Are you ready for an open discussion with the best of the best and the best of what's next? Welcome to the Tony DUrso Show. Join in on a great conversation today with some of the world's great influencers as they showcase great advice and techniques that made them the game changers they are today. Now here's Tony DUrso.

Tony:

Welcome. I'm your host, Tony DUrso. I interview some of the most successful people in the world and I thank you for joining us. This show is dedicated to helping you turn your vision into reality. And here are successful entrepreneurs who provide insights and guidance you can use to move along your vision path. Listen to my shows at Tony D-U-R-S-O.com or go to your favorite podcast platform, such as Apple podcasts and search for Tony DUrso, and before we get going, please stay tuned for important messages from our sponsors and check out Masterclass. Now is the time to become the expert in the field of your interest. Listen for my story just ahead on what class I'm taking and with an annual pass, you get a free one to share at masterclass.com/D-U-R-S-O. More details just ahead so please stay tuned. Today's show is about the barefoot spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. Let's see what we can learn today. At the end of this interview, I'm going to do a summary recap of what we went over. So stay tuned for that. Here's some info on Michael and Bonnie. They're the founders of Barefoot Wine, America's number one wine brand. Their New York Times business bestseller, The Barefoot Spirit is now required reading in more than 50 schools of entrepreneurship, and here's a short clip about their journey from their new audio book. This one's called Birth of the Foot. She needed to make it solid. She needed Michael to draw it and she needed this to happen fast. That's why she was almost vibrating to get it out, and why she hustled the half-asleep Michael to the little green chalkboard in the kitchen. I know what the label looks like. This is going to be a big success. I could see it stacked in supermarkets. This is going to sell a lot of wine. Michael picked up the chalk and started to draw. Quick, quick, draw a foot. What kind of foot? A nice foot. Just draw it. Michael sketched a slim right foot along the bottom of the chalkboard. No, no, no. Stand it up. He erased it and drew one with the heel at the bottom and the toes straight up. Close. Tilt it to the right. He erased and drew again. No, no. More tilt. Just a little. Make it look like there's some motion. It's like someone is stepping up. Bonnie's voice was getting louder. She was talking faster, feeling like this was even more urgent. Her panic was growing. They could not lose this idea. Is that it? By now, the chalkboard had a layer of white dust from all the erased chalk. Really close! The foot should look like an exclamation point, an italicized exclamation point and give it a little more arch. It got more tilt. It got more arch. How's that? Now write barefoot. Michael put down barefoot next to the angled drawing. Closer, move it closer. Put the tee all the way inside the arch. Bonnie stopped bouncing and looked at it. The board was nearly white. The air was filled with chalk dust. They stood silently, surrounded by their intensity. Both were taking big breaths. Bonnie's fear had dissipated. They looked at a slim right foot pointing up at a two o'clock angle acting as an exclamation point for the barefoot written into the arch. They both thought it was good, but they had no idea that in not much more than a decade, it would become an iconic national label. There! That's what the label looks like. That's going to sell a lot of wine.

Tony:

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. Welcome again to the show. I've had you on before a few times. So great to have you back on again on the Tony DUrso Show. Bonnie: Delighted to be back with you, Tony. Thank you.

Michael:

Yeah, a blast.

Tony:

It's been great. And you know, since we've been on the last time, my audience has grown quite a bit. We have new entrepreneurs and business owners in the audience, so let's educate everyone on what's going on and let's take it from the beginning, shall we? First things first, Michael and Bonnie, how did it all start for you? What's your backstory? Bonnie: Well, how it started with the barefoot wine project was really kind of a fluke. I had a client who was not paid for his grapes for three years and Michael and I were both living here in Sonoma County as business consultants. And I turned to Michael, who was my new boyfriend at the time and said, would you just go out and collect these funds that are owed to my client for his grapes? He hasn't been paid in three years and he's owed $300,000. So I know that you're a great business consultant. Why don't you go out there and collect the funds?

Michael:

Yeah, easier said than done. When I got there, they had declared bankruptcy and it did not look good for the home team. However, I was able to negotiate a trade. Bulk wine and bottling services for the debt. So we didn't get paid in money what was owed, but we did get bottling services and wine, which is basically getting paid in bottles of wine without labels. So we have to come up with a label and a marketing program and learn about distribution. Basically, learn about the entire industry. How hard could that be, right? Bonnie: And how long did it take?

