Just as often though, it’s used to define a certain style of performance, as in, “That’s the spirit!” which refers the type of tenacity that overcomes obstacles or solves problems. “They have great team spirit!” is used to identify a social culture in which the team shoulders together to achieve a common goal. We also use the term “the entrepreneurial spirit” to define a sense of innovation, resourcefulness, and “can-do” attitude to achieve business success.

The Barefoot Spirit is a style of business that incorporates all these meanings. It’s the American entrepreneurial spirit, west-coast style and with a heart! It also incorporates a few important extras that made the difference for us and can for you as well. It’s a business style that comprehensively permeated every aspect of our company from employees to customers, from bankers to supplier, and from consumers to community. It profoundly elevated our business from form and function to relationships, lessons, respect, and – well – fun!

The basic premise of the Barefoot Spirit is building relationships with that old fashioned adage your grandmother used, “Follow the Golden Rule.” This requires that you look at every business relationship from the other person’s perspective. That’s everyone! What do they want- in detail? The answers may surprise you (they did us!) because most don’t have anything to do with your product, quality, demand or price.

Building relationships goes beyond what the other person wants; it goes into the community itself. By supporting the community in which you do business, your company stands for more than the mercantile goods and services it produces. In this way you are making the world a better place, resulting in your people feeling like they are making a difference, and making your customers happy to reciprocate by purchasing your product.

Another premise of The Barefoot Spirit is tenacity. What keeps you going when you are up against seemingly insurmountable challenges is validation, the fuel for tenacity. You will find validation in little victories and a carefully maintained tribe of advocates and cheerleaders you can rely on when times are tough. You can ask them, “ Tell me again why you think our idea is so good?”

Tenacity requires facing your fears. The biggest question we get repeatedly is, “How do you prepare to respond to the unknown?” We have developed a guidance system that provides entrepreneurs with a set of standards to hold every decision up against to help them make more right decisions. We call these collective philosophies, “The Entrepreneur’s Guiding Principles for Success” or simply, “GPS.” The GPS consists of a set of tools we have identified within 20 guiding principles responsible for our success. It may not have all the answers, but it does have the fundamental foundation required to answer most of the questions.

The Barefoot Spirit picks up where traditional form-and-function business education drops off. After the launch, it’s all about business navigation. Every entrepreneur”SHIP” that sinks was first launched. If you know where you are starting from, where you are going, and how to get there, you have a much better chance of making it successfully to port. The Barefoot Spirit’s GPS offers tools you can use to stay on course.

Today we travel the world bringing The Barefoot Spirit to aspiring, launch- and growth-phase businesses to keep them from losing their most precious assets: time and money. We offer the GPS business guidance system to help create more successful entrepreneurs in this and the next generation.

We’ve change the name of our Facebook page from The Barefoot Wine Founders to The Barefoot Spirit. Here we provide tools and updates on our constant quest to help new businesses get The Barefoot Spirit and achieve success!

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 Give Your Business “The Barefoot Spirit” appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David McCullough has blessed us with yet another masterpiece of historical story-telling in his new book, The Wright Brothers. Recently we heard his PBS interview on our way to the airport to take a flight to speak about entrepreneurship to college students.

David carefully researched the lives of these two American heroes and their sister who played a pivotal role in their success. It is a must read for any aspiring entrepreneur and underlines the basic guiding principle for success we call “The Entrepreneur’s GPS.” Our new video webinar on this subject, over a year in the making, will be out soon and we hope our attendees will take those principles to heart and soar with their own dreams.

The Wright Brothers used guiding principles for success in the following ways:

Ask for Help. They practiced practical humility by readily admitting they didn’t know it all, but they were not ashamed to ask for help. For instance, they asked the Smithsonian Institute for any books or reports they may have on the subject of powered flight and studied them intensely. They asked the US Department of Weather where they would encounter sustained winds which lead them to Kitty Hawk.

Be Resourceful. They were without outside funding and did their project solely with their own money, made all of their own parts, and survived on a modest income from their bicycle business. They read incessantly. Even though they had but a high school education, they were self-taught by consuming a large supply of books their preacher-father made available to them.

Communicate Effectively. They were skilled in the art of the English language and used that expertise to communicate what they were attempting and to engage the help of others. Their convincing use of the language reminds us that the Liberal Arts may just be the best education for entrepreneurship. Their knowledge of history and literature helped them understand how to convey their needs and intentions to others.

Be Determined. The Wright Brothers never gave up. They took incredible risks. For one thing, they knew that every time they tried to fly, they could very well be killed. They deliberately chose the soft sands at Kitty Hawk to cushion any potential crash. They continued on in spite of their growing reputation that they were “nice fellows but just a little off.” In spite of setbacks, limited funds and the time it took to make it happen, they were persistent. When they eventually achieved their mission of powered flight it was dismissed as a hoax. Only after five years, when the French (not the US) sent a delegation to Kitty Hawk and they were invited to France to demonstrate their flying machine, did the world finally get it.

We appreciate David McCullough for reminding us at this particular time, when we seem to be swept away by technology, that there are some good old fashioned American values that we would all do well to revisit and apply to our own ventures. Want your ideas to take off? Use The Entrepreneur’s Guiding Principles for Success to get them off the ground and keep them flying.

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 Wright Brothers Followed Guiding Principles for Success appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.