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How to Know When it’s the Right Time to Quit Your Day Job

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 21:34:54 +0000

Whether you’re thinking about starting a business, you’ve already taken the plunge but are still pre-revenue, or your new business is struggling to make ends meet, one of the most important questions you need an answer to is, “When can I quit my job?”

You know that the time you devote to your job is taking you away from the attention your startup needs. The longer you keep your job, the longer it takes your startup to achieve positive cash flow.

On the other hand, you need the income from your job just to cover food, clothing and shelter, never mind the capital that is required for the startup itself. It’s quite a dilemma.

To read the complete article, please visit The Business 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.

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When Can I Quit My Day Job?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 17:00:39 +0000

Whether you are thinking about starting your business, you have already taken the plunge but are still pre-revenue, or your new business, struggling to make ends meet, one of the most important questions you need an answer to is, “When can I quit my job?”

You know that the time devoted to your job is taking you away from the attention your startup needs. The longer you keep your job, the longer it takes your startup to achieve positive cash flow. On the other hand, you need the income from your job just to cover food, clothing and shelter, never mind the capital that is required for the startup itself. It’s quite a dilemma.

But let’s look at it from another angle and perhaps the right answer will become clear. For one thing, when you quit is not a date. It’s a series of metrics. So, let’s rephrase the question(s) based on those metrics:

How many loyal customers do I need?
How much do I need to sell each of them to pay my bills for three months minimum?

These are sales-based questions and should be the primary indicators of when you can afford to quit your job.

Many startups, unfortunately, rely on the same “hockey stick” sale projections they used in their business plan – developed before they actually got into the nitty gritty of sales. Did it take into account the cost of sales (i.e., the expense of making sales happen and the costs of servicing what you sell)? Many regret quitting their jobs before they found out it’s the cash flow projection, and not the business plan, that indicates their business’s sustainability.

You might say, “I’ll just borrow the funds to start my business,” or “I’ll just sell some of my equity to some investors,” or even, “My partner will keep working while I start the business.” Any of these might lead you to believe you don’t need to think about continued sales from loyal customers before you get started. But you do! Once you burn through your funds on research and overhead, you’ll have to go back and beg for more. Only this time, without adequate sales, your investors are much less likely give you more money to “burn.” And that’s when you wish you hadn’t quit your job quite that early in the game.

The fact is, you need to have funds on hand to cover at least three months’ worth of expenses before you even think about quitting your job. You cannot rely on all your funds coming solely from sales.

This means that before you even start, you have to identify the “low hanging fruit.” These are the customers that you have presold on your idea. They have made at least a verbal commitment to buy your products. More importantly, you have learned exactly how they want to buy your products and for how much.

Whether you get the three months’ worth of funding from savings, trades, prepays, loans, investors, your partner, or a combination, you still have to establish an early sales pipeline. Even if your investors are so enamored with your idea that they themselves assume smooth sailing on the revenue side, for your own sake you had better make this job #1.

Once you quit your job, there’s usually no going back. And even if you do everything right and establish a sales pipeline that will cover your bills, starting a business is still a big risk. So, as Clint Eastwood said in his 1971 classic movie, Dirty Harry, “Are ya feelin’ lucky?” You will feel a lot more “lucky” if you have the customers before you quit your job!

Who We Are

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

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5 Ways to Become Indispensable

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 17:00:07 +0000

People often ask us what the characteristics of an ideal employee or outsourced service are. The answer is they should be effective, dependable, and irreplaceable. If you are the employee or outsourced service, ask yourself, “Why was the job created, and what are the goals of the job? How and why was the job budgeted?” If you can honestly answer these questions you are on your way to becoming indispensable.

Here’s a big hint. All jobs have something to do with sales. How does your job create, maintain, or support sales? Sales is the only source of your salary or fee – period! Without sales there is no money for you or anyone else.

Sure, some folks take jobs with companies that are funded by an investor. Those companies have a budget which is steadily diminished by a “burn rate” – the amount of the investor’s money that is used every month to keep the project going. But if the staff is not actively involved somehow in sales, the company eventually folds. Then the employees look for a new company that has a new investor and set about burning up their money. The problem is that ultimately this approach to job security is counter-productive since one has to keep moving, resulting in a reputation of working for companies that failed. They failed because they could not create a positive cash flow resulting in profitability and growth.

