We are not professors of entrepreneurship, but we are real-life successful entrepreneurs. Rather than retiring with our proceeds from the sale Barefoot Wines, we are devoting our lives to sharing what we have learned, often times the hard way, from our experience starting and growing the world’s largest bottled wine brand. We are without children ourselves, but have an almost parental concern for all young people, especially those aspiring to become entrepreneurs. We sincerely want to see them succeed and spared some of the pain we suffered.

For the past year we have spoken, lectured and made guest appearances at more than 25 schools of entrepreneurship in the U.S. During that time we have also written over 100 blog posts on entrepreneurship and brand building. Our articles appear in national and professional journals and we are frequent media guests on the subject of entrepreneurship.

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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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After suffering many personal tragedies, she managed to amass a sizable fortune and dedicated it to education. She built Bradley University as her gift of light to the world. Originally dedicated to the study of clock making, it morphed over the years into engineering and then into the liberal arts.

In 2007, Joanne Glasser became the first woman president of Bradley University since it was built. She saw the need for a stand-alone school of entrepreneurship and recruited one of the top pioneers of entrepreneurship education, Gerry Hills. Gerry had developed an impressive program at the University of Illinois. He also was the founder for the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (C.E.O.), created to encourage college students to start their own businesses. The C.E.O. has over 4000 members in 240 chapters in 43 states.

Joanne did not just want a stand-alone school of entrepreneurship, even though it was an innovative and relatively new concept. She and Gerry also wanted to see it collaboratively integrated with the other disciplines already in existence at Bradley. To that end, she created a committee made up of the deans of all the various schools and charged them with developing a program and sharing ideas with colleagues across the university to benefit all students. Joanne went on to raise 150 million dollars to renovate the campus and build the Turner School of Entrepreneurship in 2010, which was the first of its kind in the nation to offer entrepreneurship education to all majors.

We believe that true entrepreneurship can most successfully be taught by applying a strong background in sales and what we call business navigation. These skills require a solid foundation in the liberal arts and in the guiding principles necessary for success. The integrated program at Bradley not only offers a degree in Entrepreneurship, but also a minor in Entrepreneurship for those studying other disciplines, and even a shorter Entrepreneurship Certificate program.

This enlightened and flexible approach makes business education accessible to students who seek self-employment as well as to those who just want to better understand how business is conducted in the real world. This will give all Bradley grads a big leg-up in the work force as employers are increasingly looking for employees with some background in entrepreneurship. As they learn more about independent enterprise, students feel more confident about starting their own businesses, no matter their major.

Joanne Glasser and Gerry Hills’ dream has come true! The Turner School of Entrepreneurship is the model for the future of entrepreneurship education. Cheryl Sandberg has decried the “glass ceiling” for woman in the corporate world, but Bonnie has pointed out that there is no glass ceiling in the world of entrepreneurship. In fact when one practices out-of-the-box thinking, there is no ceiling at all.

How fitting that the vision of two women, Lydia Moss Bradley and Joanne Glasser, spanning over a century would create this great opportunity for men and woman to improve their chances at financial success.

Last week we were honored with the 2014 Distinguished Entrepreneur Speakers Award at Bradley University. Throughout the day we spoke to a number of students in various classrooms, culminating in a talk to a full auditorium of 350 students from all disciplines. At Bradley, in all subjects of study, students have the opportunity to learn how to run a business themselves. In today’s uncertain world, we look forward to seeing more universities teaching their students in this all-inclusive manner.

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 we speak to colleges of entrepreneurship, students often ask us, “How do you handle problems?” Well, we don’t have all the answers but we do have a proven formula for successfully staying afloat. Here are seven tips we use to solve any problem.

1 Relax! That’s right, chill. Getting all excited and freaked out can actually blind you to the solution. You need a calm demeanor to allow your eyes and ears to communicate with your brain and give it some time to think about the problem from all angles.

2 Blast off! Take the 10,000-foot view. Don’t just look at what you think the problem is, look at the bigger picture. You may be surprised to discover relationships that can give you clues to the solution. You may even discover solutions you couldn’t see when you were up close and personal with the problem.

3 Take Inventory! Just like when you run aground on a remote island, see what you’ve got in the boat, explore the island, and find out what you can use. Your resources may not be evident at first, so spend some time looking at everything you can utilize, including goods, friends, suppliers, and customers. Don’t forget your own people as they are often the source of solutions you would have never thought of.

4 Have Fun! Yes, make a game out of it. Assume there is a solution and the challenge is to put the pieces together like a big puzzle. Make sure to identify as many pieces as possible, and keep looking for more. Ask for help. Make a list. See how the pieces relate to each other.

5 Be Elegant! Many times the solution is a simple one that solves more than one problem. So get all your other problems out there on the table as well. The elegant solution is sometimes the best statement of the problem. So constantly restate the problem from different perspectives.

6 Find Allies! Who else is affected by the problem and stands to gain by its solution? Identify your allies. Then discuss your problem with them. You might be surprised to find out that they will be more likely to make accommodations on your behalf when they see how they will benefit. Look for the Win-Win solution!

7 Let it Simmer! The best solutions pop up when you least expect them. Even when you are not actively searching for a solution, “the little grey cells,” as Agatha Christie’s famous detective Hercule Poirot says, “are working all the time; they see everything.” So give them a lot to look at. Then take a break, get away from it all and let it simmer.

These are the steps we have found that consistently result in the best, and many times out-of-the-box solutions. Think of problems as challenges. They are mysteries and puzzles that you, your people, and your allies get to solve. Know that the answers are there. Discover the clues and wait for the elegant solution to reveal itself. And remember to have fun!

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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