lessons | The Barefoot Spirit

10 Questions Our Clients Ask

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 17 May 2018 17:49:57 +0000

Our clients come to us because of our credentials as the founders of the largest wine brand in the world. They want to know how we began (in our laundry room), how we were financed (we assumed a debt which we traded for wine and bottling services), and how we overcame the challenges of personnel management (we paid for performance).

All that and more is covered in our New York Times’ Best Seller, The Barefoot Spirit, How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. It contains the lessons we learned told in a humorous business adventure story. It answers the top 10 questions start-ups and business owners need to know on their way to success.

And we are really excited to announce that we are currently recording it in an audio book! Like the paperback, it will be fun. Instead of having someone read it to you, we have engaged a live troupe of actors who will dramatically act it out for you. You will enjoy the unique format and learn from their interactions. We will be releasing it in the fall!

So, here’s the short list of a few of our favorite answers to the question – “How do I…”:

1. Start a business without financing?

Trade for goods and services
Use your buyers as banker by offering quantity discounts for cash
Use your supplies as bankers by earning extended credit and terms
Pay for performance rather than for attendance
Use the assets you already have, such as a spare room, family members, or contracted services

2. Start a business with no experience in the industry?

Ask a lot of questions
Work for someone who is already doing what you want to do
Talk to everyone who will be working with your product or service
Use your suppliers and vendors as teachers

3. Find, hire, train, and keep good people?

Look for hustle and integrity
Overkill on orientation
Give them appreciation and time off
Pay for performance

4. Get my product to the market?

Start in a small area to learn your lessons
Offer samples, tastings, etc.
Ask the buyers what they need
Get the reputation, even in a small area, of being a “Hot Mover!”

5. Give my brand a soul?

Identify what your brand offers its users that they love
Identify what your brand and your company stand for beside the mercantile product you are selling
Work with your community on your shared goals
Be inclusive and earth-friendly
Treat your people right

6. Build a brand without advertising?

Donate your products or services to community fundraisers
Build brand advocates who will sing your praises to all they know
Attend farmers’ markets or other social events where your customers can be found
Do many in-store demos

7. Think outside the box?

Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes in every position of responsibility
Meet regularly with everyone on your staff, with your suppliers and your buyers and ask them what their challenges and goals are
Be open to new ideas, especially those that seem to be contrary to your own
Practice “Know-the-Need” instead of “Need-to-Know”

8. Get the most out of my people?

Use performance-based compensation and share the wealth
Share information freely; share your goals, challenges, and opportunities
Give employees your respect by asking for their feedback and advice
Acknowledge their successes in writing and copy the entire staff

9. Use outsourced services?

Communicate your needs clearly and in writing
Pay only if your project has been completed to your specs
Oversee their work on your project to assure quality control
Look for long term relationships

10. Sell my business?

Talk with a business broker who recently was involved in a sale or purchase of a business like yours
Put your peanut in front of the elephant
Work towards the metrics required to become an acquisition target and ultimately monetize the brand equity you are building
Organize your filing system according to your future acquirer’s due diligence

As advisors, we help our clients identify and move toward their goals. We learn about their business, their challenges, and their opportunities. Then we meet with them regularly to help them stay on track. They get the many benefits of our 20 years growing the Barefoot Wine brand. We learned a lot of lessons – most of them the hard way!

You too can benefit from the knowledge we gained without having to go through the time, mental anguish, and money that it took us. Think of it as saving $300,000 or more on mistakes and 3 years or more in wasted efforts. Here is to your success!

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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Are We Creating a Risk Adverse Generation?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 15 Mar 2018 17:00:40 +0000

Starting any new business requires a certain degree of risk tolerance. Without risk there are no rewards. Entrepreneurs face risk every day and must make short-term, long-term, and on-the-fly decisions to mitigate those risks. We are constantly asked by young people “How do you handle risk?” and “What about the unknown?” We tell them about our own painful experiences, what we learn from them, and what they can learn from their own.

But where do young people learn about risk tolerance and risk mitigation? Where do they learn the confidence to take on a risk and reduce the downside?

A new movement in Great Britain believes risk should be taught at a very early age, starting in the grammar schools. Some of their methods are alarming by American standards. Rather than providing playgrounds with shock absorbent pads, no sharp corners, and super safe equipment, they’re doing just the opposite!

According to Ellen Barry of the New York Times, one experimental playground near Kensington Gardens in London has a sign which reads, risks have been “intentionally provided so that your child can develop an appreciation of risk in a controlled play environment rather than taking similar risks in an uncontrolled and unregulated wider world.”

She goes on to point out, “Limited risks are increasingly cast by experts as an experience essential to childhood development useful in building resilience and grit.” These are the exact ingredients required for successful entrepreneurship – resilience and grit.