Tony:

Michael, this reminds me of the story. It has nothing to do with it. Don't ask me why, but it reminds me of the kid going out to sell the cow, coming back with magic beans. What were you thinking? Bonnie: And then our clients said, well, I can't take on a new business. He said, I'm a full-time winemaker and I've got my vineyard that I'm managing. He said, I guess I'll just have to take the loss. Well, this was several months later. Michael and I had gotten all the licenses, gotten the line of credit. This is all in the client's name to begin with. And we'd scheduled the bottling. We developed the label and we said, no, wait, you can't take the loss. That's $300,000. And Michael of course always being the brilliant one, he says, well, I've got an idea. And I nodded, before he even said what it was. He said, well, instead of us working for you, you work for us. We'll take on the $300,000 debt and we'll pay you a hundred cents on the dollar where the bankrupt winery paid three and a half cents on the dollar. And he said, you give us your wine-making expertise. You front us some grapes and we'll go out and sell it. We'll sell it all to a chain, a big chain. How does that sound? Pay you back, put a couple of bucks in our pocket and move on. So that was plan A, Tony.

Michael:

Yeah. And then what happens is, we did a bunch of research. Bonnie did all the legal research. It's alcohol beverage so it's a controlled substance. So you get investigated and where the money come from and all this stuff, and you got to get about 18 licenses. And in the process, we had a crash course, a real crash course on this, and we got it in the bottle. We came up with a label. We went down to the buyer who told us what was needed. And we said, here it is. Everything you asked for. How many truckloads do you want? And the buyer says, are you crazy? I can't put this in. You're going to have to do a million dollars’ worth of advertising. Well, we didn't have a million that's for sure. We didn't have anything. So how are we going to get the word out about this product? And so that's when things really got scary because we were on the verge of being discontinued. Our plan A was go out and sell a big chain, take the money and you're down the road. Plan B was okay, go out and sell every mom and pop and every independent market until it becomes a household name, then go back to the chains and see if they'll take it then. Well, there's some interesting clips from our book about that, but it's ... Bonnie: Yes, we put our story in a paperback. I had an excellent author take our stories and put it in very humorous form, and it became a New York Times best seller. It's called The Barefoot Spirit, and then we decided to put it in an audio book. And that's some samples that we're playing today for your audience.

Tony:

Yes. The audience has already heard one sample and throughout the show in the commercial breaks, I'm going to play some more. But you know, Mike, I've interviewed both of you twice. And as I listened again, you are such a shrewd businessman. I'd like to know more about you and your backstory. You've been this magic maker behind the scenes. Tell us more about yourself please.

Michael:

Well, my background really is in local government. I worked for local governments. I worked for the City Manager of Anaheim right out of college and I was an assistant down there and ran errands for him and I learned a lot about business from him. And then I went to work for the HUD, Housing and Urban Development and they were rebuilding cities actually. Big cities like Oakland, Portland and San Francisco. And so I worked for them and I learned even more. I got involved in business relocation, where people who were in business in a redevelopment area were faced with losing their businesses because of the wrecking ball. So, what were they going to do? They had to move. Well, they couldn't just move if they hadn't codified their business, because they're going to a new location and basically starting over. So today they would call that documentation franchising. So you learn how to do your business in one area, you write down everything there is to know about your business so that you can do it in another area. And so that's what I did. That was what my skill was. And I did that for a couple of years and I finally realized that a government career was not what I was cut out to do. I could sit there and I have to wait for my boss to either die or leave town if I was ever going to get a promotion. So I quit, much to my grandmother's chagrin because she said, Oh, Michael, you had all that great security with a fine civil service job, right in her Irish accent. And I went out on my own and I started helping businesses who were trying to get something done with the government because I knew how those guys and gals thought, and I could move things through the bureaucracy much faster than people from the private sector could because I had that insight. So I was doing that in Sonoma County and that's where I met Bonnie. And Bonnie was... Well, tell a little bit about yourself, Bonnie. What's your background? Bonnie: I was helping small business owners organized their offices and I had a real passion for business. So this was really delightful for me. I could work on my own. I had a number of clients and a number of them were in the wine industry. I had several wineries and growers that I was working for, and it always fascinated me that they could have this great idea, but not understand how to keep their own records and their equipment and their tools and everything organized. So basically, I'd come in and help them get things organized so we can have a clear picture of where they were at and what they needed and how to move forward.

