What’s most humbling is that they had absolutely no idea what they were doing at first.

From the start, with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they had to employ innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and strategic alliances.

Having learned the hard way, Michael and Bonnie fell forward into success.

The lessons they taught me were invaluable.

1. Stop thinking about following your passion, and start thinking about following opportunity passionately

Michael and Bonnie had absolutely no experience in the wine business. They were both business coaches who happened to have a lot of clients in the wine business. One of their clients was a grape grower, and this grape grower hadn’t been paid by a particular client for three years. Michael went straight to the delinquent company to collect funds for his client, only to find out that the company was bankrupt. Makes sense why they couldn’t pay!

To read the complete article, please visit The Business Journals 

The post ​10 timeless lessons about business from the founders of the biggest wine brand in America appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

When you are looking to hire new employees, look for folks who are self-starters and problem solvers. Look for people who have worked on a project with a team, preferably as the team leader. Even better, look for experience operating a small business. In other words, look to hire people who think like an entrepreneur. These are the ones who have the mindset to think and act beyond their assigned duties and look at the whole picture.

One of the biggest challenges your startup faces is a clear definition of the jobs that are required to make it run successfully. When you start out, you simply don’t know what is required of you and your fledgling company to satisfy the needs of your clients. You find out as you go along. Likewise, your employees must be flexible and look for every opportunity to contribute, whether or not it is in their job description.

Just like a tennis player with knees bent, ready to spring into action in whatever direction required to return the ball, no matter where the ball comes from, your startup team has to be flexible and prepared to get the job done. They must also be looking for the ball! You can’t afford to have folks who don’t think sales is their responsibility. They have to have a financial interest in sales in order to understand the most important word to any startup, “urgency!” They have to know that somehow their income and job security is based on that next sale – and do all they can to make it happen, and keep it happening!

To reinforce this idea, you as the owner must be ready to take a smaller slice of a larger pie. You must be willing to share in the upside and offer quarterly bonuses based on sales, growth, and profitability. If you must pay guarantees or base salaries to salespeople, make it an advance on commissions. Do whatever you can to send the message that their income, security, bonuses, and benefits all come from sales.

When you hire entrepreneurial thinkers you have employees who are willing to bet their income on your success, folks who believe in what you are doing, and believe they can be instrumental at some level in making it happen. To support this idea, you must present them with a comprehensive orientation period, thorough training, and access to continued learning resources. Show them how they can best contribute to the needs and ultimate success of your company by investing their skills with the knowledge that they will benefit when the company grows and becomes more profitable.

Wouldn’t you rather have “investors” than “employees” anyway? Think of what it will do for your startup company culture! Think teamwork, focus, and commitment. Think of how it will reduce your need to supervise and micro-manage your people, allowing you the time and attention to focus on more pressing matters.  We like to say, “In a startup there is no room for passengers. If you’re not steering, rowing, or bailing, you are swimming because you are no longer on board!”

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 Startups Must Hire Employees with the Entrepreneurial Mentality appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Some businesses can’t raise funds any other way. The Banks and VC’s won’t touch them. But if the Crowd likes their idea, Bam! – they get funded.  It seems so democratic, so what’s the problem?

Here are some hidden dangers to Crowd Funding that are becoming more apparent to the startups and the Crowd alike:

