Procedures | The Barefoot Spirit

Are You Ready to Be Your Own CEO? – 7 Steps You’ve Got to Take

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 15 Feb 2018 18:00:15 +0000

With the accelerating rate of disruption out there these days, it makes you wonder if all of us will be self-employed one day. Access to technology is already empowering many of us to “hang up the shingle” and go into business for ourselves. With the explosion of new service providers, you can outsource almost every business function, and you can quickly become your own CEO.

Even though your new company may be spartan with just a few employees if any, you will still be responsible to your customers to get the job done and on time, no matter how much is outsourced. The majority of your team may work for other companies and probably will.

But how will you orchestrate all these in-house and outsourced people? How will you hold these folks accountable? How will you know when to hire and how to compensate? What form will your planning take? What will your contracts look like? How about your communications? What about cashflow, personnel, and distribution management? What about decision making? And what about leadership?

Is there an easy way to learn and apply the best practices successful CEO’s have been following for decades? And what about the most recent breakthroughs that can help you succeed? How would you like a neat little playbook that outlines and summarizes 70 of the best classic and modern CEO tools, all proven to be successful?

Our friend and associate Jim Canfield has just published such a CEO “user’s manual.” We think it should be on the desk of every CEO and every self-employed entrepreneur. It’s called CEO Tools 2.O: A System to Think, Manage, and Lead Like a CEO. Jim’s new book updates and pays homage to the famous original work, CEO Tools: The Nuts-n-Bolts of Business for Every Manager’s Success by Kraig Kramers published back in 2002.

CEO Tools 2.0 is a must have for any CEO, president, business owner, or senior executive who wants to execute easier and have more time – while increasing growth and profits. Sound like you?

Jim has a patent ability to distill complex ideas, policies and procedures into easy to understand principles and processes. Then he backs them up with tons of examples to help you get the message. His book is organized according to the seven steps of “The CEO Tools Business System”:

Set the Direction. Clarify your overall goals, vision, and action plans with a One-Page Business Plan and use it to better communicate your goals to everyone you depend upon.
Communicate to Build Trust. Ask everyone you depend on how to solve the challenges you face. They will surprise you with their solutions.
Track Metrics and Give Feedback. Identify and track key performance indicators with the Quarterly Priorities Manager (QPM) and the Trailing 12-Month Chart (T12M).
Anticipate the Future and Create It. Ensure your company’s future with tools like What’s Next and the 7 Key plans every business should have in place.
Attract, Hire, and Coach Winners. Put winners in the top 5 customer impacting jobs and make sure they agree on what constitutes excellent performance. Then empower them.
Build an Autonomous Company. Be free of day-to-day involvement with leaders who focus on long-term strategic issues and confidently keep daily issues on track.
Celebrate Successes. Spread recognition and appreciation throughout the company with programs for all team members designed to appreciate the contributions of other team members

CEO Tools 2.0 builds out each step with tools you can use and real case studies showing where and how they have been used effectively. Whether you have a big staff or work with an outsourced team, it’s teamwork that will increase your growth and profits, ease your execution, and save you time. CEO Tools 2.0 is the playbook for winning teams!

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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The Process Without the Philosophy Behind It is a Recipe for Trouble

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 17:00:57 +0000

We often hear, “Just tell me the one thing!” Or, “I just want the step-by-step process!” But when you don’t know why and just “cut and paste” you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Sooner or later you will make a bad decision unless you grasp the overriding reason for the process.

If you can’t extrapolate the principles behind the processes, you will not recognize the disguised variations.

For instance, the principles behind paying bills is not to just to satisfy the invoices. The principles are to develop a good credit rating, improve relationships with your creditors, and stay in business. In our experience, we found 15% of the invoices were wrong! Still, we know of several bookkeepers who blindly paid invoices because they thought the process is their job, and all there is to their job!

We surmise that they too were rushing to complete the nitty gritty process of bill paying without understanding the reason behind it. Keep this in mind when training or learning.

Look at the big picture first, and then break it down from there. If you are learning, ask, “Why are we doing this?” If the answer doesn’t take you back to a clear understanding of how your business makes money, ask again until you get it. Don’t be quick to say “got it” when you don’t. It’s not enough to know the process if you don’t know the reason behind the process.

Today we can learn all kinds of processes without having a clue why or what the big picture is. You Tube is full of overly short lessons on how to do stuff, but they assume you know the why. You may also think you know the why. But if you want a rock-solid education that won’t show its limitation when you have to make that decision that wasn’t in the procedures, you’d better get the reason down cold first.

