Skolkovo is one of the top universities in the world and is associated with MIT. The students were in their 30s and many already had their own businesses. Others were either considering the prospects or just wanted a better understanding.

Introducing the Russian Students to Soft Skills

We knew they had seen a lot and heard a lot about hard tech in the Valley. Between the VCs and the auspicious examples of technical success, we figured they might appreciate a more natural environment and a talk on something entirely different, so we presented them with our course on “How Soft Skills Earn Hard Cash.”

We decided to take them through the three basic soft skills (Appreciation, Acknowledgement, and Communication), and how they apply to the three basic business relationships (Employees, Vendors, and Buyers).

Although soft skills are not the only thing you need to be a success, their absence can result in expensive and crippling turnover, higher costs, loss of credit, and loss of customers. In other words, there has to be a balance between tech skills and soft skills.

We were impressed with the students and their sincere interest in achieving business success. We started with what we had in common: a desire to have loyal and engaged employees, a need for extended credit and terms, and a need for ongoing and increasing business.

Even with the obvious cultural differences between our societies, business is business and people are people. How folks are treated makes a big difference in their discretionary decisions regarding your company’s products and services. And probably the most important consideration you can give others as a business person is respect for their concerns.

If they are employed by you, do you have their interests at heart?

Do you demonstrate it? For instance, can employees enhance their careers with your company? Do they get the compensation, recognition, education, security, and the time with their family they need to remain loyal?

If they are your vendor, do you treat their salespeople with respect?

Do you call in advance of a late payment with a plan to bring your account current? Do you consider a long-term contract so they can feel confident extending the terms and credit you need to grow your business?

If they are your buyer, do you service what you sell?

Do you honor your warranties? Do you provide the kind of support they need to stay with you, increase their purchases, and promote your products? Do you understand and address every level of buyer from your warehouse to your ultimate consumer so your products will move freely through the channels?

All of this really comes down to putting yourself in the other guy’s shoes. Know what they want, and get what you want by giving them what they want first. In other words, as our friend Ivan Misner likes to say, “Take off the bib and put on the apron!” Or, as we like to say, “If you are going to be a jerk, get out your wallet! It’s going to cost you more.”

These lessons are international and timeless. Anyone with a great idea that can change the world will have a much easier time doing so by practicing these soft skills. They can make the critical difference between success and failure.

When we first got into business, we thought that our product was so good, that it would sell itself (Gold Medal winners under $6). We couldn’t understand why the world wasn’t knocking out windows and kicking down doors to get to us. It cost us plenty of time, money, and anguish to finally learn and master these essential skills, which, ultimately, resulted in our major success.

We were thrilled to be able to share the practical benefits of soft skills in business with the impressive students of Skolkovo.  We wish them the best in their own businesses and hope they will return for  another visit to their “Outdoor Classroom in the Wine Country!”  Надеюсь увидеть тебя снова в ближайшее время!

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 Russian Students Visit the Russian River! appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Silicon Valley has become Main Street Disneyland for international technopreneurship worldwide. The top international universities that teach entrepreneurship in its various forms all pay homage to Silicon Valley. They want to immerse their students in this wondrous place of Stanford University, Facebook, Google and other techie attractions, if only for a week or two.

Most of the international students are engineers with an extremely technical education. This narrow focus is somehow celebrated in this magical land of startups, V.C.s, burn rates,and unicorns. What can we offer the students that will help them in their quest for entrepreneurial success?

We have no technological background, nor are we even V.C.s. We have a few clients with software and high-tech products, but we are not their technical advisors. However, we are their business advisors. We help them make better business decisions and keep them on track to their ultimate acquisition. It’s what we’ve done. It’s what we’re experienced at.

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.

The post The Soft Skills That Boost Entrepreneurial Success appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

We knew that by the time we spoke to them they had heard many entrepreneurial stories from some of the top companies in Silicon Valley. We knew that they had heard from many of the entrepreneurial academics about what it takes. And we also knew that they had heard from the VCs who “built” the Valley about what they look for in fundable projects. So, what were we going to tell them that was new and different, valuable and practical, memorable and applicable?

