Almost everyone in the audience is looking for ways to save money in their new or developing business. They’re all looking for the most bang for their buck in every area of spending. Marketing your products and services are probably the biggest challenges new business face. It doesn’t matter how good your products and services are if your customer doesn’t know about them.

No Advertising Budget, No Entry

When we started Barefoot Wine, we were completely undercapitalized. Our first big chain buyer asked us if we were going to spend $200,000 in an advertising campaign to build our brand before he would take it in to his stores. We were so strapped, we didn’t even have one of those $200,000. He then basically turned us down and for good reason, our brand was unheard of, and he would be taking a big risk giving expensive shelf space to an unknown and unproven brand.

He told us that without a well-funded advertising campaign he wouldn’t touch it …and no other chain or box store would either, for that matter. The big chain buyer said, without advertising, we would have to focus on selling the independently owned stores one at a time. We told him, “That will take years!” He said, “You’re right! You better get started!” He did say that once we became a household word, he would put us in to his 200+ store chain. Well, it took 2 years, and yes, he did put us in. His was the first large chain store in the country to take us.

Becoming a Household Name Without Advertising

But we didn’t become a “household word” through commercial advertising. And we didn’t become a “household word” throughout the country at first. We became a household word only in California and we did it through support for the community from which our customers came. You see, the independents were no different than the chains. They didn’t want to take a chance on an unknown brand that wasn’t being commercially advertised. In fact, they threaten to discontinue Barefoot if it didn’t sell within 90 days. And we only had a handful of accounts that would even take that chance, to begin with.

It was during that first in 90 days that we got a call from a nonprofit community organization asking us to support their kids-after-school park. Once again, we had no money. But we did have wine! We donated wine to their fundraiser. The next month we noticed a big uptick in sales in the stores in that particular community. Without knowing it at the time, we had given the members of that organization a social reason to buy our product. They also felt obligated to tell their friends colleagues and families to go out and buy it as well.

We thought, “Wow! Maybe we’ve discovered something here! Maybe this is an alternative to expensive commercial advertising. Maybe it’s more effective simply because it’s more locally targeted. Members of the organization lived in the neighborhoods surrounding the stores where our products were for sale. Then we thought, let’s try this in another market, only this time we asked for a few concessions that the nonprofit could readily provide. They mentioned us in their newsletter, they thanked is from the podium, they let us put up banners, they let us put out lists of where to buy our products at their fundraiser, they let us write posts in their newsletter, they used our logo and let us use theirs.

These were not big national organizations looking for paid sponsorship. These were just little community organizations, but they were made up of potential customers. Why shouldn’t we support our potential customers?

Worthy Cause Marketing

As Ivan Meisner says, “When it comes to networking, take off the bib and put on the apron!” This approach to getting the word out, which we called Worthy Cause Marketing, was so effective that as we expanded Barefoot into other states, regions, and even countries, we got the word out by supporting local communities and their worthy causes.

Already we can hear the objection, “Well it was easy for you. You are selling wine, but how does that work for me with my product and services?” At a local Chamber of Commerce meeting, we met a gentleman who was practicing Worthy Cause Marketing to get the word out about his services. What was he selling? Gun safety! He found that he could support parent-teacher associations, as well as police and sheriffs associations by offering free classes as a silent auction item during their fundraising dinners. Association members saw his support for their cause. Some members bought and used the silent auction classes. They came back and recommended his classes to all the other members.

Targeting the Networked Market

One of the great advantages of working with community organizations is that they are already networked! They are already communicating. And they are local to where your goods and services are for sale. Offering them free goods and services to support their causes as well as helping them get the word out about their goals and fundraisers will endear you and your products to their members. You become part of their organization and a supporter of the causes they hold dear. Of course, they want to support you in the marketplace.

You will not only show the world that you stand for more than the mercantile value of your goods and services, but that you support the causes that are important to your customers. It’s not only a great contribution for your company to make to your community, but in the long run, it’s the cheapest form of advertising!

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 Work with Your Community to Create Advocates appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Why this obsession with sales? It’s how everyone gets paid – everyone! Without sales, there would be no need for production, marketing, R&D, HR, legal, admin, and CEOs – nobody!

Why is the Barefoot Spirit so important today? Because many of us have actually lost our focus on sales in favor of engineering, programming, technology, legal, HR, and production. We have gotten to a place where we think that a killer app, a disrupting technology, or a new financial model is somehow more important than sales. They’re not.

