training | The Barefoot Spirit

3 Overused Tactics of Poor Customer Service

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 18:00:44 +0000

We hope it’s an individual and not a company-wide problem. It could be poor hiring or poor training that results in certain counterproductive tactics that account executives and customer service representatives in big companies increasingly use.

It seems to occur when companies oversell goods and services and then are unable to adequately service their accounts. The people whose job it is to interface with the customer tend to be harried, overworked, and somewhat confused.

But the message to the customer is clear. “Go away, get off the phone. I don’t have time for you, you’re lucky to get me at all. Accept my excuses and empty promises or you’ll get even less.”

Any startup or buildup company would certainly go out of business if their representatives sent this message by their words, actions, or inactions. It seems like this kind of experience is a growing danger in some buildout and enterprise companies that grew too fast, promised ongoing results, and filled their service jobs quickly but not necessarily with well-trained professionals.

Poor Customer Service Examples

Here are some of the behaviors we have witnessed from a customer standpoint:

1. Missed Deadlines

“Don’t worry. I’ll have that for you tomorrow,” is the usual promise, evidently to get you off the phone. But then tomorrow comes, and the day after, and there is no communication whatsoever. You have to call or send emails day after day until you receive what they promised. The implication is that it’s up to you as the customer to oversee them as the service provider.

This sends an “I don’t care, you’re not important to me” message. This frustrates the customer and makes them wonder why they did business with the company in the first place. But they’ve already bought the service, and now they’re locked in. The representative knows this and so there is no sense of urgency. They’ve got us over the barrel!

2. Blaming Others

“It’s not my fault, the tech people didn’t get back to me.” Or “Well, that’s what I was told.” These same representatives force the customer to go only through them for all interactions with their company. The customer is at the mercy of the representative. The representative can say anything to the customer with no accountability. This is because the customer can’t access the right people in the company to get a satisfactory answer.

“They’ve changed the rules,” is another common excuse. In this scenario, the representative blames a third-party for not being able to deliver what they promised. While it’s true that rules change, the representative is under no pressure to identify those changes as soon as they occur. Sometimes the representative only finds out about the rule change when the customer complains about nonperformance. Since the customer can only go through a representative, the customer has no way of knowing when the representative was truly aware of any rule change. But the results usually waste the customer’s precious time. Again, this demonstrates no sense of urgency on the part of the representative.

3. Avoiding Work

“You don’t need that fixed anyway.” “Me and my colleagues have decided it’s not necessary and everything works fine just the way it is.” This is a typical tactic to avoid doing the work the customer requests. Even when it’s the company’s responsibility to provide services without glitches, the representative tells the customer that the glitches are okay and don’t need fixing.

This tactic creates an argument between the customer and the representative as to the true need for the fix. The representative takes the position, “I’m the expert, and I’ll be the judge of that.” This is to mask the fact that the work was not done in a timely manner. It’s like, “It doesn’t matter that we didn’t do the work because it wasn’t needed anyway.” It’s another convenient excuse.

Conclusion

We’ve witnessed other tactics of poorly hired or poorly trained representatives working for large companies that can’t service what they’ve sold. These include emphatically stated outright errors, poor or no preparation for meetings, little or no knowledge of account history, poor coordination, and never acknowledging a mistake or a missed self-imposed deadline.

All of these tactics can occur when representatives believe they are going to get paid no matter what happens to the customer. For them, it’s hours put in and they are overworked. So, their goal is to reduce the work any way possible. We’ve seen this problem occur in top-down companies that view customer service as “complaint resolution.”

These tactics ultimately discourage the customer to the point that they feel obligated to warn others that the company can’t live up to its promises. This reputation hurts the company’s sales. But in the meantime, companies that behave like this suffer a great deal of turnover. This is because they don’t treat their employees much different than they treat their customers. The good ones who want to do a good job, and want to work for a company that lives up to its promises will move on. The turnover hurts the relationship with the customer even further.

It’s only a matter of time before these types of companies will implode from their own policies. We’re shopping, how about you?

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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5 Ways to Grow and Build Trust

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 18:34:21 +0000

First published on Entrepreneur.com on 11/12/2017

From your creditors to your employees, good business relationships are built on trust. Can the people who depend on you, confidently rely on you to treat them fairly? Once you have proven your dependability, they will make allowances for you and extend their level cooperation. This is essential to your business success.

