Wine | The Barefoot Spirit

A Transformative Idea: “Business Audio Theatre” From The Founders Of Barefoot Wine. Not Just Narrated … Performed! – Forbes

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 20:22:10 +0000

Over the years, I’ve written about, interviewed, and listened to Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, the founders of Barefoot Wine and New York Times bestselling authors of The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand.

Recently their latest project caught my eye, or should I say, my ear. Welcome to the world of Business Audio Theatre, where business audiobooks are not just narrated but performed! Last week I caught up with the dynamic duo at their California Wine Country home. I wanted to know more.

Robert Reiss: You guys built and sold what is now the world’s #1 wine brand. Wasn’t that enough?

To read the complete article, please visit Forbes

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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How the Official Champagne for The Times Square New Year’s Eve Party Was Named

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 22:45:19 +0000

Michael Houlihan, Co-Founder of Barefoot Wines, came back exhausted from a sales trip to Southern California in late 1993. He told Bonnie Harvey, the other Co-Founder of Barefoot Wines, and her mom, Mabel Hurd, it was a disaster because the stores were stocking up for Christmas and New Years.

“We sell wine,” Michael said. “And everyone’s buying Champagne.”

“Why don’t you have a Champagne?” Mabel said. Mabel had been a Rosie-the-Riveter welder during World War II, helping build liberty ships in the Portland shipyards. In late 1987, Mabel was living in Sandy, Oregon, in the foothills of Mt. Hood, growing and selling organic blueberries. They asked Mabel to come live with them in Sonoma County, to help them grow their new business, Barefoot Wines.

“I can barely sell wine,” Michael said. But he thought, you know, why don’t we have a Champagne? “What would I call it, anyway?”

Mabel barely paused. “Well, I’d call it Barefoot Bubbly,” she said.

It took a few years. Barefoot’s sparkling wine didn’t hit the market until 1997. A year later, Michael and Bonnie toasted Mabel on her 80^th birthday with their Champagne named Barefoot Bubbly.

Thanks to the winemaking mastery of Jennifer Wall, Barefoot Bubbly became a reality and an American favorite! And her friend Mabel would be very proud to see the champagne she named become the toast of the town, heck, the toast of the planet!

Barefoot Bubbly will be the Official Champagne for the Times Square, New Year’s Eve Ball Drop, viewed by 3 billion people worldwide. Barefoot Bubbly is the first American champagne in years to toast this very American celebration. And we are especially proud of the fact that it was originally named by Bonnie’s mother.

Who We Are

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

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The Entrepreneurs Radio Show Interview

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 18:26:40 +0000

We were interviewed on “The Entrepreneurs Radio Show” by host, Travis Jenkins.

In this interview, you will find out:

How a client’s bankruptcy led to a successful business.
Learning to sell a product that landed in their lap
Asking a client what HE wants leads to a big win
How an iconic wine label is born
Finding the right niche
The risk of souring the market
Giving the public a social reason to buy your product
Supporting charitable groups leads to instant customers
Being in business for yourself is a great self-improvement program
The benefits of being young and dumb

To listen to the interview, please click the play button below:

https://thebarefootspirit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/TERS_186-1.mp3

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Do These 5 Things To Turn Your Company Into A Massive Success

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 16:12:42 +0000

Wine has become synonymous with our culture. It is a drink that many divulge in while they relax in their homes, enjoy meals at restaurants, and celebrate special occasions. Even scientists claim that the resveratrol within red wines can lead to a healthy heart.

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey of Barefoot Wine have spent 20 years building the famous brand that has done over a quarter of a billion dollars in sales for the last five years. Since selling their company to E&J Gallo, they have focused on helping millennials build and monetize their brand equity.

Read more…

Who We Are

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

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5 Startup Lessons

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 18:24:07 +0000

I’m not a connoisseur of wine. I’m still confused about which type of grape corresponds to which type of wine, and still have not perfected my pronunciation of “sauvignon.”

Over the years, I haven’t improved much when it comes to wine selection, but I have spent a decent amount of time walking the aisles trying to figure out which one to bring home. When I need to grab a bottle of wine at the store, I still ask for help.