Tony:

That's very interesting and as I recall from reading about you and also prior interviews, your office, I believe was in the laundry room of a barn? Bonnie: Something like that. Our first office for Barefoot Wines was in the laundry room of a rented house. And it was in the laundry room because there was a big gap there where the washer and dryer were supposed to be, because we couldn't afford a washer and dryer. So we said, great, that's what we'll put our desks, but we couldn't afford a desk either. So that's where the barn came in. We went out to the barn and we found a door and we cleaned it up and put it on two saw horses, and that was the desk, the first desk for Barefoot Wines and humble beginnings, as they say, Tony.

Tony:

Absolutely amazing, and what the audience may or may not know yet is you've built an empire, a very big empire on this, whether it was serendipity or you just knew how to take a bad thing and make it really good. Where did... or actually when and where in all of this did the vision come about for not just how to handle $300,000 in debt or $300,000 in product, but this empire. Where and when did that come about?

Michael:

Well, you know, it's kind of like in business, you really can't do things halfway. A lot of people think you go into business and you make all these profits, and at the end of the year, you're looking at all these profits and you say, well, honey, what do we want? An airplane? A swimming pool? A yacht? It doesn't work like that. Typically, what happens is if there's any money over at the end of the year, you're going to put it into expansion because you know that if you don't expand your business, somebody else will, your competitors will. We want to monetize on our brand equity. If you have a good idea, you take the good idea and you wrap it in a product, and then you take the product and you wrap it in a brand and you take the brand and you wrap it in a business, and then you build the business up, which is that reinvestment I'm talking about until you are an acquisition target. And that's when you get paid. The paycheck is at the end. It's not during.

Tony:

Those are some great takeaways, Michael. Love it. And what would you say is the purpose for what you do now? Bonnie: Well, we've created business audio theater-style audio book out of the Barefoot Spirit.

Tony:

This is the Tony DUrso Show where you could learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about the Barefoot Spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We are with you wherever Alexa and Google are - at home, in the car, on your smart TV and your connected devices. Hey Alexa! Hey Google! Play my favorite Voice America podcast on Tune In. It's just that easy, but make sure you actually mention the name of the podcast show to make it work.

Tony:

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Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn today. Today's show is about the barefoot spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this, and I'll share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. Michael and Bonnie's new audio book is presented in a theatrical format with Hollywood actors playing the parts, original music score, sound effects and more. And here's a short clip from their new audio book. This one's titled First Buyer. Yeah Houlihan, what do you want? Michael put a bottle of barefoot Cabernet and one of the Sauvignon Blanc on Brown's desk. We bottled the wine and want you to see it. Brown picked up the bottle of red and looked it up and down. Then he did the same with the white. This is what you asked for. There aren't any leaps or hills or rivers. It's a label she can read from four feet away. The logo is the same as the name. It's in plain English and easy to pronounce. It's a name she'll remember and a logo she won't forget. Michael was proud of what they'd done in the way of a student with a good report card. Barefoot was unique, interesting, and fit everything that Brown and the others said would sell. The wine he knew it was terrific. The label was friendly and fun. What's not to love, he thought? Brown kept looking at the bottles. He didn't say anything. The silence was uncomfortable, but Michael sat quietly. Brown looked at the bottles again, but said nothing. Michael figured it was just Don Brown being Don Brown, make everyone sweat. So Don, how many truckloads do you want? Brown put the bottle down on his desk and looked at Michael like he was from Mars. Michael couldn't have gotten a worst look from Brown if he had clucked. Are you crazy? I can't buy this. Nobody knows this brand. Nobody's ever seen or heard of barefoot. It's everything you asked for. Yeah, so what? That doesn't matter. No-one's going to buy something they never heard of. You got to advertise it. If you're willing to spend $1 million on TV ads, I'll buy it from you. We don't have that kind of advertising budget. In truth, they had no advertising budget. There wasn't $100 for ads. Then you got to go make a name for yourself. You got to go sell it to every mom and pop store on every corner till everyone knows what barefoot is. Michael felt like he just got hit by a brick. That'll take years. Well Houlihan, you better get started.