How much will you save on loan interest with extended credit, easier terms and complementary warehousing? How much will you save on hiring and training by reducing turnover, engaging your people and having them go the extra mile for you? How much will you save on advertising with cooperative distributers, loyal consumers and customers who become advocates? The sooner you demonstrate your trustworthiness, the sooner you’ll receive these benefits and more!

To read the complete article, please visit Entrepreneur.com

Who We Are

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

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Is a Knowledge-Hungry Crowd Finally Ready for Wisdom?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 17:00:29 +0000

Is your email flooded with marketers pandering to your thirst for quick knowledge to “solve” the immediate problem at hand. Is your news feed is packed with ads promising six digits in six months, and all from your phone! “Just follow this process,” they say, “and you too will be a success!”

With the overflow of information at your fingertips, it’s easy to get the idea that whatever you want to know is instantly accessible. “There’s an app for that,” has now evolved into “There’s a cut-and-paste process for that.” But is process knowledge enough by itself? Just access, copy and apply, and all your needs will be fulfilled. Right?

By the time you figure out that the quick fix doesn’t achieve your desired results, the damage has been done. You are out both the fees you paid and the time you invested. You realize that the knowledge you attained was inadequate for the outcome you had envisioned.

Because you have been inadvertently “trained” by the very searching and training process itself, to copy examples, it is easy to miss out on the principles behind those examples. When you learned that process, did you really understand the commonality of principles that can be applied to other situations? “Who cares if there’s an overriding principle,” you might say, “I’ll just cut and paste a new example when I need it, and never have to learn the principal behind it.”

To learn and appreciate those overriding principles, lessons should start with a good solid foundation in the basics. But this may take more time than you were willing to invest. You may have to learn some things that apparently don’t immediately apply to the problem at hand. This would take time, too. So, you skip all that in favor of applying the process without the principles. You have knowledge without wisdom. You got the “how” without the “why.”

But the digital marketer, the preacher, and the politician are glad you’re impatient and want quick, simple answers. It’s easier to sell you a process than a philosophy. It’s easier to sell you a sensational headline than a history book. And it’s easier to blame and marginalize minorities when you’re looking for simple answers. Basically, you’re easier to manipulate if you let today’s over-simplified approach to knowledge dumb you down.

With all this knowledge, so readily available, why does the “crowd” continue to make so many mistakes? The crowd is knowledge hungry, but as history unfolds, we are seeing demonstrations of how easily the crowd can be, and has been, manipulated. The crowd can be easily spooked. Its weakness is impatience.

Sourcing the crowd for navigational assistance is one thing, but sourcing the crowd for instant decisions that impact our social behavior is quite another.

Simply put, is the crowd wise enough to rule directly? Will they be manipulated by ads that play into their suspicions? Will they elect one demigod after another in search of a quick fix without ever learning why the government has checks and balances? Will they allow the environment to degrade while they are transfixed by the latest trending story?

Without patience, healthy skepticism, and a thirst for principle over process, the crowd is limited to reporting status. True, this is very helpful. But before the crowd can be relied upon for guidance, it must embrace strategy over tactics, principles over examples, and history over headlines.

We’ve never before had so much knowledge at our disposal. The fact is, we are all quite new at this. How many disasters will it take for the crowd to gain the long-term wisdom it needs, and then use that knowledge wisely and not be corrupted by its ease of access? True wisdom takes time. Will we give it the time it deserves?

If this all sounds like an ad for classical education, it is! Until the crowd understands the basics, the big picture, and the implications of its own periodic stampedes, it will be relegated to telling you where the next road hazard is, or the room for rent.

Who We Are

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

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Build Trust with Timely Status Reports

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 17:00:54 +0000

There’s a new phenomenon happening that we never saw ten years ago. It is a best practice that somehow got dropped from the up-bringing, educational and training processes.

In today’s workplace, we see employees keeping vital information to themselves and not reporting it to others who have asked them for it …and need it to do or complete their job. This “sitting-on-it” style hurts everyone on the team.

In business, keeping your boss, your colleagues, and your customers up to date is essential. It builds trust in your relationships. It’s easy to say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it,” but actions speak louder than words.

You must actually tell the person who asked for the information what you found out. Just because you know, doesn’t mean you can sit on the information. When you are asked to check into something, it is assumed that you will share what you have found.

You can get back to others with a comfort call, a timely update, or a status report. Or you can wait in silence until they call you and ask, “Hey, what’s going on?”

Nothing is more irritating than having to check up to see if someone really did what they said they would do, are still working on it, or dropped it entirely! Not knowing causes anxiety.