However, even with my high level of wine ignorance, when I heard a reference to Barefoot Wines recently, I immediately knew the wine. It made me think of the wine bottles I have seen over the years, with the very distinguishable logo: a footprint. Bottles with a footprint appear in many different locations, and I expect it to be in the lineup whenever I’m browsing the aisles shopping by labels. Read more…

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8 Lessons For Budding Entrepreneurs

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:26:07 +0000

by Steve Olenski, Contributor, Forbes

Last December, my fellow FORBES contributor Robert Reiss, wrote a great piece entitled “The Incredible Story Of Starting The World’s Largest Wine Brand, Barefoot Wines.” The article was essentially a get-to-know two amazing people who launched what is now an iconic brand in a laundry room of a rented farmhouse in the Sonoma County hills.

I had the pleasure of meeting with and speaking with the two founders, Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, last year at a C-Suite Conference in Marina del Rey, California. Read more…

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CSULB Beach Magazine – Footprints for Success

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sun, 21 Dec 2014 00:43:00 +0000

Footprints for Success

By Anne Ambrose • Winter 2014

Wine is a pleasant accompaniment to dinners and parties, but the abundance of choices and prices can be daunting.

It took Michael Houlihan, a 1968 political science alumnus, and Bonnie Harvey to significantly reshape California’s wine industry when they created Barefoot Cellars in 1986, nurturing it into one of the nation’s top brands. They recently shared their story with College of Business Administration classes.

Their principle of “follow your opportunity passionately” underlies their ongoing success as entrepreneurs, taking a chance on assuming a winery’s debt with the idea of starting their own business. “We thought at the time, because we were so ignorant, that we’ll just take the bulk wine and bottle it up and go to the supermarket and ask them what kind of label they want on it,” Houlihan recalled.

To read the complete article, please visit the Beach Magazine

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Taste California Travel!

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Thu, 08 Aug 2013 15:46:29 +0000

The Barefoot Spirit Review by Dan Clarke

The Barefoot Spirit succeeds on several levels.

Those in or around the wine business will enjoy some of the inside scoop on how a young couple naively entered their industry, made predictable mistakes and yet survived. And eventually prospered. Actually, though the product was wine, their journey might serve as a blueprint smart people with boundless energy and dogged persistence could apply to any business. There’s also a “feel good” element to the Barefoot story. Houlihan and Harvey found ways to “do well by doing good.” when they applied their social consciousness in helping causes they thought worthy—and did it in ways that helped build their brand.

When a winemaker friend was owed money by a bankrupt Sonoma County winery in 1985, the couple came up with a novel way to make him whole. They convinced the winery, which was cash poor, but did have a couple of unrealized assets—unbottled wine in tanks and a functional bottling line—to resolve their debt in wine and bottling services. They would help their friend out by selling the wine. After all, it was good wine. How difficult could it be?

To read the complete review, please visit Taste California Travel

Who We Are

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

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KBOI-TV 2 Television Interview

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 18:42:32 +0000

BOISE, Idaho (KBOI) – The founders of Barefoot Wine have a new book out talking about their unique journey of building one of the countries top selling wines. Although it may not have happened if not for the current owner of a Boise restaurant.

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey started Barefoot Wine out of their laundry room in California back in 1985. The current owner of the Stagecoach Inn in Boise, Rick Fraser, was a distributor in California at the time.

Early in their business Michael had a different distributor who didn’t pay his bill, and put is wine out in the hot sun. That could have been a huge financial hit, but he called Fraser who went and picked up the wine and began selling it.

To view the complete article and watch the video interview, please click visit this link KBOI-TV2

Who We Are

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

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Wine Business Monthly

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Wed, 29 May 2013 19:48:41 +0000

by Cyril Penn | May 24, 2013 | 2:35 PM

So I finished reading my advance copy of The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart built America’s #1 Wine Brand (written with Rick Kushman). It was officially released last week.

These days, Barefoot is owned by E&J Gallo and is a six-million case brand. It wasn’t always that way.

Most people aren’t familiar with the improbable story of how Barefoot started. Back in 1985, when Chateau Souverain was taken over by creditors, it owed grower Mark Lyons (now Sebastiani’s winemaker) for 300 tons of grapes. Mark’s friend Michael Houlihan tried to help. Houlihan, who knew absolutely nothing about the wine industry, paid Souverain a visit hoping to help Lyons recover something – anything. Houlihan naively figured he could help Lyons bottle and sell wine to earn the lost money back. He made a deal for 18,000 cases of wine. In those days, the bulk market for wine wasn’t what it is today. Souverain’s people had no guarantee the wine in their tanks would ever get sold and were happy to have the debt off the books. Next thing you know, Houlihan is in the wine business.

To read the complete article, please click HERE

Who We Are

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

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