This dilemma is especially perplexing as we begin the new year. We’re determined to make a change. We’re determined to stop beating on dead horses. And we’re determined to seek out and recognize alternatives. There’s been books written about how entrepreneurs on the edge of success have been distracted by the shiny ball. If only they had worked a little harder a little more focused… But no, they were distracted.

Somewhere between the dead horse and the shiny ball is the answer. Is that horse really dead after all? Or maybe there is something in that shiny ball that will save him.

Most entrepreneurs have just completed a year working hard on their main project while, at the same time, entertaining new opportunities. As we start the new year we should take a lesson from the ancient Japanese craft culture. At the end of every year they clean their shop. They do this to show respect for their workplace and it is their opportunity to sort things out mentally and physically.

Take Inventory

By looking at their inventory, they discover what sold and what didn’t sell. Although this simple exercise seems obvious, most entrepreneurs just plow ahead without really taking the time to acknowledge and validate what worked! What’s left in inventory are the un-sold products and slow moving items. Now they’re taking up room in your physical and mental workspace. It’s time to reflect on how much energy you put, and continue to put, into your slow movers. You’ll need that space and mind share in the new year!

Clean House

Pick up everything you’ve made and decide if you want to keep it, change it, or just plain get rid of it. When you look at each initiative you have pursued in the past year, the ones that didn’t work don’t have to be a total loss. What did you learn from each experience? How can those lessons help you when applied to your main pursuit?

One approach is to reorganize. Take your failed and nonproducing initiatives and incorporate them into the one or ones that worked. Have you acquired new skills, new contacts, or new referrals that will help you in the new year? Identify them and make a list to acknowledge them, so you will have gotten the most out of those “shiny balls.”

Refocus

Use the experiences of the past year to help you focus on your true customer. They may not be the people you have been pursuing. Like a fisherman casting about hoping for a bite, now it’s time to pull in the lines, check your bait, and move the boat in the direction you experienced the most action.

There is a market for what you have sold in the past year. It’s time to move closer by better addressing that market. How did the customers who bought products from you last year find out about your offerings? How can you improve those channels? Identify and endeavor to utilize any new communication skills you have learned over the past year.

Has the market for your main pursuit changed? How can you modify your product and your presentation to become more relevant and compelling? Time to talk to your customers.

We know that years are just arbitrary measures of time. But they also represent a period of work that we can learn from if we take the time to take inventory, clean house, and refocus. So while everybody is feeling compelled to blastoff in new directions, maybe we can emulate those Japanese craftsmen with reflection, analysis, and redirection.

Here’s to a New Year made better by the last!

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 Casting About or Fishing Where the Fish Are appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

After a while we began to develop actual problem solving principles that gave us structure and a set of standards we would apply to future problems. As we solved problem after problem we slowly improved our approach to problem solving itself. In fact, we began, in a crazy way, to lose our anxiety over the inevitable problems! It became kind of a game! We were challenged with something new and unheard of, but we took comfort in the knowledge that we had a set of principles to handle it, no matter what it was.

Here are our 5 Barefoot problem solving principles:

1. Take Inventory. That’s right, just like a shipwreck on an abandoned island, take account of everything you have on board. Get ready to be resourceful. Think about how your assets can be used to overcome the challenges you face. Your assets are more than property, money, and products; they are also your people, your customers, and your suppliers. You may have a strategic advantage in a seemingly unrelated area. Don’t overlook any hidden assets, including your own knowledge and experience.
2. Get Out of the Box. And the quickest way out of the box is straight up! Take the 10,000-foot view. Look beyond your walls, beyond your business, even beyond your industry. Check out the entire landscape. Who has overcome a problem like this in another space? How did they do it? What similarities apply? Are you even defining the problem properly? We believe one way to the solution is the best definition of the problem, so look at it from every angle.
3. Who Else Benefits? If you solve the problem, who else will the solution assist? And conversely, who is hurt if you don’t solve the problem? By asking these questions you can discover your strategic allies who share an interest in seeing the problem solved. For instance, you may have a supplier who benefits by your growth, and may be amenable to providing additional credit or extended terms to help you overcome a hurdle or grow your business faster so they can sell you more products.
4. Look at Your Other Problems. If you believe, as we do, that the elegant solution solves more than one problem, then reverse the premise and put all your problems out on the table with the one you are trying to solve. By looking at them all together you’ll begin to see relationships between them. And it is in those relationships that the solution often lies. We’ve been amazed how this tactic can turn on the lights with breakthroughs we wouldn’t have considered otherwise!
5. Know the Need. Instead of putting your staff, your suppliers, and your associates on a “need-to-know” basis by hiding your problems under the veil of security, practice “know-the-need.“ Involve your stakeholders in the problem solving process. They have an interest in the solution and will appreciate the respect you demonstrate for their intelligence and creativity. Crazy ideas that come out of fun brainstorming sessions often result in problem solving at its finest.

So bring on the next problem and give these principles a try. They worked for us and they can work for you!

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 5 Barefoot Problem Solving Principles appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

How do you approach a problem? What is the best way to discover the solution? By knowing what questions to ask you are more likely to find an elegant solution – one that simplifies the situation and benefits all parties. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have most of the questions.