So why do so many people go dark after they say they’ve “got it covered”? The fact is, it leaves the requestors, guessing. It makes them wonder what’s going on, not just with the request, but what’s going on with you.

Are you deliberately going dark, hoping they will forget the request? Are you depending on them to remind you? Are you dropping it until they mention it again? Are you so late in your response that you are embarrassed to admit to your tardy status because you think you will get in trouble? Do you think they don’t need to know until the task is completed, even if weeks go by?

Do you realize that this makes the requesting party anxious? Their mind reels with the possibilities and it keeps them awake at night.

Whatever your excuse, it’s damaging to your company, your team, and your reputation as a professional businessperson! No news is worse that bad news.

If you get a request that is a long-term, ongoing project, give the requesting party a comfort call or shoot them a memo every few days.

Timely status reporting has so many benefits. For one, even if you’ve had no progress, it puts the requesting party’s mind at ease. They don’t have to wonder about you or question your motives. It just plain shows respect. Suspense is stressful.

For another, it says, “I am keeping you up to date, so you can trust me to not drop it.” When you demonstrate that you care about relieving their anxieties, they will see you as professional, reliable, and indispensable. When you show you care about the requesting party, they will care more about you.

In any case, do not let so much time go by that they feel compelled to ask you about it. If you keep them in the dark on a regular basis and they find themselves frequently asking you what’s up, don’t think they don’t notice. This kind of sloppiness can result in lost relationships with your vendors, customers, associates, and employers. You are jeopardizing the effectiveness of your team mates. You could even lose your job.

Show others the common courtesies you expect. Put their minds at ease. Show them you are on top of it. Earn their trust …and your own security. Get back to them on a timely basis!

Who We Are

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

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Small Business Creates the Most Jobs and Does Most of the Training

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 11 May 2017 17:00:22 +0000

Last week was National Small Business Week. Every year at this time the North Florida Small Business Development Center at the University of North Florida celebrates with an awards luncheon singling out small business owners in their region who are outstanding. This year was their 25^th anniversary and we were honored to be their keynote speakers.

Earlier in the day, they asked us to present a workshop to their VIP members and supporters. These folks were already successful, so we had to give them something special that would help them, hopefully, in a unique way.

We shared one of our favorite business principles, which is “Make Mistakes W-R-I-T-E,” (not just right)! We had plenty of experience in making mistakes; so much in fact that we got good at it. We actually developed a process for making mistakes that greatly improved our company and caused our acquirer to remark, “Wow! This is the best documented company we’ve ever seen!”

It all starts with giving your people permission to make mistakes. They are going to make mistakes whether you give them permission or not, but without permission, they are going to deny the mistake, cover it up, or blame others. They prefer to think it never happened, and go off to the next thing.

You can’t blame them. They’ve been programmed since grade school not to make mistakes. After all, a mistake would get you marked down, give you a lower grade, and could go on your record.

Yet, by giving your people permission to make mistakes w-r-i-t-e, you encourage the improvement of your documents and your very way of doing business. How? By asking your people to identify all the documents that need to be changed, clarified, or created to make the mistake less likely to happen again. Something written must be created, changed or improved. It may involve policies, procedures, checklists, sign off sheets, or even clauses in contracts.

The next step is circulating the new document to get everyone’s sign off of understanding. Then, and this is an important part, thanking the person publicly for improving your business!

Now, everyone knows that you celebrate mistakes – when they are used to refine your business process and ultimately help with training, communication, and profitability.

Sure, you have to apologize and make any one hurt by the mistake whole again. But when you show a customer or a vendor that you are changing written materials to prevent a reoccurrence, they are more likely to not only forgive you, but give you more credibility. They saw you in action. Remember, people judge you by how well you handle a mistake. So, why not do it really well?

And what about those outside vendors, that salesperson, or that difficult customer? Surely, many of the mistakes are their fault, right? We say, “Aim, don’t blame!” When you blame the other guy, you disempower yourself. Rather, take action and clean up you own backyard. What can you do to make the mistake less likely to happen again?

We once had an executive who commented on our unrelenting campaign to tweak, write, and rewrite our documents in the face of any mistake. He complained, “You guys are trying to make everything idiot proof!” We responded, “No, we are trying to make it idiot resistant!” to which he responded, “But even now, as we speak, they’re building a better idiot!”

So, the best way to stay ahead of the “improved idiots” out there is to make mistakes write, and build your business on the back of your mistakes – like we did!