In fact, in what we call the Barefoot Startup, the product itself is determined by sales. The design is not complete until after a thorough understanding of what the market wants and how the market will be accessed.

Today many believe that business success is based on securing financing. It’s not! You can secure financing and never make a sale. You can have a burn rate that quickly smokes investor dollars without sales.

We have allowed ourselves to believe that getting into a major box store is in itself  a recipe for success. It’s not. It’s only the beginning, not the end. Real success is staying in the market with sustained and increasing sales.

In fact, we have seen companies that have discounted the importance of sales and elevated marketing – who will gladly take a bow when sales are up and blame “those salespeople out in the field” when sales are down.

Today, you can even get financing with a cool idea, no real sales plan, and no sales experience. Startups are not alone in this thinking. Investors abound who take sales for granted. They shouldn’t.  The startup failure rate is on the increase. According to Small Business Trends, over 50% of small business startups fail in the first four years.

No one’s idea, no matter how brilliant, is going to sell itself. All ideas must be sold and more importantly resold on an ongoing basis.

Today, much of the focus is on the cost of goods, when it should be on the cost of sales. If you can’t service what you sell, you are soon off the market. If you can’t achieve a positive cash flow quickly, you are back trading more of your precious equity to the investor just to keep the lights on.

The current thinking seems to be that if you have a good enough idea, and a catchy marketing plan, you just hire some people to sell it. If they don’t, just fire them and hire some more. Right? Wrong. With that attitude, you never find out why your idea didn’t sell – until it’s too late!

How has this happened? Sales itself has gotten a bad name. Nobody wants to be “salesy!” Nobody wants to face personal rejection. Sales is generally not taught in school. And salespeople are seen as shifty characters, out to trick you, only after your money, and with very little to offer in return. Good salespeople offer excellent customer service, and should be the highest priority for a startup, not the last.

From startups to enterprise companies, the time is right for the Barefoot Spirit. Now is the time to focus on the top priority for success, sales!

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 Why is The Barefoot Spirit So Relevant Today? appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

But you’re not. Far from it! Now you have given up equity to raise capital that you can spend in ways that may not be necessary or effective. Now you have given yourself the false sense of security that because your plan got financing, it must be right.  Now that you have secured a “runway” and “burn rate,” you attract service suppliers interested in grabbing some of that capital. They want to sell you goods and services you don’t necessarily need, including staff, facilities, and other overhead with monthly bills hungry for your money. Have you made adequate sales to justify those expenditures?

So, now you have funded your company without thoroughly understanding the sales or growth process, especially the most often overlook and underestimated expense: the cost of sales. Do you even know what it costs to make sales?  And what it costs to service what you sell? Now you can get into trouble because the only funds you have are from financing …and you are burning through that at an alarming rate. Pretty soon, you go back for a second and third round of financing and you give up more of your equity.

We have heard many startup founders say, “We had to close down because we couldn’t raise additional capital.” But that’s not the real reason! They simply didn’t have sufficient revenue to achieve a positive cash flow given their hasty commitment to overhead. In other words, they focused on production and administration instead of sales.

There’s a good reason why VC’s look for returns that are ten to twenty-five times their investment. They are losing on nine to twenty-four of their investments.

On the other hand, the startup using the Barefoot Spirit focuses on achieving a positive cash flow much sooner. It’s not as sensational as the promise of “six digits in six months,” but it is solidly based on sustainability. It’s not the glamorous rocket to the top, but it is a practical way to discover the true cost of sales before you get over-extended or commit yourself to regular monthly bills you just can’t sustain. It’s not an instant success that’s crushing it on a national scale, but it is a slow, step-by-step process that is deliberately small in scale to allow you to get  the real market education you need to make sensible growth decisions and preserve your equity.

The Barefoot Spirit is an attitude and a philosophy that puts you in the other guy’s shoes at every turn. From your own people to your vendors, from your supplies to your bankers, from your distributers to your retailers – learn what they want. This is how you discover your strategic allies, be more resourceful, and save time and money. This is how you can grow your business on a positive cash flow!

The Barefoot Spirit has proof that you can do it without VC money. And you may even do it better.

In the coming months, we will be describing and advocating the Barefoot Spirit approach to starting a business. Isn’t it about time we got back to basics?

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 Think You Need a VC to Start Your Business? Try the Barefoot Spirit Instead! appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.