Founders | The Barefoot Spirit

BookTrib – The Barefoot Spirit Audiobook Review

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 20:19:55 +0000

Here at BookTrib, I’m asked to review a lot of books. You can find me most evenings, weekends and train commutes deep inside a book bristling with Post-It notes. So it was a refreshing change when I was asked to review the audiobook of The Barefoot Spirit (Footnotes Press) by Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, founders of Barefoot Wine. Not just an audiobook, mind you, but a “business audio theatre” book. A what, now?

As soon as I started listening, I understood. This wasn’t just a voiceover artist reading a book out loud for me. Rather, it was an immersive listening experience, including actors playing the parts of various characters, punctuated by sound effects and enhanced with music. In a nonfiction audiobook, no less. I was embarking on a journey of the mind’s eye into an engaging, often funny, informative look into the struggles, ingenuity and humanity behind the founding of America’s top wine brand.

To read the full professional audiobook review, please visit BookTrib

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 to Tell If You Are You Persistent or Just Stuck in a Rut

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 08 Feb 2018 18:00:59 +0000

Most successful startup founders will tell you that it’s going to take a lot of tenacity to succeed. They will all generally tell you that persistence is the better part of valor when it comes to winning. We agree. It takes a great degree of resolve and patience to see the results you are looking for.

Sometimes you must persevere against the odds, struggle along until the time is right, and hold out for that big break. Perhaps the market will change, the buyer will change, or finally the amount of time you put in begins to result in traction.

Getting things started is difficult enough, but what about getting something new started, something the market hasn’t seen before, or doesn’t know it needs?

That happened to us. Our product was disruptive, broke all the rules, and identified a market no one was addressing. We had to spend several years doing missionary work just to convince buyers that they could make a profit on our product. What if we got tired of the uphill battle and quit? There would be no Barefoot Wine today!

Disruptive startups require founders who doggedly push on in the face of adversity and predisposition. But at what point does persistence become narrow-mindedness? At what point does priming the pump become beating a dead horse? How do you really know when it’s time to give up, pivot, or “rethink your drink?”

Here are 5 indicators to help you recognize the difference between determination and getting stuck in a rut.

Small Successes. Are you having ANY success at all? Is there a direct relationship between the amount of time, energy, and money you put into an initiative and the rate of success? If you see increased sales each day, week or month, you may be justified in sticking to it. If not, move forward on another approach.
Leapfrog Successes. Can you see customer demand beyond a nay-saying gatekeeper? In spite of what you are being told, do you have evidence that there is a need for your offering? Is it your offering itself that needs alteration? Or is it your approach to market penetration that needs a revamp?
Time and Money. Sometimes the decision to pull the plug will be made for you. You simply can’t afford to continue to stick to the path you’ve chosen. You run out of time and money. If you can’t establish an increasing cash flow within a year, you may be forced to change your course. There are a ton of great ideas out there that never made it to the market because the founder simply ran out of runway.
Blinded by Determination. Are you missing easier ways of succeeding because you are so dedicated to your course that you are narrowly focused on the path you’ve chosen? If an alternative presented itself, would you recognize it? Yes, most times sheer persistence is required, but keep your eyes open for more efficient ways of achieving your goals.
Outside Opinions. Entrepreneurship is lonely, especially when you know your idea will fly and few others see it. Sometimes you just need some support to keep you going. Find a supporter you respect to help you shore up the path towards your end game. Share your approach to identifying and accessing the market. Ask for their suggestions. They may see something you don’t. They can give you an objective view.

Knowing when persistence has led you to being stuck in a rut is difficult especially when you keep hearing stories of other startups that finally got traction. What if they gave up right before that happened? After some amount of time though, there is a point of diminishing returns. The sales just aren’t there to support the enterprise. Do you stubbornly continue because you want to justify all the time, money, and energy you have put in so far? Or do you recognize that channel vision may be blinding you to alternatives?

We hope these indicators can help you make that difficult decision to push on or shove off.

Who We Are

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

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What Does Your Dashboard Look Like? … and Why?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 20 Jul 2017 17:00:40 +0000

It’s not about the data. It’s about what questions you have that can be answered by the data. Startups especially must ask the right questions, and ask them often, just to survive. We have seen many businesses fail because they didn’t know what questions to ask, or didn’t ask often enough, or they were paralyzed by the overwhelming volume of it all.