Who We Are

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

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The Process Without the Philosophy Behind It is a Recipe for Trouble

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 13 Apr 2017 17:00:57 +0000

We often hear, “Just tell me the one thing!” Or, “I just want the step-by-step process!” But when you don’t know why and just “cut and paste” you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’. Sooner or later you will make a bad decision unless you grasp the overriding reason for the process.

If you can’t extrapolate the principles behind the processes, you will not recognize the disguised variations.

For instance, the principles behind paying bills is not to just to satisfy the invoices. The principles are to develop a good credit rating, improve relationships with your creditors, and stay in business. In our experience, we found 15% of the invoices were wrong! Still, we know of several bookkeepers who blindly paid invoices because they thought the process is their job, and all there is to their job!

We surmise that they too were rushing to complete the nitty gritty process of bill paying without understanding the reason behind it. Keep this in mind when training or learning.

Look at the big picture first, and then break it down from there. If you are learning, ask, “Why are we doing this?” If the answer doesn’t take you back to a clear understanding of how your business makes money, ask again until you get it. Don’t be quick to say “got it” when you don’t. It’s not enough to know the process if you don’t know the reason behind the process.

Today we can learn all kinds of processes without having a clue why or what the big picture is. You Tube is full of overly short lessons on how to do stuff, but they assume you know the why. You may also think you know the why. But if you want a rock-solid education that won’t show its limitation when you have to make that decision that wasn’t in the procedures, you’d better get the reason down cold first.

We always look for employees who can extrapolate. Without this skill, they can drive you crazy with ‘’Like what, like what?” as they demand more and more examples. In fact, if they make a mistake, they will tell you that you did not give that particular example. But it’s the principle behind the example that is the real lesson. If you want your people to really “get it,” you must spend the time to make sure they see the correlation between the examples.

The definition of extrapolation is: to use known facts as the starting point from which to draw inferences or conclusions about something unknown. Here are three ways to identify and improve extrapolation learners:

At the Interview. Ask them the reasons behind the processes they were responsible for on their last job. Listen for over simplifications, and reasons that don’t tie into the big picture. Ask them how and why they solved a new problem based on their understanding of the reason for a process they were taught.
During The Training. After they have a gotten a process down, give them a situation you haven’t discussed and see if they can noodle it out on their own. If they can, you have successfully communicated the “Why.”
On the Job. Watch for misconceptions or shortsighted assumptions about the “Whys” in their work and in their queries. Listen for questions that show they don’t understand the big picture. Spend the time to show them how they can make better choices if they understand the “Why.”

It is a big picture world out there, so remove the blinders you put on your people when you just give them “the one thing” and “the step-by-step process.”

Who We Are

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

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Bring Back the Trades!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 17:00:37 +0000

Within the last few decades we have seen the increasingly rapid demise of the teaching of the trades in high schools and community colleges. The “shiny ball” seems to be technology. Courses in the physical trades – also known as vocational education – seem to have been traded out for anything high tech. But is this really beneficial to our students and our economy?

We have several friends in the trades. They have established businesses in everything from cabinet making to auto repair, from construction to upholstery. Their common challenge is they can’t find good help anymore! Apparently educators think we don’t need auto shop and woodworking classes any longer. The trades today are dominated by aging Boomers. But where are their replacements?

Most students who don’t complete a 4-year college will wind up in the trades. But how are they prepared to go out into the workforce? We used to teach trades education. Now the high schools and 2-year colleges are abandoning this practical education for coding, programming, and software engineering, all based on the premise that the tech boom will continue forever.

No doubt we need these techies, but how many of them do we really need before they begin to reduce their own demand, flood the market, and reduce their own income? And what happens when the next tech bubble bursts? Do we face another huge unemployment crisis that affects real estate values and ultimately the whole economy?

Meanwhile, there’s a demand for the trades, whether you want to improve your home, or reupholster your couch. In the last recession, we saw a reduced demand for the trades because of the hiatus in construction. At the same time, we saw an increase in demand for coders. That sent a relatively short-sighted message to the schools to dump the trades in favor of tech. Now we’re faced with a serious shortage of qualified tradesmen, and all the while the specter of automated coding and programming is looming on the horizon.

Vocational training will also reduce the dropout rate by providing skills that are in demand now. But who decides what will be taught in high schools and 2-year colleges? Local governments. Don’t they have a responsibility to the community, the students and the economy to bring back vocational training? Sure, it’s not as glamorous as tech training, or academic courses, but what does the rest of the world know that we have forgotten?

