Revenue | The Barefoot Spirit

Entrepreneur – Outsource Everything but Accounting, Quality Control and Sales

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 17:06:53 +0000

It’s no secret that most startups are undercapitalized. They need every penny just to stay in business long enough to produce a positive cash flow. Even those that have achieved seed financing usually find out in short order that they need a much longer runway to give sales a chance to take off.

Most investors want to see some revenue before they will take a risk on you. So it’s critical, especially in the pre-rev startup phase, to strip your company down to its bare essentials, be resourceful, and discover and use your hidden assets. If you can’t lengthen the runway, you can at least lighten the plane!

As professional speakers in the world of entrepreneurship, we hear hundreds of business ideas every year. The proponents are passionate and convinced that they have a marketable solution. This may be true, but the market usually requires more time than they have planned to accept their solution.

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur

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 Entrepreneur – Outsource Everything but Accounting, Quality Control and Sales appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

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

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

The post How to Know When it’s the Right Time to Quit Your Day Job appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

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.

The post When Can I Quit My Day Job? appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Inc. 500 “INSANE REVENUE GROWTH” VinoPro Award Dinner

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:07:00 +0000

Last Friday, Michael Houlihan and Martin Jones were honored at VinoPro’s award dinner at Benziger Winery in Glen Ellen, CA.

Martin and Michael’s wine country consulting business, Houlihan and Jones, was responsible for helping to establish the business foundations necessary for this company’s incredible success.

VinoPro, is now the largest outbound, outsourced, telemarketing company in the wine industry specializing in direct to consumer wine sales support.

We’re very proud to see our client recognized as achieving the Inc. 500 status for “Insane Revenue Growth” from 2009-2012.

Who We Are

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

The post Inc. 500 “INSANE REVENUE GROWTH” VinoPro Award Dinner appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

B2B or Not to Be? That is the Question!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:13:01 +0000

We often hear, “Oh, we’re B2B (business-to-business), so we don’t have to worry about customers at the general public level.” The fact is, you do.

It is an erroneous assumption that B2B is somehow insulated from the source of most income, the general public. If your client goes out of business, your B2B loses that account, and you lose an income source. Of course you need to worry!

The more your company understands and assists your clients to sustain and grow their customer base, the better your chances of keeping that revenue. Don’t be the last one to find out your client is in trouble. Be proactive and help them stay healthy so you too will benefit from their success.

Here are some ways your B2B can help your client or customer:

1. Take an interest in how they make their income, including its source. Is it another business that sells to another business that eventually sells to the public? How many layers exist before reaching the end-user? Do they sell direct to the public?

2. Take an interest in their industry, including the trends that are on the rise or decline. Are your customers experiencing rapid growth, or having difficulty maintaining their market or price points? The answers to these questions can give you a big hint about how you can possibly help them.

3. Show them how to buy your products or services to best match their current needs. When they are in a growth cycle, provide them with discounted quantity purchases. When they are struggling, provide them with longer terms. By being sensitive to their needs beyond your product or service, you help them and your company succeed.

4. Provide them with information and objective feedback. Show them that you care and act like an engaged team member. Your input will be respected since they know you have an interest in their success. You may have some insight that only an outsider could have, or you may see something in the market that they may have missed.

5. Keep your eyes peeled for talent. You may have more contacts than they do, thus, you may be aware of hiring opportunities they may not know about. Find out what they are looking for and pass the word. Strong companies and strong clients are made up of strong people. It’s their most valuable resource.

6. Call for a meeting in person, if possible. Ask about their business challenges, growth, and customers. Let them know you care about their business and are interested in helping them succeed. A face-to-face will reveal lots of information that an email or phone call can never achieve. And it helps build an invaluable personal relationship.

When you think about it, there are many ways you can help your client remain viable beyond what you are selling. You will win their loyalty and increase their purchase orders by being a real team player.

No business is truly isolated and insulated from their client’s customers. As these last few years have painfully demonstrated, we are all interdependent. The more you know about your customers, the more you can help and the more your B2B will continue to be.

Who We Are

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

The post B2B or Not to Be? That is the Question! appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.