If you want job security, build your reputation as an effective player. Here are 5 ways to become indispensable to your company:

Follow the Money. Understand where the money comes from, now and in the future. If your job is now supported by an investment, realize that it must be supported by sales sooner or later, and in most companies, the sooner the better! While investments have time limits, sales should be continuous.
Understand the Justification. Recognize why the job was created and how the job contributes to the sales process. From R&D to service, from accounting to administration, from production to marketing, every job must be pointed at supporting sales.
Know the Processes. Don’t look for security in a cookie cutter approach that requires little thinking. On the contrary, the better you understand the processes and the reasons for the processes, the more effective you will be.
Anticipate the Needs. Once you understand the processes for your job, look for opportunities to maximize those processes to the benefit of your company while reducing the time it takes to get the job done. Don’t wait to be told what to do, and don’t let opportunities get by you. Become relied upon to get the most out of every situation, rather than doing the least necessary to complete the job. Don’t just stay “busy,”’ be productive!
Just Own It! Ultimately, when you thoroughly understand the goals of your job, not just the motions and procedures, you will be in a position to improve the job itself. By focusing on the goals you can better achieve them in a more effective manner. Follow through and follow up as if it was your own business.

So at the end of the day, did you help to increase sales? Did you bring more money in to the company than it cost to support your position? Did you take every opportunity to improve the products and services offered to the company’s customers? Did you help identify, communicate with, and sell the prospects? Did you jump on every opportunity, without being asked, to increase company income and reduce costs? If you did, congratulations! You own your job and are indispensable!

Who We Are

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

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Sales, the Job That Resists Automation

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 17:00:30 +0000

Once again we have a flood of new grads hitting the job market. But now the concern is, “Will my job become computerized? Will I be out of a job?” Undergrads are asking the question a different way, “What job should I prepare for that won’t be replaced by a robot?” Long-term security plays heavily in the minds of today’s students both before and after graduation. They have already seen many jobs replaced by software or machines and want to know which way to turn.

We believe that there is one job that will always be in demand and can best be done by a living, thinking, feeling human being: Sales! Why? Because ultimately it is a human being that is making the buying decision. They place trust in another human to help them make the right choices. They want to look into the eyes of a real person that they can hold accountable when they make that choice. They want to know who they are “buying,” not just what.

Another reason a job in Sales will endure is that the same skills are required to run any company. You have to sell your staff, your investors, your suppliers, your distributers, and your ultimate customers. These require the human touch and empathy for each person who touches your product or service, from the supply chain to the distribution chain. It’s all sales.

Amazingly, Sales is rarely taught in the schools. Sales Management, where you add up numbers, produce reports, do trend analysis, and create projections is taught. But actual sales, where you farm for prospects, cold call, create relationships, learn the prospects business, gain the prospects trust, overcome objections, master communication, and close the deal, is generally not taught.

So now, the jobs that really can’t be automated are generally not being taught; you would be very hard pressed to find a degree in real sales. Yet these jobs are not only high-paying and in demand, but they will be around for at least the next 50 years.

What should one study to be prepared for a career in sales given that it generally does not have its own curriculum? The Liberal Arts, also known as the Humanities or Liberal Studies. Why? Because in our experience, the more you know about the other person and the better able you are to communicate with them, the greater the likelihood of making a sale whether that’s convincing them to take action, gaining their cooperation, or actually buying a product.

Sociology and Cultural studies will give you a respect for other cultures and their values. This is invaluable to establish essential relationships within an increasingly international market.
Literature, Composition, Speech, Debate and Critical Thinking will help you communicate with every “buyer” from your banker to your employee, and from your wholesaler to your customer.
History and Political Science will give you the big picture perspective, classic lessons learned over time, and will make you aware of the other person’s goals – all essential ingredients to making a sale.
Psychology and Philosophy will help you understand how other people think and why they make the decisions they do.

Sure, there’s more to sales than just the Liberal Arts, but it’s a great start. There is also a myriad of classes on line on sales and negotiation skills to help you with your sales career. But nothing tops actual experience, especially when your livelihood depends on it. You’ll learn the dos and don’ts pretty fast. We did.

So whatever you are taking in school, buy an insurance policy on long-term security by studying the Liberal Arts. You will be a lot less likely to be replaced by a robot!

Who We Are

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

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How to Get a Job in Today’s Market – Part 3: The Interview

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 10 May 2014 18:30:38 +0000

Congratulations! You have made it through the vetting process. They’ve checked your résumé, called your references, and scheduled an appointment for that all important in-person interview. This will be their first opportunity to see you in person, hear how you answer questions, and see how you present yourself.

Basically, they want to know if they will get a return on their investment in time, money, training, and the diminished production during your training period. Remember, they also have to take a seasoned employee away from their job to focus on your training. So they are under a great deal of pressure to hire the best candidate.

They know that résumés can be professionally written and tailored to specific jobs, but when you interview in person, they are seeing the “real deal.” Here are some tips that might help you land that job:

Research. Find out all you can about the company you are applying with – who they are, what they do, who is their competition, how long they’ve been around, and what their goals are. Research their reputation and how they earned it. Understand how they make profits. Talk to former and current employees. The more you know the better prepared you will be.