Are the Brits onto something here? Have we in the US, in our desire to litigate every injury, and mitigate every potentially harmful situation, created play environments that actually prevent our children from learning the lessons they need in order to take on risk? Are we creating a generation of risk-adverse children? Are we denying them the healthy risks of childhood?

With risk comes pain. With pain comes lessons. With lessons comes risk tolerance. One of the parks in Shoeburyness, UK, includes boards, bricks, and boxes. Educators report very few injuries, mostly minor, and almost never repeated. The children there are learning lessons that protect them going forward.

Another playground in Tumbling Bay London, offers real rocks, real ground, and real sticker bushes. Authorities report that the children will touch them and learn they are spiky (and presumably avoid them going forward).

We do a lot of speaking on entrepreneurship. We encourage young entrepreneurs to learn lessons quickly, so they can move ahead and mitigate the risks they must face. We like to say, “Never waste a perfectly good mistake!” If you’re never allowed to make a mistake, you certainly can’t learn how spiky the bushes are and how to avoid them.

Children who are exposed to risk early and often learn how to learn. They remember the pain caused by their mistakes. They are more likely to stop and analyze any painful situation knowing that there is some action they can take to prevent its reoccurrence. They are less likely to blame others and be victimized. In other words, they are more likely to take responsibility for their own behavior.

When you make mistakes in business, you have choices. You can ignore them, you can minimize them to the point of convincing yourself and others that they were not important, or you can seize upon them as a learning experience. In this latter case you may ask, “What did we learn here?” You may ask, “What steps do I need to take next time to make this mistake less likely to reoccur?” Or you may ask, “What policies, procedures, checklists, sign-up sheets, job descriptions, signage, labeling, or contract clauses need to be created, changed, or improved?”

This is the positive, creative, and practical approach to mitigating risks, improving the odds for success, and ultimately moving forward in the risky world of entrepreneurship. Are people born with risk tolerance or do they learn it in the schoolyard? How did you learn risk tolerance?

Who We Are

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

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Don’t Throw the Baby (Boomers) Out with the Bath!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 21 Jul 2016 17:00:41 +0000

Aging Baby Boomers with a lot to offer Millennials often lament, “We’re just too old to be taken seriously” by the Millennials. Sure, Boomers had to adopt technology as a second language and sure Millennials were born with an extra brain, the smartphone, in their hand. It is true Boomers are leaving Millennials a compromised environment, huge debt, and ongoing wars. And surely times and the economy have changed substantially since “their day.”

But there are many critical lessons Boomers have learned, mostly the hard way, that are timeless. These lessons are not “retro” but classic, and will be true for centuries to come. Millennials will have to learn these lessons themselves eventually, or, if they are smart, they can save themselves the time, money, and pain by learning from the Boomers while they are still around.

Why not get a big head start today and learn classic truisms that are understood by those with more experience in business and human behavior?

Part of the Boomers’ legacy is invaluable to Millennials trying to establish themselves in the business world. Millennial success is critical to the future economy. Here are three key areas where Millennials should seek advice from Boomers:

How to be Resourceful. Many Millennials think that you just come up with a business plan, get it funded, and voila! Instant millionaire! Any successful Boomer will tell you that the business plan takes an immediate back seat to the cash flow plan as soon as you open your doors! Also the idea that funding somehow allows a “burn rate” that presumably extends the runway long enough to achieve that positive cash flow is fraught with hubris and a quickly approaching cliff! Boomers who have made it will confess that they typically had to develop a positive cash flow quickly to survive.
How to Build Strategic Alliances. The concept that assumes that with enough money you can pay all your bills regardless of poor sales is also a classic fantasy, but somehow has become very popular. Successful Boomers will tell you that no matter how much money you have, you still need to develop strategic alliances. These are the businesses you will work with and depend upon for your essential goods and services. As you become successful, they become successful. There are ways to get your creditors to extend your credit, thereby reducing your need for cash, and successful Boomers know how it is done.
How to Create Sustainable Growth. So many Millennial businesses today go out of business because they didn’t get their act together before they took their show on the road. By the time they find out what is truly required to grow, they areout of money. Boomers who have faced this problem of growing too quickly will tell you to start small, make your mistakes in a small, manageable place, and make the fixes. They will advise Millennials that truly sustainable growth is knowing the real cost of sales.

Not every Baby Boomer has had the business experience and success to earn the credibility to be thought leaders in entrepreneurship. But the ones who have actually done it, and who are willing to take the time to share the lessons they’ve learned, are well worth listening to. They are giving the Millennials a legacy and a gift. Millennials can tell them about technology and Boomers can tell them how to use it best. Cool tools are great, but actually making money with them is better. Why not get the best of both generations working for you? Don’t throw the Baby Boomers out with the bath!

Who We Are

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

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