Most of the businesses they visited were wildly successful “unicorns” financed by VCs. They had plenty of assets and resources right from the start. Of course, they had to give up quite a bit of their equity to get their financing in the first place. And, of course, for every unicorn there were 19 failures that nobody ever talks about.

Is it possible to bootstrap your business when you’re under financed? Is that, in itself, a proving ground to learn how to solve business problems without tons of resources? We believe it is. It’s what happened to us and it can happen to anyone.

When you’re undercapitalized and running out of runway, you have no choice but to get creative, and you have no choice but to get resourceful. You must learn quickly how to communicate with your creditors in such a way that they will extend your credit and terms instead of putting you on a cash basis.

Sure, you can be resourceful, use a laundry room for an office and a door for a desk as we did. Sure, you can hire your family and make trades for goods and services as we did. But that only goes so far. Sooner or later you’re going to need some financial help. We found that help in our three key relationships.

1. Vendors

We looked at our accounts payables, and it didn’t take long to realize that in our business, the glass company had the most at stake. The more wine we sold, the more glass bottles they would get to sell us. That’s right, they would get to sell …and make more money! So they were a natural strategic ally …if we could just convince them that we were trustworthy.

We decided to meet with them on a quarterly basis and share our plans and challenges. We showed empathy for their concern that we would pay our bills on time. When our cash flow projection indicated that we were going to be late, we called them way in advance and alerted them. We offered a payment plan based on our receivables to bring our account current, and we always did!

They felt comfortable extending our credit and terms. They enabled us to expand nationally without having to raise outside funds. This is a clear example of how soft skills can earn you hard cash!

2. Employees

We looked to our employees to solve problems, develop innovations, and remain excited and loyal to our company. Rather than putting them on a need-to-know basis, we did just the opposite. We put them on a know-the-need basis. We figured they couldn’t help us if they didn’t know what our needs were.

Once we had a serious problem. The good news was that we had been authorized in a giant chain store in Florida. The bad news was that they put us, like all new products, on the bottom shelf (nobody looks down there). The scary news was that if we didn’t sell a hundred cases in 90 days, we would be out of the chain … FOREVER!

One of our people joked and said, “Well, we’re ’Barefoot,’ we’ll just go after the foot traffic!” “HaHa!” we laughed. But then somebody else said, “Wait a minute, that’s not such a crazy idea, why don’t we just put decal footprints down the wine aisle and turn them into our position on the bottom shelf?” We used those footprints all over the country. And that idea came from the receptionist!

3. Buyers

In our business, our buyers where the distributors and the retailers. The distributors wouldn’t buy unless the retailers would buy. The retailers wouldn’t buy unless their customers would buy. Most VC financed companies would earmark a large chunk of money for advertising to get the word out to bring the customers into the retailer stores.

We had no money for advertising. At first, we were scared that our product wouldn’t move fast enough for the retailers because nobody had ever heard of a brand called “Barefoot.” But then we got a call from a neighborhood group looking for cash donations for kids’ after-school park. We had no money, so we gave them product. We told them we hoped they would use it at their fundraiser and perhaps it would loosen up some checkbooks or they can auction it off for some slides and swings. Sales took off in their neighborhood.

We tried it in another neighborhood. It worked. We tried it in another city. It worked. In fact it worked so well, we took Barefoot Wines across the country without commercial advertising. Because we showed empathy for our customer, we gave them a social reason to buy our products.

Conclusion:

These techniques might not work for everybody. Every business is different. But there is a golden thread that weaves its way through all these examples and you can use it in your business. It can reduce your need for cash. It can reduce turnover and engage and empower your people. And it can bring you the customers you need to achieve a positive cash flow and beyond. That golden thread is empathy. The more you use it, the less money you’ll need!

We’re excited to announce that our new business audio book on this subject is soon to be released.