According to Marc Tucker of the National Center on Education and the Economy, writing back in 2012, “Japan, Singapore, the Netherlands, Denmark and other leading industrial countries lived in the midst of the same global economic forces we did, but they did not do what we did in response. They doubled down to improve both their academic and their vocational programs. They built education systems designed to support the middle class as well as an elite. They built vocational education programs that require high academic skills. And they designed programs that could deliver those skills. They did not sever the connections between employers and their high schools; they strengthened them. They made sure their high school vocational students had first-rate instructors and equipment. Their reward is a work force that is balanced between managers and workers, scientists and technicians.” He goes on to explain how democracy itself is dependent on a strong middle class and vocational education is essential to providing a balanced economy.

For a real eye-opener, read his entire article and send it to your local high school and community college board members. The demise of vocational education he warned about in 2012 is a reality in 2016. It’s time to bring back the trades!

Who We Are

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

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How Your Impatience is Used Against You

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 17:00:05 +0000

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“What? Aren’t you a millionaire yet? Don’t you have an international best seller yet? Well, step right up! Have I got the quick fix for you!” Or so it goes with most hype-sters pandering to your impatience and human laziness. We all want it faster and easier, and we’re all sure there’s a secret or a shortcut that will give us instant success.

There’s an entire industry out there blowing up your inbox with carefully worded emails promising everything from a 4-hour work week to a bestseller in a weekend, from hundreds of thousands in speaking fees to online riches in an instant. They think we all are so afraid of doing any real work, spending any real time or growing slowly but surely, that just the thought of all that work, and all the patience it requires, will surely discourage us. They think we will bite like groupers on any bait that has the promise of instant millions. They’re always sure to hold up a few examples of howling overnight successes just to get us going. It’s like the winners you always hear about in Vegas, never the vast majority who are still plugging away.

What’s really alarming is that there’s yet another industry out there. It’s higher up on the food chain, training those solicitors how to push our buttons and how to use just the right words in the subject line to get us to open that email. It’s training those solicitors how to craft the first sentence to catch our attention, how to structure the sales letter to appease common laziness and fear, so we’ll read it, and how time is running out. So buy now! Every month there are hundreds of new players, sending out hundreds of new emails, blowing up everybody’s inbox! Most of the solicitors have bought into the idea that everybody wants overnight, instant, effortless success, all at their fingertips.

It’s like a big chain letter. Don’t be the last person to buy it! Here in California we have a saying, “The people who got rich in the gold rush were selling shovels to the miners.”

We have a colleague who spent seven years building his email list to over 100,000, then over thousands of emails, funneled it down to 500 who were actually buying. But now they are buying less and less and demanding cheaper and cheaper products. And what about the 95,500 who got all those emails they didn’t want? Nobody’s talking about those relationships that have certainly been compromised. But the people who sold our colleague the infrastructure, gave him the training, and took his money are the ones who made the real dough. And they will continue to do so as long as there is an email marketing “gold rush.”

So where is this going? We’ve already stopped opening 80% of our emails! How about you? Sure there are a lot of well-meaning solicitors out there but they are being drowned out by the sheer number of irrelevant offers. It’s hard to know who to pay attention to any more.

Most real successful people will tell you that it took many years of concentrated effort. Sure, there’s a hint, a tip, or a lesson they can share that will save you time and money, but ultimately, success requires hard work, patience, and tenacity! It did for us. Sorry, it’s not the shiny-ball promise of overnight success you read about in your inbox. It’s the tried-and-true approach that has a much higher chance of real success. Find out what the real work is, get a good gold map, commit to a long slog, and watch out for the shovel-selling hype-sters!

Who We Are

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

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Be an Entrepreneurial Job Applicant – A Message to Grads

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 17:00:33 +0000

If you are a recent college grad, you may be hitting the employment market about now. You may think you are searching for a job, but maybe you should be searching for a “customer.”

“I need to pay my bills,” you say, or “I need some security,” but by changing the paradigm slightly to “I need to find a customer, or client, for my services,” you can stay in control of your career and approach the job search more effectively.

If you think of yourself as a self-employed entrepreneur you will focus more on what you do best, what your skill sets are, where your experience is, and how you can alleviate your client’s concerns. You will have to bone up on the “prospect” and distinguish yourself from the competition to land the deal.

In addition to seeing your employer as a customer for your services, you also have to consider your own reputation. All your “customers” have to benefit from, and advocate for, your services in order for you to improve your personal brand image and justify higher fees in your future. So be careful not to take on a “client” whom you cannot really help, or who cannot give you the extended experience and responsibility you need to build your reputation.