Getting There. Make sure you know exactly where the interview is taking place. Understand the best way to get there and, if you are driving, where to park. Showing up three to five minutes early will make a good impression.

Appearance. Be sure you are clean and well-groomed. Dress professionally according to the standards of the company and the position for which you are interviewing. Colognes, perfumes, and excessive make-up will distract from what you have to say.

Posture. Smile and walk with a sense of earnestness. Stand and sit up straight. Make eye contact. Keep your head up. By leaning slightly forward you convey an interest in your interviewer. Don’t cross your arms or legs, as this looks defensive. Project an image of confidence and openness. Your body language speaks louder than your words.

Show respect. Don’t just take their card American style and jam it in your pocket. Take a tip from the Japanese and read every word, and then make eye contact with an acknowledging nod and a smile. If you have multiple interviewers, leave the cards out on the table in front of you and arrange them according to where the interviewers are sitting so you will know their names – and do use their names when you address them. Remember to shut off you phone before you walk in.

Their Questions. Expect questions about your résumé, especially if you left a job in less than one year or had six months or more without work. Also expect questions about your professional long-term goals, what you liked and didn’t like about you past employers, and what your greatest accomplishments and challenges were. Give them examples of how you accepted responsibility and didn’t blame others, made improvements in your last company, met deadlines with a sense of urgency, and were a team player.

Your Questions. That’s right, you should have questions for them too. Some suggestions are: What are the opportunities for advancement? Where will the company be in five years? What kind of orientation and training are offered? This shows you are anticipating long-term employment with them.

Volunteered Information. They are naturally concerned about your stability. Although there are certain questions they may not ask, anything you volunteer that indicates stability would be to your advantage, such as you just purchased a house or have family in the area.

These are some of the things we looked for in an interview. We hope this inside information will help you land the right job!

Who We Are

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

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World’s Best Sale Pitch: “My Product will help you Increase Sales”

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 21:50:23 +0000

We’ve spent over two decades in sales, and it’s true – nothing happens until the sale is made. We have a friend who described her sales job as “conveying the value proposition of (her) product to (her) buyers.”

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

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

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Successful Hiring takes Preparation, Permission and Patience

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:50:59 +0000

No matter what business you think you are in, you wind up in the personnel management business. Your first hires will require a great deal of your time and energy with no guarantees. Your way may conflict with their previous way of doing things.

For the most part, great employees are not found, they’re made. In order to delegate and allow your company to grow, you really have no choice.

All this takes time, energy, preparation and lots of patience, but by working together in concert, you can see wonders.

1. Good Seed. Start with people who demonstrate a high degree of integrity, take responsibility for their own behavior and have a history of long-term commitment. They should be willing to learn and extrapolate conceptual ideas and apply them to new situations. A good way to test this is to give the applicant a verbal run down of the job, the company’s challenges and your expectations for the position. Then, have them send you a one-page summary on a deadline. This will tell you volumes.

2. Good Ground. Make sure their job is clearly defined in writing and explains how your products and services produce the income to pay their salary, bonus and benefits. We used to give our people a “Money Map”. It started with the consumer and worked its way back through distribution, production, and all the payables to finally get to their check. This gave them respect for how and where the money came from – the customer, of course.

3. Care. You must inspect what you expect, especially in the first year. Once you are convinced you have “good seed” it’s worth your while to regularly spend time with them answering questions and mentoring. Listen to what’s behind their questions to discover what they really need to excel in their new position.

4. Light and Space. Give them permission to make mistakes. That’s what allows them to develop into the independent decision makers you need to confidently delegate. To “make those mistakes right,” have them write down what needs to be done to prevent those mistakes in the future. Have them make new polices, procedures, checklists, sign-offs, or whatever, but they have to document everything. Consider rewriting their job description to fit their real skill set.

5. Nutrients. Give them the training they need, in person and in writing. If a document doesn’t exist, have them write it. Create a mini manual for every job with the growing list of frequently asked questions and as many charts and graphs as are necessary to depict processes, relationships and decisions. Provide outside training with conferences, or field time with sales or production staff. The more they understand your total operation, the faster they will become invaluable.

6. Time. How much time you give them before they “get it” really depends on the position, their ability to learn, and how much faith you have in them personally. Some folks take longer but “get it” at a core level. Others may learn a specific process quickly, but miss the big picture. So it’s a judgment call based on your assessment of their progress and conceptual understandings, and the preparation, time and energy you have put in.

Even if you do these essentials, there’s no guarantee of success, but you will be much more likely to succeed. To grow those new hires into fruitful producers it takes preparation, permission and patience.