Why does this happen? Often, it’s a preoccupation with the business plan and securing financing. Many founders believe their business plans will get them the financing they need. If it does garner them that capital, both the founder and the financier could be in big trouble.

The founder may get the wrong idea about the importance of the business plan if it does attract an investor. They may think it has been validated and deserving of even greater status. The investor who buys into the plan by itself has oversimplified views of the revenue process and is surprised when he winds up having to throw good money after bad.

When we started our business, most of our data came from the accountant. We would constantly ask him for what he called “special reports.” Usually, by the time he got around to doing them, it was too late. We were in crisis mode …again!

He constantly chastised us for not being able to read a set of books. He would say, “Everything you want to see is already there! Just learn how to read the reports.” And “Accounting is a language.” He was right, it was a language, a foreign language designed to categorize and file past events. The only problem was that we wanted to see the future! After a long, dangerous period of flying blind and being surprised by crisis after crisis, we finally demanded that the “special reports” become part of our regular reviews. And that saved us! We had the beginnings of an early cash flow warning system.

It wasn’t until much later that we were fortunate enough to hire a cost accountant who understood what information we needed of the data. He helped us build a proper dash board. Every month we would get a new indicator that would help us not only stay in business, but minimize our need for cash, control our inventory, and keep us from growing faster than we could afford.

Think of trying to drive your car using the rear-view mirror. That was the old “special reports.” Our cost accountant gave us a windshield, and a dashboard. Now we were driving the business with projections based on historical data as well as what we just learned.

The first report we would review was aptly named “the cliff report” because it showed us how much time we had before we went over the cliff and couldn’t pay our bills. For years, it was never more than three months away! This simple rolling cash flow projection ran our business and identified our priorities. So much for our well thought-out business plan…

Finally, with a cost accountant, we became more sophisticated and confident. We began to develop a dashboard that was relevant, critical, and timely. We had the right data, in the right format, and got it in time to take appropriate action.

When we sold our business, we had 10 key factors we looked at every month. We never did learn how to read a set of books, but we did build a heck of a business, thanks to the cliff report!

Who We Are

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

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8 Lessons For Budding Entrepreneurs

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:26:07 +0000

by Steve Olenski, Contributor, Forbes

Last December, my fellow FORBES contributor Robert Reiss, wrote a great piece entitled “The Incredible Story Of Starting The World’s Largest Wine Brand, Barefoot Wines.” The article was essentially a get-to-know two amazing people who launched what is now an iconic brand in a laundry room of a rented farmhouse in the Sonoma County hills.

I had the pleasure of meeting with and speaking with the two founders, Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, last year at a C-Suite Conference in Marina del Rey, California. Read more…

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KBOI-TV 2 Television Interview

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 18:42:32 +0000

BOISE, Idaho (KBOI) – The founders of Barefoot Wine have a new book out talking about their unique journey of building one of the countries top selling wines. Although it may not have happened if not for the current owner of a Boise restaurant.

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey started Barefoot Wine out of their laundry room in California back in 1985. The current owner of the Stagecoach Inn in Boise, Rick Fraser, was a distributor in California at the time.

Early in their business Michael had a different distributor who didn’t pay his bill, and put is wine out in the hot sun. That could have been a huge financial hit, but he called Fraser who went and picked up the wine and began selling it.

To view the complete article and watch the video interview, please click visit this link KBOI-TV2

Who We Are

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

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Rags-to-Riches Beach Reading Material – Yahoo Small Business Advisor

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 27 May 2013 17:35:11 +0000

By Adrienne Burke

Looking for a good book to get lost in this Memorial Day weekend? The Barefoot Spirit is an entertaining rags-to-riches story of American entrepreneurship. Released this week, the paperback has already climbed to the top of the Amazon bestsellers list.

It’s the first-hand tale of California rule breakers Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, founders of the country’s top-selling wine brand. The couple conceived Barefoot Cellars in 1986, three years after they met in a Santa Rosa blues bar. They sold the business to E&J Gallo in 2005 for an undisclosed price that they say left them “satisfied.”