• It will be unlike most business books that focus on companies that have a lot of resources. Instead, it will focus on the true story of the building of the Barefoot Wine brand which is a testimony to empathy and resourcefulness.
• It will be unlike most business books that give you list after list in prescriptive text: the three things to do, the five things to never do, and the seven things your customer wants from you. Instead it, will be a series of stories designed to entertain and educate.
• And it will be unlike most business audiobooks that have a narrator droning the story in your earbuds. Instead, the characters in the stories will be played by real actors, dramatically bringing the scenes to life as you jog or commute.

If this sounds like fun, you can find out more at www.barefootaudiobook.com

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 Solve Business Problems with What You Have at Hand appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

“Shark Tank,” Silicon Valley and most of the business publications on the market underscore this popular premise. In fact, the business plan is now viewed as an application for venture financing. The idea seems to be, come up with an idea and get it financed, and you are golden.

But you’re not. Far from it!

Now you have given up equity to raise capital that you can spend in ways that may not be necessary or effective. Now you have given yourself the false sense of security that because your plan got financing, it must be right. Now that you have secured a “runway” and “burn rate,” you attract service suppliers interested in grabbing some of that capital. They want to sell you goods and services you don’t necessarily need, including staff, facilities and other overhead with monthly bills hungry for your money. Have you made adequate sales to justify those expenditures?

So, now you have funded your company without thoroughly understanding the sales or growth process, especially the most often overlooked and underestimated expense: the cost of sales.

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.

The post ​How the Right ‘Spirit’ Can Help You Start a Business without Venture Capital appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

All the films we saw were imaginative, leading edge, and poignant insights on many important aspects of life that don’t fit the Hollywood mold. And thank goodness. These films need to be seen. Like entrepreneurship itself, they challenge the establishment and give permission to new ways of communicating.

An investment we made 10 years ago in an independent film documentary finally had its World Premiere last week at Cinequest. Just to be selected for an event of this stature was a major milestone for the videographer and team who put the film together.

“Our” film, “The Comedy Club,” was the brain child of David Schendel. We were impressed with his first film, “Yank Tanks,” a fun, colorful, and eye-opening documentary about how Cuban artisans have kept the old American cars from 1956 and earlier not only running, but in good repair. This was done in spite of an export boycott by the US and the secession of the manufacturers of those auto parts over a half a century ago.  The replacement parts have all been meticulously made by hand by Cuban craftsmen! Even tail lights for 1956 Chevys! Now, 60 years later, Cuba is poised to become a serious American tourist destination, and “Yank Tanks” and the story of those vintage cars still cruising the streets of Havana will be in demand. Finally the time is right!

Schendel’s more recent movie, The Comedy Club, traces the history of Cobbs, one of the original comedy clubs that provided a launching pad for such greats as Robin Williams, Bill Maher, Paula Poundstone, Bobcat Goldhwait, Kevin Pollak, Will Durst, Dana Carvey, Bob Saget, Kevin Nealon, Ellen DeGeneres, and many others! This is an entrepreneurial story about the club owner, Tom Sawyer (that’s his real name), and how he pioneered stand-up comedy in San Francisco and took the risk that there was a market for it. There are great jokes, interviews and testimonials from many now-famous comedians who showed appreciation for the chance this independent entrepreneur took to give them a big head start.

Now that so many of these comedians have become famous on TV and elsewhere, there is a much greater interest in this film, so all the difficulties resulting in delays are more likely to have worked to the films advantage. So much of a film’s success is based on the timing of its release. The public is interested in how their favorite comedians first got a break. Like the new interest in David’s “Yank Tanks” film, we think the timing is right for a historical documentary of San Francisco’s stand-up comedy scene.

Besides, without an independent entrepreneur like Tom Sawyer taking the risk, we would not have the caliber of comedians we have today. The corporations did finally seize upon, and monopolize, this opportunity, but only after the concept had been proven by Tom Sawyer’s startup, Cobbs Comedy Club. And without an independent filmmaker like David Schendel, this piece of the history of American comedy would be lost.

We salute all the independent filmmakers at Cinequest. We particularly liked “Remember Me” with Rita Moreno (West Side Story), “Ma Ma” with Penelope Cruz, and of course, “The Comedy Club” by David Schendel. M&B give them all two toes way up!

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 Independent Filmmakers Celebrated and Showcased at Cinequest appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.