Tony:

And now back to the chat with Michael and Bonnie. Bonnie: So it's like 3D storytelling for your ears. And the reason that we did that is because we wanted to get our business lessons out to the greatest number of people. And as we looked around, we saw more and more people wearing ear buds. We said, well, we're going to have to get in on the other end of those ear buds so we can get our message out to more people. We knew some people in Hollywood. We met an acting troop and production called Assured Players, and we worked with them to take our audio book...excuse me, to take our paperback. Our New York times bestseller the barefoot spirit and create a theatrical production. We had Hollywood actors, we had sound effects. We had original music and it's really, really fun. We've learned enough to realize that if you can't entertain your audience, you're not going to hold your audience. So, we wrapped our business principles, our guiding principles for success in humorous stories, and now we've got an audio book that really brings them all to life. It's very exciting and we did it to reach a greater number of people, but it's working so well. We've gotten such wonderful response that now we have a company that can produce that for founders so they can keep their business principles alive.

Tony:

Michael and Bonnie, let's get into your vision path. Let's drill down into this. I'm curious. How do you go from selling wine to producing theatrical style audio books? You just mentioned a little bit about this, Bonnie prior to the break. I'd like to drill down more into this. What were you thinking? Bonnie: The lessons that we learned, Tony, building the wine business were so hard for us. They were so surprising and it took so much time and money, and there was so much stress involved. We really wanted to share those experiences, which are applicable to any business, with other people that are young entrepreneurs. So that was our goal in the first place.

Michael:

And one of the things that we did over and over again was we made mistakes. We made lots and lots of mistakes. Bonnie: That's how we learned.

Michael:

And it really is because we had popularly held misconceptions about business, about what your customer wants. I mean, most people think their customer wants their product because say it's a gold medal winner or it's inexpensive, or it has some big write up, or it's fantastic. No, no, no, no, no. They don't want that. The person you're talking to may have a whole different agenda for what he needs in order to move your product down the line. And if you don't learn that, then you really failed. There are warehouses all over America that are filled with great ideas, but they never got into distribution, and so the key is really, can you get it out there and can you keep it out there? For us, it was such a lesson. We said, you know, this is really more important than the wine business. It's more important than what we're doing. This is something that is a real legacy that we can leave for people. It's an educational legacy like here, follow our wild rocket ride adventure and see if you don't pick up on some mistakes that we made. Now you don't have to make them because you saw us make them and see if they're not assumptions that you carry. So that's what we're trying to do here and that's what the vision was. It's really to help people to make more successful businesses. Bonnie: Help them succeed faster.

Tony:

I'm getting it, I'm getting it. And of course, as you mentioned earlier, Bonnie, the world has gone mobile. Everybody it seems has a mobile phone. There's no way to get around it. Most of the listeners for the Tony DUrso Show are on mobile, but you've still caught though, that this having a theater, real Hollywood actors playing the part, the whole thing, this was the way you decided that you're going to communicate basic business principles.

Michael:

So when we did is when we first started realizing that everybody was wearing ear buds - this was like three or four years ago and then it got more and more - we did some research. We found out that podcasts were going through the roof. They were extremely popular. We found out that audio books came from nowhere and got popular. And so we wanted to know why and the answer was really surprising. It's because they're truly mobile. If it's print or video, your mobile device is immobilized because you have to sit there and watch it. So you can't drive or jog or change your baby's diapers while you're learning a lesson or being entertained by a story. So that was the real beauty of audio. The other thing that we noticed too is when we went out, we bought a couple of audio books and listened to them and they were sort of single dimensional. Somebody would read the book to you. Sometimes it'd be a Hollywood actor or a celebrity, which was nice, but you're with this person for five or six hours. So we thought, this is really one dimensional. Let's think about this. And one day we were driving across the desert down in Arizona, and here comes NPR with Guy Noir, Private Detective, and it's an old fashioned, 1945 style radio show with music and acting and action and outtakes and all kinds of things, sound effects. Bonnie: Very home companion.

Michael:

And we said that is something that young people today would really appreciate. You know, those pictures from the 1940s where the family sitting around and they are transfixed on the speaker on their radio. It's because they're having a motion picture going on in their mind, and so they're fascinated and we thought this is a really engaging and if it's fun, and it's not one of those books that's here's the 3 things you got to do, the 5 things to never do, and the 28 things your customer wants from you style format. It's more like here are Michael and Bonnie, they're pouring wine and this guy comes in and shows them a badge and tells them that they're going to have to pay a $10,000 fine. Okay. So now, you know, what's going to happen to them. So kind of tune in next week, sort of like a cliff hanger. But what it does, I think is when somebody says to you, John came into the office and pulled up a chair and you hear it on audio, your brain goes out and grabs a chair from your memory. Your brain goes out and grabs the office. So now you're participating in the story and that's the beauty of audio is that it is participatory. We call this experiential learning these days, but that's what excited us about it, and that's where the vision came.