We always look for employees who can extrapolate. Without this skill, they can drive you crazy with ‘’Like what, like what?” as they demand more and more examples. In fact, if they make a mistake, they will tell you that you did not give that particular example. But it’s the principle behind the example that is the real lesson. If you want your people to really “get it,” you must spend the time to make sure they see the correlation between the examples.

The definition of extrapolation is: to use known facts as the starting point from which to draw inferences or conclusions about something unknown. Here are three ways to identify and improve extrapolation learners:

At the Interview. Ask them the reasons behind the processes they were responsible for on their last job. Listen for over simplifications, and reasons that don’t tie into the big picture. Ask them how and why they solved a new problem based on their understanding of the reason for a process they were taught.
During The Training. After they have a gotten a process down, give them a situation you haven’t discussed and see if they can noodle it out on their own. If they can, you have successfully communicated the “Why.”
On the Job. Watch for misconceptions or shortsighted assumptions about the “Whys” in their work and in their queries. Listen for questions that show they don’t understand the big picture. Spend the time to show them how they can make better choices if they understand the “Why.”

It is a big picture world out there, so remove the blinders you put on your people when you just give them “the one thing” and “the step-by-step process.”

Who We Are

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

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Your Own People May Have Hidden Skills You Need

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 17:00:13 +0000

The South Africans have a popular tale. It is about a man who had a beautiful piece of land, who, when he heard that diamonds had been discovered in Africa, immediately sold. He used the money to explore the continent for the rest of his life, searching in vain for diamonds he never found.

One day, the new owner of the farm he once owned, tripped on a large muddy stone that flipped over and sparkled in the sunlight. You guessed it; the stone was a huge diamond! It was one of the largest ever found, and only one of many found right there on the land the former farmer had left! All along, he had diamonds on the soles of his shoes!

Larger companies often are blind to the gems they have right in their own backyards. They tend to overlook the talent that is exactly what they need when it is right there in front of them. They think that the folks they hire are suitable for the position for which they were hired. Period. If different skills are required, then they will simply create a new job description and find someone to fill the position whose skills are adequate.

The multi-functional folks often go undetected. They may even be discouraged from doing other tasks for which they are imminently qualified. Ingrained HR policies and procedures keep them firmly in their box. Even though these employees may be aware of a better use of their talents, sometimes in essential jobs not yet created, they may have no channel to communicate this. They are told to “stay in line” and do only the job for which they were hired.

The company may be more profitable, grow faster, and improve its sales, if they only could get out of the hubris of thinking that the way things have been organized is the only way. They prefer to follow their unwritten rule that dictates that accepting advice from a lower level worker is just, well, not done. It would upset the hierarchy. And so, for the sake of corporate structure, these diamonds are often overlooked.

We once had a receptionist who came to us with a new position she herself wanted to fill. We asked what it was, and she replied, “Traffic Manager.” “Really! Do we need a Traffic Manager?” we asked. She informed us that our buyers’ trucks were being turned away from our warehouse because they did not have an appointment, and were driving back across the country without our goods on board, resulting in out-of-stocks, which in turn resulted in loss of shelf position, sales, and profits.

She said our clients and their sub-jobbers needed to be hand held to get the right paperwork and make the appointments with our warehouse in order to keep our product moving.

Yes, she got the new position and we patched a hole in our boat that we didn’t even know we had!

What if we were rigid and thought, “She applied for, and filled, the receptionist’s job and that’s that?” Or worse, “How dare she challenge our long established organization chart?” We would never have gotten the best out of our employee. We would never have corrected an unseen problem that was costing us plenty!

Are there diamonds on the soles of your shoes? Do your “lower level” people see both problems and opportunities that you, your managers, and your HR people don’t? Why not ask them? You may find out you don’t have to sell the farm and search the world for what you want. First, take a closer look in your own backyard.

Who We Are

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

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As Businesses Grow, They Risk Losing Their Entrepreneurial Spirit

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 17:00:12 +0000

It’s not how you get the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s how you lose it! Every garage startup must have the entrepreneurial spirit to survive. Many successful businesses were once garage startups, and they once had that spirit. But somewhere between the four stages of businesses growth, our friend Jim Canfield of Renaissance Executive Forums calls “startup, buildup, buildout, and enterprise,” the entrepreneurial spirit can lose its luster.

The entrepreneurial spirit is the spirit of the entire team, and is represented by their commitment to customer service, resourcefulness, and going the extra mile to make sales happen. There is no question in the minds of start -up entrepreneurs, in a garage, undercapitalized, and having to make do with less, that they must make sales happen no matter what or they will be out of business – fast! They all know the customer comes first.