To read the complete interview, please visit Yahoo Small Business

Who We Are

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

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Scheinfeld Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 03:09:20 +0000

Santa Barbara has always been our favorite Southern California town – great biking, hiking, surfing and culture. But today, we discovered a whole new reason to love this gem of the Pacific Coast, The Scheinfeld Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. This unique school takes the increasing demand for entrepreneurial education head on, and at the community college level, no less.

This afternoon, we enjoyed a wonderful beachside luncheon with Melissa Moreno, the school’s Director. She has been instrumental in the creation and development of the Center. Only three years old, it’s already getting the attention and support of several successful entrepreneurs.

Check out their fireside-chat format conversations with these notables on video at their site. These chats are jam packed with excited students interacting with real entrepreneurial successes.

Today’s entrepreneurial students want case studies from real business founders. They want to hear their story and ask them practical questions about how they overcame hardship, challenges and undercapitalization.

Our economy has proven time and again that it’s the entrepreneurs that create new businesses, new jobs, and innovation. Today, we face big challenges. For many graduates, sometimes the only source of employment is self employment.

The Scheinfeld Center provides a big head start for anyone thinking about starting their own business, whether they are looking for credit, or just want to get the latest academic disciplines or practical tools necessary for successful entrepreneurship.

Like schools everywhere, they are struggling with the economy. This seems ironic since they are one of the obvious vehicles to turn the economy around. They deserve your interest and support, so please help pass the word about the Scheinfeld Center. We need more schools like this!

We were honored to be asked to present our experience to the Scheinfeld students next March. Now we have another great reason to visit Santa Barbara. We hope the lessons we learned, sometimes the hard way, will help the next generation of entrepreneurs to achieve success!

Who We Are

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

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On Independence Day, We’re more Interdependent than Ever

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 00:01:11 +0000

As we approach the nation’s 236^th year of independence from England and thereby Europe, we find ourselves glued to the financial news out of Europe like we were still part of it. And we are, more than ever. We worry about the economies of China and Russia as if they were our own – regardless of our political differences. Why? Because our very livelihood depends on the world’s economic and environmental health.

We live on the Pacific Coast where debris from the Japanese tsunami is now just starting to wash up from a catastrophe clear across the world’s largest ocean. Beyond our human empathy for the brave people of Japan, many Japanese products we took for granted became scarce. We were confronted with how the damage to their infrastructure affected our marketplace.

If there’s even a hint of an interruption in the supply of oil from the Middle East, we feel it at the pump. That cost trickles up into everything we buy, including the food we eat.

On the West Coast, we’re now getting air pollution from China. If the developing world continues to copy our approach to “prosperity,” we will suffer the health and environmental consequences right here in the USA.

So yes, we wave the flag and celebrate our great nation. We are thankful for the opportunities and freedoms we enjoy. We are proud to be Americans. But independence? We are all here on the same planet, all interdependent and becoming more so every year.

The good news is that the superpowers all know that their customers and suppliers in the other superpowers are too important to allow anything that would hurt their infrastructure, economy, or the world atmosphere. The bad news is that we haven’t yet realized that our economies and health are ultimately dependent on the health of the environment.

But we as individuals are not completely powerless, especially in America. Over and over again we hear that the world economy depends largely on the health of the American consumer. We all know by now that we vote with our money. In our incessant desire to get everything at the very lowest price, we can inadvertently subsidize political, social, health and environmental practices we would never allow in our own country. Every purchase we make is a vote for how it was made, the working conditions and how it got to us.

It’s hard to blame the government when the lobbyists are financed by our choices. If all politics are local, as it is often said, we can start to make changes in the way we spend our money. We can shop at the local organic farmer’s market and try to buy as many goods and services from local merchants as possible. We can avoid the purchase of single use plastics and vote for cleaner beaches. We can vote for lower healthcare costs by making healthier food choices. Every time we fill up with gas we can at least recognize where those funds are going and hope the day will come soon when we will have cleaner alternatives. Car-pooling, biking, and just plain walking are great votes for a more sustainable future.

This Independence Day let’s recognize our interdependence and how our individual choices can shape the future of not only our great country, but also the world. We are free to make independent choices in how we spend our money, thereby casting our votes. We can yet bring in the “New Order” that our nation’s founders called for by recognizing our true power right here in our wallets.

Happy Birthday USA!

Who We Are

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

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