Strategies | The Barefoot Spirit

I Followed the Process. Where’s My 6 Figures in 6 Months? – Entrepreneur

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sun, 17 Dec 2017 00:27:38 +0000

First published on Entrepreneur.com on 12/16/2017

Just because you learn how the chess pieces move doesn’t mean you will win the game. In fact, you can’t lose the game until you learn the moves. But how the pieces move is just the beginning. To win, you need to know the strategies and philosophies of the game.

We all know this is true when it comes to parlor games. But when it comes to successfully building and monetizing a consumer package goods (CPG) brand, it’s easy to focus on what you think your immediate need is. If you don’t understand the end game and the strategies and philosophies to get there, you can choose to learn a process that gets you into big trouble fast! Why? Because what you think you need may not be what you really need.

The hype is out there, ready to take your money, ready to sell you the process you are asking for, but do you have enough experience to know what to ask for?

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.

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We Need More Successful Startups

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 17:00:04 +0000

Earlier this year, Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, warned about the declining “birth” rate of new businesses compared with the current “death rate.” We found his Gallup Business Journal article so interesting that we think some of the statistics he quoted deserve repeating, as they underscore the increasing lack of successful startups.

According to the article, 470,000 businesses are “dying” each year while only 400,000 are “born” leaving a deficit of 70,000. This was not the case prior to 2008 when startups outpaced business closures by about 100,000 per year. The change has happened over the past 6 years according to Clifton who is analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Add to that, based on who you talk to, the chances of startup survival are only about one in 10.

New businesses have to have some basic philosophical understandings from the outset in order to have a better chance at success. Knowledge of business form and function won’t do it anymore than knowing how to build a ship will make you a good captain.

Skilled captaincy requires adherence to a set of standards, strategies, and values that we believe are teachable, albeit rarely taught in school. It also requires a certain level of experience in the real world that is either learned by doing or gleaned from other successful entrepreneurs.

This is why we are so keen on business navigational principles – beyond the launch. We discovered a set of Guiding Principle for Success we used in our business that got us through the most trying times and the most difficult challenges.

We spent a year creating a special training session specifically designed for aspiring, start-up, and growth phase entrepreneurs. Our course, Spend Less – Monetize Faster with the Entrepreneur’s GPS (Guiding Principles for Success), provides these navigational principles to help start-ups succeed. We created this program as an adjunct to the entrepreneurship and business courses now being taught, not to replace them, but to take them to a more practical level.

We put the course together as a 4-part series, each with one hour of video content followed by one hour of live Q&A each week for 4 weeks. The 4 segments include:

Starters for Start-Ups. This begins with why you are in business. If you want to build and monetize your brand equity, it will show you the proper mindset to organize your business from day one to prepare for a monetization event. This includes how you discover the metrics that make your business an acquisition target, how to organize your goals and milestones, and what records you must set up to best prepare you for acquisition.
Being Resourceful. This covers strategies to manage your cash flow so you can pay your bills and reduce your need for capital. So many start-ups fail because they run out of investor capital before they achieve cash flow. We describe how you can save money and extend your credit by forming strategic alliances with your creditors, buyers, and even your vendors’ salespeople.
Engaging and Empowering Your People. Turnover is the #1 hidden cost of business. When startups lose key people, they lose corporate knowledge, customers and vendors. This segment explores how to find, orient, and keep good people. It offers ways you can put everyone on the same team and get more involvement and productivity from your people with a sales-based, production-paid, positive company culture.
Sales is King. Lack of adequate sales is the most common reason for startup failure, yet sales training is taught only in a hand full of schools. In this segment we examine the various levels of sales that must be made between you and your ultimate customer. We look at the motives each level has to move your product. This segment also reveals the wisdom of understanding the distribution channel requirements before finishing your product and package design.

As Clifton says, “This economy is never truly coming back unless we reverse the birth and death trends of American businesses.” We want to help by sharing our experience, mistakes, and discoveries with the next generation to create more successful American businesses.

Please tell your friends and associates who are thinking about starting a business, who have launched a new business, or who are growing an existing business, to check out the Entrepreneur’s GPS. It may just make the difference in their success!

Who We Are

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

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7 Tips for More Effective Email

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 31 May 2014 22:30:17 +0000

Email blasts and self-serving promotions seem to be taking over our inboxes. With all the white noise these days, business email communication can fall victim to overloaded and desensitized recipients. Is it any wonder that our own business emails get incomplete or tardy responses, are overlooked, misread, or simply deleted altogether? How can your get results in this environment?

Every day we communicate with folks whom we depend on to get our jobs done. We need answers to time-sensitive matters that are in the interest of both parties. When we realize that our email recipients have developed time-saving strategies to quickly scan content for the action items, we can alter our approach to make it easier for them to take action.

1 Pick up the Phone. Live communication will save you hours. You can then document both parties’ questions, answers, and agreements in an e-mail. Its best to make live contact with someone as soon you know you will be working with them. By doing this first, they will be more likely to give your email timely responses. If there’s a misunderstanding in your email correspondence, settle it quickly by phone.

2 Subject and Chain. Chose words in the “subject” line that simply describe the topic so you can easily search for the history of the conversation. Build on this email chain, and if they break the chain, add it back in your response. That way you will have a chronological record of the commitments made by both parties.

3 The On-Ramp. A great mentor once told us that people only remember the first thing you say and the last. The subject and first sentence should enable them to put your email in context quickly, “Hi Mary, I wanted to get back to you to start our project.” Then briefly describe the reason for your email in 10-15 words. If it takes a paragraph to describe or explain the subject matter, consider a phone call instead.

4 Time Sensitive. State when you need their response and be considerate of when they need yours so you both can meet your schedules. If a request is overdue, after the subject write “TIME-SENSITIVE” in caps. Don’t over use or abuse this or your recipient won’t take your emails seriously.

5 Easy to Read. Use #11 or #12 font and chose an easy-to-read, non-serif font style like Ariel, Calibri, or Helvetica. There’s a good reason why the highway departments chose non-serif font. Limit each paragraph to 3-4 sentences. Break up run-on sentences. Try to keep your entire content under one-half page (250 words). Don’t make them scroll down the page.

6 Numbers or Bullets. Generally, use bullets to make points, and use numbers to list questions. Try to limit both to fewer than six. If you have multiple questions, make your closing statement, “Thank you for responding to each of these questions.” Many people have a tendency to only respond to the last question in a series. With those who don’t respond to lists, it may be better to send a separate email for each question, but be careful you don’t become a “pest.”

7. The Off-Ramp. Leave them with your requested action item and deadline. Then thank them using their name, “Thanks for getting back to us by Friday, Mary.” Select a reminder date to follow up with them. And before you hit the send button, always review your email for clarity and accuracy.

Email is a challenging form of communication. Try these techniques to get your message across clearly. Thanks for getting back to me next week to let me know how these tips worked for you.

Who We Are

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

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