Who We Are

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

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Discover Your Strengths and Weaknesses Before You Start Your Business

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:21:00 +0000

The right business for you is a combination of opportunity, preparation and resources. It’s more of a discovery than a choice. You will not have the world of all possibilities to choose from, but if you analyze your strengths and weaknesses, you can identify the opportunities that are plausible.

The key to success is to understand what you have an abundance of and what you need more of. We all have a tendency to think we can do more that we actually can. This is why we recommend working with a third party who knows you very well. It will be harder to make claims knowing you are being held accountable.

Have your friend ask you these basic questions to better understand your capacities:

1. Time: How much time are you able to commit to your new venture? Do you have or plan to have children? Are you accustomed to taking vacations and long weekends? Do you have commitments to others, annual family reunions, or a significant other who wants your company on trips? How many days can you commit to working in a year? How many hours a day? Do you have regular appointments, kids to pick up, chores to accomplish and so on?

2. Money: Start-ups eat money. Even though your goal is to attain cash flow quickly, you still should know what your limitations are. What are your savings? What are your credit card limits? What is your credit status? Can you raise private capital? Will your family help? Can you get a loan? Can you trade goods and services in lieu of having to buy them? How long will it take your new business to pay its bills, and can you or others bridge that gap? Now, multiply your anticipated needs by two or more!

3. Skill Set: Education is not just the kind you get in school; it’s also the experience you have attained during your career. What do you excel at? How do you handle stress? Can you do what you do well and delegate the rest to others? Are you experienced at hiring and training? Most businesses come down to personnel management and some form of distribution management. Can you take advice? Are you willing to take a smaller piece of a bigger pie?

4. Connections: Who you know is often more important than what you know. List anyone connected with the business you are considering. Who, from your past, can help you? Take a close look at your contacts, past jobs, and friends.

5. Location: Where are you living now? Are you willing to move? How much and how often are you willing to travel? Some start-ups require a lot of travel. Certain mercantile and service businesses nail you down to one location permanently. Are your ready for that?

Once you can look your friend in the eye and honestly answer these questions, compare them to the opportunities you are considering. Thoroughly research each opportunity to identify what is required initially and in the long run, using your honest evaluation in each of the areas above.

Even if you discover the opportunity is not right for you, going though this process can help you understand the difference between what you want and what you need.

Who We Are

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

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Vacations Increase Creativity and Productivity

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 04:19:23 +0000

Some people have to be forced to take vacation. Some even feel guilty or “irresponsible.” Others rack up unused vacation time for its monetary value. Still others see honor in putting their job ahead of a timely break.

Whatever your reason for not taking regular vacations, it can’t measure up to the benefits you and your job receive when you put business aside and give yourself a rest.

Regular vacations not only give you and your people a healthy recharge, they actually help your business. A good policy is to make vacation mandatory and start with yourself.

Here are some suggestions we’ve discovered to get the most out of your vacation:

1. Take two weeks in a row. Long weekends are great, and they certainly break up the year, but an extended vacation is required to really wind down. After a week, you’re finally relaxed enough to start to really enjoy yourself. So do!

2. Put a buck on it. Plan the trip. Buy a ticket. Make reservations. The minute you do, you’ll know your vacation is going to happen. Even if its 6 months away, you are no longer working “indefinitely!”

3. Count down and prioritize your work. You only have so much time to get your work done before you leave. Decide what needs to be completed before you go and what can wait until you get back.

4. Make an announcement to your coworkers, customers and vendors. You will notice a new sense of urgency on the part of all who depend on you. People will be more willing to make accommodations to help you make your vacation date.

5. Spend a day or two at home. Decompress. Take a breath and realize that you are now going to do something different. It’s not what you leave; it’s what you return to. So straighten out your home office as well. The comfort of knowing you will return to a well-organized home front will be well worth it!

6. Go somewhere and stay put. Many folks like to see how many places they can see in a week or two. You may need a vacation just to recuperate from the wild, whirl wind tour. It not necessarily how much you see, it’s how much you relax.

7. Unplug – literally. Take at least a period of time to be unconnected. Get your eyes off the screen and your mind off work for several consecutive days. Focus on your new surroundings.

8. Watch your diet. Be careful not to over do it with food and drink. Why wake up with a headache and indigestion on your vacation? Give your body a break, too.

9. Get some exercise. Make it a point to walk or even hike if you are in shape. Get around on your feet as much as possible. Remember you are probably sitting most of the time at your job.

10. Read something positive. Try not to keep up with the world. It will go on just fine without you staying up on the latest crisis. You will hear about the really important things anyway.

11. Make a soft landing. Spend your last full day at home. Take some time to unpack and enjoy your pictures. Get caught up at your own pace before you go back to work.

You will increase your objectivity, focus, creativity, and production with a timely break. If you still have a hard time justifying your vacation, do it to benefit your job and your business. You’ll thank yourself for doing it!

Who We Are

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

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