Tony:

Michael, I'm already sold. I'm excited about it. I'm thinking, as you're saying this, I want my next book to be like this. Bonnie: Yes, and that's why we can help.

Tony:

Really?

Michael:

We're trying to start a whole new genre of audio book, which we call business audio theater.

Tony:

Ooh. I know some customers for you. I'm really serious. This is cool. Would you like to tell us more about that now? Take a little commercial break on that and then we'll go back into Barefoot Wine?

Michael:

Sure. So a little more on the business audio theater. Obviously, if the person who wants the business audio theater already has a written biography, and obviously if that written biography say the story of my business or whatever, and it has scenes in it that are like oh so telling. So, some action goes down between people, they get into an argument or somebody gets thrown out of an office or what have you. Things happen, right? And you can draw conclusions from it, that's the most ideal way to do it. But if they just have a written book, we can do what we call an adaption. So we adapt it for audio play just like adapting it for screenplay, we adapt it for an audio.

Tony:

Absolutely amazing. And I want to definitely hear more about that. And for our audience, if they go to barefootspirit.com, Michael and Bonnie, can they find out more about this? Bonnie: There is actually the word "the" in front of it - www.thebarefootspirit.com, Tony.

Michael:

And if they click on the picture of the audio book on that website, they can actually listen to the first chapter for free. So we'd sit here and talk about what the experience is like, but when you've got your buds on and you're right there at the meeting, or you're right there in the parking lot, or you're fighting the rain or whatever, this is the real world that you now are immersed in, and the sound effects and the music really make it real. So we love that term 3D audio.

Tony:

I like it, and I am definitely going to find out more about this. This is the Tony DUrso Show where you could learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about the barefoot spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We are with you wherever Alexa and Google are - at home, in the car, on your smart TV and your connected devices. Hey Alexa! Hey Google! Play my favorite Voice America podcast on Tune In. It's just that easy, but make sure you actually mentioned the name of the podcast show to make it work. You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. Now back to Tony and his guests.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn today. Today's show is about the barefoot spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this, and I'll share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. And here's a short clip from their new audio book. This one's titled The No Game. The no game was straightforward. Just keep trying until you get a yes. Lots of times they cheerfully attacked getting told no as if it were a puzzle to solve. This came just as much from lessons Michael and Bonnie learned in their lives as from business experience. There was for instance, a dinner with Mabel in the early 1990s at a Mexican restaurant in Santa Rosa. Mabel couldn't get the server to take her order. I'd like to have the vegetable fajitas, please. I'm sorry, Ma'am. We only serve beef, chicken or shrimp. Are you sure you can't make an exception this time? I'll even pay a little extra. I'm sorry, Ma'am. I wish I could. Fajitas of course are usually grilled meat, chicken, or seafood on a tortilla with loads of onions and peppers. Okay then. I'll have a chicken fajita. Hold the chicken. No problem. That's the no game. Figure there's always an answer. Just keep playing.

Tony:

And now back to the chat with Michael and Bonnie. Now we're going to go back to the famous footprint. Tell us that story. I just absolutely love it. How did you guys come up with the barefoot spirit logo? Bonnie: Well, because we knew nothing of the wine industry and that was apparently the industry that we fell into, we went out and asked a lot of people a lot of questions. We asked the buyers what they wanted, and they said that they wanted a label where the name was the same as the logo, and they wanted it to stand out.

