many VCs try to hedge their bet by investing in 14 or more businesses hoping one will ROI.

We think the ROI would be much better if everyone focused on sales. Then the VCs wouldn’t have to bet on so many startups hoping just one would succeed. More would!

Oh, and as far as the prelaunch, pie-in-the-sky infighting is concerned, a focus on sales would provide the sobering realization that the divvy may have to be based on commissions, and other costs of sales like programming, representation, and allowances just to get off the ground.

The idea that, “Oh well, if we don’t achieve positive cash flow, we’ll just ask for more money” is not only counterproductive, it encourages a negative and unproductive mindset. This kind of thinking diminishes the value of quick, sustained, and growing sales. It also gives a false sense of security in the short term, and winds up costing more of the proponents equity in the long run.

So let’s get some peas on the plate before we talk about divvying up the pie in the sky. Bon appetite!

Who We Are

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

The post Premature Infighting Over the Divvy Can Result in Nothing to Divvy appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

New Entrepreneurs are Easy Prey for Dubious Merchants

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 17:00:52 +0000

In California, we have an old saying, “The only people who made money during the Gold Rush were selling shovels!” But a gold miner needs a lot more than a shovel. More importantly, he needs a map. And the folks selling shovels can’t help with that, because if they really knew where the gold was, they wouldn’t be selling shovels, they’d be mining the gold themselves.

There are way too many folks out there today selling “shovels” to the entrepreneurial “gold miners.” They’ll help you with your website, your social networking, your on-line business, and even your pitch, as long as you make all the sales.

The idea behind the “shovel” merchants is to find folks who are excited about the possibilities, hyped up by the media, and possibly over simplifying the sales process. If you are a new entrepreneur, you may be like the miner without the map. You’ll buy the shovel because you think if you’re going to mine gold, you’ll need it… assuming you’ll find gold, that is. The merchants will load you up with goods, services and applications you think you need …everything except the map. Bonnie has an expression we think is apropos, “If we had ham, we’d have ham and eggs, if we had eggs!”

Many of the products they’ll sell you are premature for your business development, based on faulty assumptions, or down right unnecessary. Many require costly subscription fees and even require “experts” to run those services. Many of these services are trying to be all things to all people, so you wind up paying for services you will never need. Still, they require a myriad of plug-ins that work around their short comings. But what do the sellers care? They got your money and they’re down the road.

The map to the gold can only come from one source: another successful gold miner! In the case of entrepreneurship, this is an entrepreneur who has actually successfully started and run a business, and is now willing to share the secrets that lead him or her to the “gold.” These are the folks you should be seeking out – especially when you’re starting out. For one thing, they can save you a ton on premature overhead and monthly fees because they too have made those same mistakes. They will help you focus on building the true client base that justifies buying any supportive services, as well as identifying exactly what kinds of services you need, and more importantly, when.

New business owners who have recently been funded are sitting ducks for the shovel sellers who prey on those looking for the “next” gold rush. Today entrepreneurship is the next gold rush. Don’t be swept up in the hype. It’s really all about getting and keeping your customers. Take a closer look at that reality first! The tools and services won’t guarantee those customers but acquiring those customers is absolutely necessary to be able to afford taking on additional overhead. And how do you acquire those customers? Talk to successful entrepreneurs who have already done so, built their business, and even monetized their brand equity. These are the folks with the gold maps!

We can’t tell you how many failed businesses we have seen that loaded up on needless overhead before they ever made a sale and just flat out, ran out of money. Today’s access to capital through crowd funding seems to exacerbate this problem. Often, neither the crowd doing the funding nor the recipient of the funding fully understand the process of achieving a positive cash flow. They are both clouded with the hype surrounding the product or service itself, and they believe taking on major overhead is a requirement for success. So they tend not to scrutinize the investments in overhead until it’s too late!

Bottom line: Buy a map before you buy a shovel!

Who We Are

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

The post New Entrepreneurs are Easy Prey for Dubious Merchants appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Aspiring Entrepreneurs of Consumer Products are Often Overshadowed by Technopreneurs

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 18:09:02 +0000

It’s easy to get the idea that all entrepreneurial pursuits must be in technology. Yet, over half of the start-ups we see in the hubs, incubators and universities around the country involve some kind of consumer product.

