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Fresh Air Improves Productivity and Your Bottom Line

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 18:21:38 +0000

What your people to be more productive?

Here’s a novel idea: open the window.

That’s right. Give them some fresh air.

According to Joseph G. Allen, assistant professor and director of the Healthy Buildings program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the air quality in your office affects your employees productivity. He is the principal investigator of the Cog Fx Study lead author of 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building.

These studies prove what we’ve known for years, there is a direct relationship between ventilation and a worker’s ability to process information, make strategic decisions, and respond to crises.

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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Want to Get Stuff Done? Pick Up the Phone!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 18:00:04 +0000

Personal business experience has proven to us that face-to-face meetings are the most productive for breaking the ice with a new prospect. The human face has at least 43 muscles that act in consort to produce over 20 expressions. If you see a negative one while you are meeting face-to-face, you can change your approach. But what if you are on email or a text and you can’t see those expressions? Well then you just type on – even when you have lost your prospect.

With face-to-face contact, you have the opportunity to establish who you are and demonstrate your undivided attention toward your prospect. You are building a relationship that may result in a purchase and perhaps long-term business in the future.

Next to face-to-face, we like video conferencing for the first meeting and any important meetings after that. It reminds everyone that we are all human beings, and allows us all to make adjustments based on physical and visible feedback signals.

The next best form of communication after that is, you guessed it, the telephone. Why? Because you can at least hear the other party’s intonation and sometimes the silent breaks, which in themselves will give you a big heads up as to their level of interest, understanding …or confusion. Again, you can make those crucial adjustments on the fly, giving you the chance to still win them over.

Our client Jeff Stevenson at VinoPRO is in what he calls, “the relationship selling business.” He likes to say, “We have mastered an ancient form of communication: the telephone!” He has the premier outsourced, out- and in-bound telephone sales company in the wine industry. He tells us that a phone number is worth 108 times as much as an email address.

Seemingly everybody is focused on email marketing. You know, coming up with the best subject line just to get folks to open your emails. Starting with tens of thousands of people just to get down to the 50 who will actually buy. And no matter what you say in an email campaign, it comes across as impersonal and the receiver knows it. The “funnel” is no fun!

So, how’s Jeff doing with his old-fashioned telephone sales? He is currenting building out his third call center, has 3 years on the Inc 5000, and has even made the Inc 500. Why? Because when it comes to luxury items (like fine wines), people want to talk to a real person, especially someone who they have spoken to before; someone who has demonstrated they have their client’s best interests at heart; someone they have a relationship with. In other words, it’s more personal, and people want personalized attention.

As folks who were in business for years before the information revolution, we had to rely on snail mail, faxes, and the telephone. And those ancient technologies worked! Sure, we are thrilled with the technologies that have made our lives easier since then – and we can’t live without them. But because we have had experience with face-to-face and live, real-time voice, we know what form of communication to use when and where. For instance, email is great to document what was said in a live call or meeting, but terrible at straightening out a misunderstanding. We rely on the records email provides with the string of correspondence that gives us a history of the conversation, but we hate the fact that you can’t un-say anything in email. No question about it, sometimes it better to just pick up the phone!

Who We Are

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

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Busy is Not Necessarily Productive

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 17:12:46 +0000

Are you paying people to stay busy or are you paying them to be productive? Having a great deal to do or keeping occupied is no measure of productivity. If you pay employees no matter whether the company succeeds or fails, folks will actually look for ways to appear occupied. This makes them feel comfortable that they have filled up their time. But are they making a contribution? Or are they just being busy?

We think this happens because it is allowed to happen. The way these folks have been oriented during the training process, the way they are paid, and the level of their knowledge of the company’s sales, growth, and profitability can make all the difference. With the right preparation, incentive, and visibility, employees will know how to set their priorities so they’re not just busy, they’re productive!

Orientation. This is not something that has to do with the coffee room, the bathroom, or the forms. It has to do with where the money for the company that pays their salary, bonus, and benefits actually comes from. It has to do with how their job impacts that process. It has to do with really breaking it down graphically so there are no misunderstandings about who the real customers are, what they expect, and why they continue to pay good money for the goods and services the company provides.

We developed a “Money Map” to make this clear to all new hires. Not too different from a treasure map, it showed our people how the money travelled to them, who were involved at each level, and what they wanted. This kind of orientation is not a one-shot deal. It should be revised and repeated annually to keep people focused on the real priorities which change as the company strives to remain relevant and advance in the marketplace.

Compensation. We believe at least some part of an employee’s salary should be based on the performance of the company. Sure you can get granular and bonus on specific production, but in order to build team peer pressure and cooperation, you must focused their attention on the customer. And that goes for everybody in the company.

Since most people are coin operated (respond to monetary incentives), a quarterly 401K matching contribution gets the attention of your staff. Base it on agreed upon metrics of sales, growth and profitability. Since the employer’s matching contribution is voluntary, you have the ability to send a powerful message to your people every quarter. This works better than annual bonuses because the one year time period is simply too long and allows your employees to give up if the first quarter is poor, or lay back if the bonus number is met mid-year.

Visibility. If you have their attention with a well-thought-out performance bonus, they will be very interested in how the company is doing simply because it now reflects in their paycheck. So share with them your monthly reports, identify key challenges and focus on priorities during regular monthly meetings. This will help them zero in on the tasks that really make a difference to the bottom line. It will give them the perspective to understand what they can do to improve the picture.

By practicing what we called “Know-the-Need’ rather than “Need-to-Know,” we got great ideas from our people on a regular basis that solved problems in production, quality control, and marketing. We were able to cut costs and increase profitability because they knew what was needed, they knew we would listen, and they were members of a team interested in achieving quarterly bonuses. Suddenly they were focused on being productive and not merely busy!

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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