Then, if they are fortunate, dedicated, and diligent, they progress beyond the startup phase and into the buildup phase. Now they have a few solid customers that keep them going. Their volume picks up. They begin to see some pressure on production, customer service, and supply chain management. In an effort to satisfy these demands, and in the name of efficiency, they begin to specialize their use of human resources. Thus begins the degradation of the entrepreneurial spirit.

With a few more big customers, they enter the buildout stage. Now they are expanding their offerings and their markets. Division of labor is now a must. One of the divisions is called “sales” and another is called “customer service.” But even though the customer feedback necessary to keep the company’s products and service relevant comes almost exclusively through these two divisions, they are now being relegated to the bottom of the pyramid, which is quietly and quickly growing on top of them. The focus is now on production rather than sales. Sales begins to be taken for granted by the other divisions of labor who no longer feel responsible for sales. In fact, they are convinced that what they do is as, or more important, than sales, even though their very paychecks come from sales! Now, when referring to sales, you hear, “That’s not my job!” The entrepreneurial spirit begins to fade further.

Now comes the enterprise phase where professionalism, compliance, status, tenure and structural procedures become more important than sales and customer service. Salespeople are “outside” in the field, and everyone else is “inside” in the office. Inside office people have greater access to the decision makers and become even more removed from sales. “What’s the matter with those salespeople? Why can’t they just do their job?” is the common refrain when sales are down. But everybody in the office is taking a bow when sales are up! And who is the first to get laid off when sales are ‘bad’? Yup, it‘s the salespeople! What’s wrong with this picture? The entrepreneurial spirit is lost, a victim of its own success!

But by understanding how and why this happens, companies can begin to reverse engineer the entrepreneurial spirit back into their companies. They must start by returning to the backbone of the entrepreneurial spirit, sales. Put sales back on top! Think of the company as having only two divisions; sales and sales support. Sales support is everybody who is not in sales – accounting, production, marketing, HR, legal, admin, the receptionist, everybody! Enforce this relationship by providing quarterly bonuses to sales support staff based on sales, growth, and profitability. Acknowledge their contributions to these three essentials. And create official lines of communication between sales and customer service on the one hand, and sales support, on the other. Make sales everybody’s job – again!

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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Listen to and Learn from your Sales Staff

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:31:44 +0000

In the previous post we examined some of the ways your well-meaning office, marketing, production and accounting staff may come up with “cost-saving” suggestions than can actually hurt sales.

When little things go missing or the package gets simplified in the name of production efficiency, you may hear “It hasn’t affected sales”…yet! Or, “Our sales are still strong” implying all you were doing wasn’t necessary anyway, but the customer notices, even subliminally.

Eventually a competitor will move into the void. Beware of hubris from your non-sales people especially when sales are climbing.

Only when your Sales Support staff works directly with your Sales staff will a complete picture emerge.

Here are 5 suggestions to keep those “cost saving” ideas from hurting sales:

1. Put your non-sales people in the field so they can appreciate what the customer really wants and see first-hand what your sales people are up against. Make sure your sales people are with them to point out the nuances of the market, the distribution system, and the existing advantages of your product and package. Ask them to share what they discovered. They will be less likely to inadvertently damage the selling points by “cheapening” your product or your package.

2. Run everything by your sales people that affects your product and its image. Before you allow a change or “improvement” to the product or the package, check with the folks who have to actually make the sale, overcome the objections, and talk directly to the decision makers and the end user. Top-down thinking, when it comes to product, package design and even promotion, can undermine what has taken years to establish.

3. Show them the money! It’s critical that your non-sales people appreciate where the money comes from that pays their salaries, bonuses, and benefits. It comes from the customer, and nowhere else. When folks are hired, present them with an info-graphic that follows the money trail backwards from the customer through the distribution system, through the marketing and sales system, through the supply and production system, and winds up in their pockets. It seems obvious, but it is soon forgotten especially as your company gets larger.

4. Pay your non-sales staff bonuses based on sales. Once they see the relationship between sales and their own compensation, they will have a personal interest in the details of what exactly makes sales happen in the field. You’ll be surprised at the many ways they find to assist your sales people, and their suggestions will be coming from a better appreciation for sales realities. They will want your sales people to sign-off on their “cost saving” suggestions.

5. Acknowledge good Ideas that reduce costs and actually increase sales. Publicly identify and praise suggestions that work with testimonials from your sales people. Announce “Our Sales Support staff has done it again!” to single out the person or team that came up with the idea and the sales people who worked with them. This type of public validation from you sends a powerful message to your staff that you appreciate their sales-wise ideas.

In today’s market, if you’re not adding value, you’re losing value. You don’t “save” money by reducing the real or perceived value of your product. It’s essential to continue to communicate your product’s value, quality, authenticity and dependability to your buyers and end-users. Run all “good ideas” by your sales team first!

Who We Are

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

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