1. Experience. The Crowd lacks the sales and distribution experience that the Banks and the VC’s have painfully learned from poor investments in great ideas. The Crowd may love the concept, and envision one in every household, but the Crowd generally doesn’t know how to get it to market, run the business, or achieve positive cash flow. Typically, inexperienced startups will write a business plan and get the Crowd to fund it, while experienced business owners know that it’s the cash flow report that leads the business, not the business plan.
2. False Security. The Bank and the VC’s will grill the startup about exactly how the product will get to market and stay there. They will demand a cash flow plan that takes into consideration much more than the merits of the concept itself. Because of the sheer numbers of the Crowd, both the startup and the Crowd itself believe a great idea will be sought out by the market and sales become an afterthought.
3. Management. The Crowd tends to focus on the product and not so much the management of the company. When the Crowd is provided with a sample product in return for their investment, they believe that the startup will be able to manufacture and distribute the product in the future. In reality, it’s the management of the startup that will determine the success or failure of the product.
4. Popular Misconceptions. The Crowd tends to simplify the sales process. They go online or to the store and “everything” is there every day. Their judgement about success in the marketplace is based on what they see from their side of the screen and their side of the retail shelf – as consumers, not as producers. If they don’t see it, they think it hasn’t been done. It may have been done but never made it to their store. This simplistic and popular misconception is reinforced when the Crowd has a positive response to the startup’s offering.
5. Timing. The time between the offering and the actual availability of the product is almost always much longer than expected. The startup discovers the hard way that the costs and time of production and distribution are much greater than they anticipated. This tends to slow them down. Meanwhile, because of all the publicity, companies with more resources and better access to the market can jump on their great idea and be first to market, leaving the startup in the dust. In some cases the startup’s idea becomes outdated by the time it hits the market.

Startups can get a false sense of security after a successful Crowd Funding. It can deaden their ears to unwelcomed news – such as, it’s not so much about the idea, as it is about the management, delivery, and achieving a positive cash flow. It’s not about launching the business or how much is raised. It’s about whether the startup did the homework required for the time to market and true cost of sales – even if the Crowd gives you twice what you asked.

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 Crowd Sourcing Can Give Startups a False Sense of Security appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

There are many books written on the subject of sales, sale techniques, and best closing strategies. We’ve often said the best sales person is the “Assistant Buyer”. The key to sales success is simply to sincerely have the buyer’s best interest at heart.

When you produce a product that goes through distribution channels, or when you offer a service business to business, the funds your buyer has to buy from you came from the sale of their product or service. If you are selling direct to the consumer, you still have to recognize that they have to work for the income, one way or another, that enables them to buy your product.

Everybody who sells products or services wants to sell more. The ultimate question from your prospect is: “How does your product or service help me sell my product or service?” or “How can you help me make more money?” That’s why positioning your sales pitch as enhancing theirs is so effective.

Here are some ways your product or service can help your customer’s bottom line:

1. Reduce his overhead cost per unit sold. He has to pay rent, lights, power, insurance, staff, cleaning, etc., whether he sells your product quickly or slowly. If it’s a fast seller, his cost per sale is reduced. He improves his ROI on his capital investment, maintenance, advertising, and staffing.

2. Increase his profits with lower acquisition costs and, consequently, higher profit margins on your product. Give him a volume purchase program that enables a lower retail price and increased volume resulting in higher profits per month.

3. Make his retail environment more attractive with seasonal point of sale materials and promotional programs geared to the theme of the given holiday. Make your displays festive decorations to his retail space.

4. Increase his business with local promotions and support for neighborhood causes. Use Worthy Cause Marketing to bring in customers who have a social reason to buy your product. Let the membership of the non-profit you support know where your product is for sale in his neighborhood.

5. Sell him a product or service that makes him more attractive and more competitive to his clients or retail customers. Give him the best price in your category, or an area-wide exclusive for an introductory period.

6. Add value to his total sales package. Is there something you can sell him that makes what he’s selling more valuable, adds an extra feature or delivers another benefit – like a guarantee, excellent customer service or loyalty program? Does your product give him “green” bragging rights?

7. Improve his personnel’s efficiency by providing training, benefits or tools his staff can use to increase his sales. Help him find and keep good people.

These are just a few examples of how you can help your buyer increase profits and do his job more efficiently. When you focus on what your buyer is trying to do, you can quickly get a clue as to what you can do to help him increase his sales. Adding value to his sales efforts with your product allows him to say to his customers, “But wait, there’s 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 World’s Best Sale Pitch: “My Product will help you Increase Sales” appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.