1. Define It. What is the problem anyway? Not just what it appears to be, but why it exists, and what is the outcome you want? We’ve found that many times the solution is the best definition of the problem. Open it up for others to define the problem. You may be surprised at how different people perceive the same problem. These different perceptions can give you some helpful insight leading to a solution.
2. Look it from All Angles. How does the problem look from a timing standpoint? Will it go away on its own? How does it look from the customer’s stand point? What about your distributer, or your supplier? Compare and contrast this problem with other problems. We actually solved several problems by realizing they were merely symptoms of a larger problem, which when corrected, solved the symptoms.
3. Take Inventory. List your assets. What leverage do you have? What things can change and what cannot? How much time is required to fix the problem? Is there a temporary fix? Who are the people, places and things involved? What kind of a budget is available? How many people can you put on the problem? What does the ideal solution do? Does it or can it solve other problems? Is it a tangible solution like a sign, package or price, or is it a process that requires a checklist, signoff sheet, job description, or clause in a contract?
4. Get Above It All. Straight up is the fastest way out of the box and may be the fastest way to the solution. If you get up high enough, you begin to see the relationships involved in the problem. And you begin to see how others solved similar problems in other spaces. You can borrow and apply parts of their fixes. By taking the 10,000-foot view, you can see other parts of the problem you may have missed and other resources you may have overlooked.
5. Who Wins? Does the problem hurt more than just your company? What other people benefit when you solve the problem? They also have a vested interest, so bring them on as strategic partners to solve your collective problem. We often brought market problems up with to our suppliers and vendors who were more likely to make allowances, enabling us to continue and even increase buying their products and services.
6. Let It Simmer! Don’t panic and rush to the first solution that presents itself. The hasty solution may cause even more problems down the line. Take some time after you have completed the 5 steps above to just chill. Then when you least expect it, Bang! All the pieces fall together! The elegant solution presents itself. We usually say, “Wow! That’s so simple, why didn’t we see that before?” It was because we were too anxious to let our minds crunch the data and spit out the answer.

Of course, believing there is a solution will open your eyes to seeing it!

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 Give Your Problems the Deep Six! appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

When we speak to colleges of entrepreneurship, students often ask us, “How do you handle problems?” Well, we don’t have all the answers but we do have a proven formula for successfully staying afloat. Here are seven tips we use to solve any problem.

1 Relax! That’s right, chill. Getting all excited and freaked out can actually blind you to the solution. You need a calm demeanor to allow your eyes and ears to communicate with your brain and give it some time to think about the problem from all angles.

2 Blast off! Take the 10,000-foot view. Don’t just look at what you think the problem is, look at the bigger picture. You may be surprised to discover relationships that can give you clues to the solution. You may even discover solutions you couldn’t see when you were up close and personal with the problem.

3 Take Inventory! Just like when you run aground on a remote island, see what you’ve got in the boat, explore the island, and find out what you can use. Your resources may not be evident at first, so spend some time looking at everything you can utilize, including goods, friends, suppliers, and customers. Don’t forget your own people as they are often the source of solutions you would have never thought of.

4 Have Fun! Yes, make a game out of it. Assume there is a solution and the challenge is to put the pieces together like a big puzzle. Make sure to identify as many pieces as possible, and keep looking for more. Ask for help. Make a list. See how the pieces relate to each other.

5 Be Elegant! Many times the solution is a simple one that solves more than one problem. So get all your other problems out there on the table as well. The elegant solution is sometimes the best statement of the problem. So constantly restate the problem from different perspectives.

6 Find Allies! Who else is affected by the problem and stands to gain by its solution? Identify your allies. Then discuss your problem with them. You might be surprised to find out that they will be more likely to make accommodations on your behalf when they see how they will benefit. Look for the Win-Win solution!

7 Let it Simmer! The best solutions pop up when you least expect them. Even when you are not actively searching for a solution, “the little grey cells,” as Agatha Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot says, “are working all the time; they see everything.” So give them a lot to look at. Then take a break, get away from it all and let it simmer.

These are the steps we have found that consistently result in the best, and many times out-of-the-box solutions. Think of problems as challenges. They are mysteries and puzzles that you, your people, and your allies get to solve. Know that the answers are there. Discover the clues and wait for the elegant solution to reveal itself. And remember to have fun!

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 Problem Solving Barefoot Spirit Style appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

We have found that the 3 most important questions to answer for success (at just about anything) are the following:

1. Do you know where you are? Sounds simple and obvious, but when you look closer, you find it’s a little more complex. For instance, where are you financially? What is your skill level? How much time do you really have to devote to the project? Is the need for your product or service known and appreciated by the distribution system you must rely upon to get into the market? Do you have good credit? What is your risk tolerance? What is your time frame? And the list goes on. But you really can’t get anywhere unless you are honest and detailed about where you are right now. Find someone who really knows you, and ask them keep you honest.

2. Do you know where you are going? Are you building a business to create a job for yourself, a legacy for your family, or a value to monetize? Are you going to take over the planet or the neighborhood, or somewhere in between? Are you selling a product or a service? Online? At retail? Wholesale? Export? What are your first steps? Who is going to buy your business, brand, or product? What do you perceive as your definitive objective? Often, folks get so excited about their business ideas that they rush ahead, sometimes in the wrong direction because they didn’t really identify their ultimate goal. Look at the big picture and talk to the experts in your field before you commitment yourself to a destination. You may find yourself in a very different work style, requiring a very different skill set than the one you thought you needed if you assumed the wrong destination.

3. Do you know how to get there? The road to success may be different than your preconceived notions. For us, we discovered that in the wine business (or for that matter in any consumer products business), it was through distribution. A great product at a great price with a catchy slogan was a requirement, but the way to success required that we actually manage the distribution system. It is the way the product gets to the end-user, and it required most of our time and money. What will you find out about your business that requires more time, energy, and funding than your product? What strategies will you develop to get to your destination, given a clear understanding of where you are and where you are going?

Sure, you need various ingredients for success, but you still can’t get there without taking inventory, identifying a destination, and choosing the right route. So, honestly answer these 3 questions: Where am I? Where am I going? How do I get there?

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 3 Essential Questions for Success appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.