These products may incorporate technology or even be sold online, but their producers know that they will grow their brands faster, sell higher volumes in a single transaction, and have a better chance of being discovered in a retail store. Why? Several reasons:

Weight. Consumer products tend to weigh so much that the expense of home delivery cannot compete with customer pick up. Customers know this and regularly drive to retail stores to purchase many such items all at one time for sheer efficiency.

Visibility. When in a retail store, customers are more likely to discover and buy new products and notion items that they may miss seeing online. This makes retail stores a sought after location especially for new consumer brands and products.

Convenience. Customers plan on regular visits to retail stores to get products they need in their hands that day. Many visit more than one type of product store on the same trip.

Volume. Consumer product producers can sell large quantities of their products in one transaction to a chain or box store and get regional and national distribution within that retail company. They get one check from one entity for a large shipment.

All this seems obvious, but today we have gotten so carried away with online sales and everything tech that we may have forgotten that the three basic human needs are still food, clothing, and shelter. Although you can purchase many of these products online, ultimately you want the convenience of a retail store for these necessities.

With tech we hear, “I don’t really need it, but I can’t live without it!” and that’s fine. Technology has become a part of our lives, but cannot replace our basic needs. Technology offers producers of consumer products a convenient way for their customers to research their products. Tech has given these producers more accurate, efficient, and time-saving applications to handle supply chain management, production, accounting, modeling, and social presence, but until you can actually get real products right through your computer, we are stuck with the most efficient way of getting them to our homes – retail outlets.

Still, the most important part of the retail sales process is the physical point of sale. It’s where your product, your customer, the money, and the decision to buy your product all come together. Consumer product producers know that’s generally in a physical, bricks-and-mortar retail store. They know that their new product will be in front of an already established audience qualified and capable of taking it home that day.

This is why it’s so important for us personally to serve this increasingly neglected entrepreneurial market segment with education about what it really takes to achieve success with a consumer product sold through a conventional distribution system.

Over the past year we have been working on a soon-to-be-released 4-part video webinar on this very challenge. In this webinar, we give to you the guiding principles for success we learned during our 30 years of experience creating and marketing a successful international consumer product sold through a three-level distribution system – which includes producer, distributer, and retailer.

The lessons we learned will certainly give you or someone you know a big head start and valuable insights on consumer product success in the bricks-and-mortar retail space. Check it out at www.thebarefootspiritgps.com

Who We Are

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

The post Aspiring Entrepreneurs of Consumer Products are Often Overshadowed by Technopreneurs appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Big prices vs. High prices: A novel pricing concept

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 28 May 2014 15:27:10 +0000

Big prices vs. High prices: A novel pricing concept

by Ric Payne

Recently I posted a note on Principa’s Facebook page in which I strongly recommended a book called The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. This book is arguably the best book I have ever read that details the real life challenges that every business has in getting established and growing to a substantial size. It’s a biographical journey detailing the building of the wine brand Barefoot by two people who got into the business by accident simply to help a client recover a chunk of money that was owed to him and their only knowledge of wine when they started was it was something you drank.

The entrepreneurial lessons in this book are simply amazing and anyone who is in business or planning to launch a business would do well to read it with a notebook in hand because there are lessons on every page. It is a story how you can make something out of nothing. Some of the things they did was sheer genius, other accomplishments were the result of tenacious hard work. Scattered throughout the bokk are some amusing anecdotes with a strong lesson as well.

One of those lessons involved a pricing strategy that’s worth sharing.

One of the founders of Barefoot, Michael Houlihan, was accompanying his rep for New Jersey and they were visiting a town in the Atlantic Highlands. Michael had learned from experience that every business was a little bit different and created its own style. In this case he described the town they were visiting as one that “seemed to be living in the 1950′s.”

TO READ THE COMPLETE ARTICLE, PLEASE VISIT RIC PAYNE’S BLOG

Who We Are

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

The post Big prices vs. High prices: A novel pricing concept appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.