By putting yourself in your customer’s shoes you can better understand what they are really looking for in terms of (your) features and benefits. Your features and benefits should address your employer’s major concerns when hiring any new person:

False Starts. The cost of turnover is the #1 hidden cost of any business. But after a while every business becomes painfully aware of the cost of searching, vetting, and interviewing. What if it doesn’t work out? Start all over again! Have some empathy for their investment in the search itself. Selling yourself to them before there’s an opening can give you a big advantage when the time comes to hire.

Orienting and Training. If it doesn’t work out, they lose the cost of reduced production by both the trainer and the trainee. You can reduce their anxiety by becoming thoroughly familiar with how they make their money, what their biggest challenges are, and how your potential job fits into the big picture. Learn as much as you can about the company and the job before you apply. The faster they think you can get up to speed and contribute, the more likely they will be to hire you.

Production. They are naturally concerned with your ability to produce. You are pretty much an unknown for which they will take a big risk. Demonstrate your past experience at successfully overcoming steep learning curves. Get testimonials from previous employers or professors that address this specific issue.

Longevity. They worry that after they invest in training you, you will quit! If you can demonstrate that you have stayed at your previous jobs for at least two years, even if it was internships, you will relieve some of their fear.

Dependability and Responsibility. They want to believe that they can depend on you to show up, produce, meet deadlines, and take responsibility for your own actions. Show them that in the past when mistakes were made you have improved processes to prevent their reoccurrence. They want a process improver, not someone who passes on the blame.

These should be among the features you offer that will benefit your employer by reducing costs and anxiety while improving production. Take another look at the “services” you offer as if you were an entrepreneur selling them. You will be much better prepared to get the “customer” you want!

Who We Are

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

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A Better Way of Teaching Entrepreneurship?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 16:51:45 +0000

When it comes to teaching entrepreneurship, it’s still the Wild West out there. Every school has a different twist on how to do it. Many outside academia say “You can’t teach entrepreneurship. You just have to do it!” As successful entrepreneurs, we believe that if we had the right kind of entrepreneurial training, it might not have taken us so long to monetize our brand equity. But what is the right kind of entrepreneurial training?

Business form and function would have certainly helped. Sales training would have helped even more. And distribution channel management would have been essential. In retrospect, we have identified 20 guiding principles that we wish we had known. If we had used these guiding principles when we started our business, we would have saved half the time and over half the money. If you want to know more check out “Spend Less, Monetize Faster,” our new free webinar.

We are squarely in favor of formal entrepreneurial education, and have spoken at more than 40 schools of entrepreneurship internationally. Should entrepreneurial education be an offshoot of the Business School, the Management School, or even, as we favor, the School of Liberal Arts?

No matter what form the education takes, the vast majority of schools focus on getting the students to launch phase as quickly as possible, and many are encouraged to take the leap even before graduation. Hubs, incubators, and tech gardens are springing up across the country usually associated with an entrepreneurial school. But is there another way to teach entrepreneurship?

We recently had the pleasure of meeting Jon Atkinson of Loyola University in New Orleans. He has different take which we feel may be more practical and realistic. Instead of “pressuring” students to come up with a business concept either before or immediately after graduation, he focuses on preparing his students to go to work first for other startup businesses as employees. He wants them to experience what it’s like to be in a startup first hand.

We appreciate this approach, since in our own case we both had work experience which taught us the value of many principles we later applied to our own business, such as how to set priorities and how to organize new information. Sure, there was still a lot to learn, but at least we had some practical reference for the some of the basics.

Working for a startup is going to make you painfully aware of the value of sales and channel distribution management, two of the most overlooked requirements of startup success. It rapidly becomes clear that if there aren’t enough sales, your livelihood is in jeopardy. It becomes clear that getting products to market requires constant vigilance of the myriad of people between you and the consumer. It also becomes clear that imaginative cash flow management is essential, and that credit is based on positive relationships with every supplier, vendor and buyer. You become aware that key strategic alliances are the backbone of startup success. The big message is that it’s not about the product as much as it’s about the management and relationships.

Formal education can give you the form and function of the various aspects of entrepreneurship. It can help with planning, modeling, and projections. It can even help you better communicate what you want and need. But there’s nothing like “boot camp” in the real world to tie it all together and bring home the big lessons.

We feel that Jon Atkinson’s approach is a more reasonable and natural progression. After a few years of employment with a startup, you may be better prepared to take on that next great opportunity that presents itself.

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