Michael:

In plain English. Bonnie: In plain English. No French. So we started with that idea and went out and asked people on the bottling line, and he said, well, what I see that moves a lot of product are the labels that are clean and easy to read, and they have a lightness, a brightness to them. The ones that are dark and have fancy font, they don't sell, or they don't bottle a lot presumably because they're not selling. So that was more information for us. So we asked a lot of other people and we hadn't come up with a label or anything or a name. And one night, about three months later, after a late dinner with some friends, I came home and it came to me. I said, Michael, I know what the label looks like. We'd come up with the name Barefoot and we'd come up with the foot because that satisfied the name, the same as the logo, but what does it look like on paper, on the bottle? And I said, it's got to stand up. It looks like it's moving out. So it's got some action to it, like an italicized exclamation point where the heel is the dot at the exclamation point, and the word Barefoot I saw that that came in in a high arch. And I saw the complete picture in my mind. I had Michael drawn on the board and I was so excited. I said, I know that this is going to sell a lot of wine.

Tony:

You sure were right. Amazing. It's so brilliant, and you surveyed all the people involved. Go figure! I mean, that is just, it's not just simple. We hear about it, but you actually did it and showed how important that is. Now as part of this perhaps, Michael you were saying you guys made a lot of mistakes. You guys learned a lot and you teach others I know, so that we don't have to make those mistakes. But would you care to regale us with a couple of, let's say the biggest mistakes that you see our entrepreneurs making today?

Michael:

Oh, sure. I mean probably the biggest mistake we made and we see other entrepreneurs doing it all the time is that they fall in love with their product. They say, hey, it's inexpensive, it's high quality. It delivers a great value. What's not to like, right? But they never really find out what the truck driver needs. They never find out what the warehouse man needs. They don't find out what the clerk needs or any of the other people that are involved. The salespeople, what do they need? Bonnie: You have to satisfy all of their needs before you have an opportunity to sell it to your end user.

Michael:

Yeah. As an example, we went out and started beating people up with features and benefits and pricing, and it was almost a year before we realized that we weren't getting anywhere and that we were intimidating people. So that's when we started to say, okay then. What's really important to you? And we found out to the sales manager, what was important to him was getting his numbers every month. So we had to have a guy who worked for us and we said to the sales manager, look, if your own salespeople don't hit the number, our guy who's on our payroll, will hit the number for you. And maybe the guy owns the distributor. He didn't want to hear about features and benefits or prices or values. He just wanted to know if the largest retailer in his territory was going to take our product or not. And then what about the clerk in the store? Well, he wanted to know that we thought that he was very important. So we take them out to lunch, buy him a baseball cap, tell him how important it was that he reordered the product for us and make him feel important. Bonnie: Because if he didn't replace the bottles on the shelf that had sold, then we wouldn't be in the store. Nobody could buy it.

Michael:

Yeah. So you can imagine how many mistakes would be made with the wrong attitude or with preconceived notions. I mean, Americans, we grew up in a first world country, you go to the store, everything's there. It's all pressed out for you, and you might say to yourself, geez, I wonder why nobody's ever thought of this or that because you don't see it in your store. Well, maybe they thought about it. They just couldn't get it to the store. Or maybe they got it to the store, but they couldn't keep it there. And so those are the kind of mistakes that entrepreneurs make is they just discount the delivery system.

Tony:

Brilliant advice, very sage, okay. We have a logo; we have the mistakes. We have surveying the whole distribution line, but you built this amazing brand. What else did you have to do to build this brand? Bonnie: Well, persistence. Diligence. We found out that it was essential that we understand the distribution network and what everyone needed along the line. So in order to expand, we have to have our own people on our payroll in every area where our product was. They were what we called our wine cops. Our salespeople had to go into the distributorship to make sure the product was there and was reordered ahead of an ad. They had to go into the retailers to make sure that the product was on the shelf and it was priced right. And they had to go into the community to bring bare footers from the community that were interested in the product into the stores to buy it. And in order to do that, they had to satisfy the community's needs. So we'd help them with their community fundraisers to clean up a park or to open a library for the kids or something like that. So we supported the community and gave them our wine for their fundraisers, told them where to buy it. So that brought the customers into the retailer. That satisfied the retailer's needs.

Michael:

You know, the other thing that I would like to add to what Bonnie says is you go from startup where you're out on your credit cards. You don't know if you're going to make it and then you become build up. And that's where all of a sudden you get a couple of big buyers, and you're starting to pay your bills and keep the lights on, but don't start celebrating yet because now they've got you over the barrel. They know that you're dependent on them, the few big buyers that you have. So then you say, Oh, well, I guess I better expand and have more big buyers. So you do that. And that's where most businesses fail right there. It's because they have underestimated the cost of sales, not the cost of goods. Everybody knows what the cost of goods are, but the cost of sales. In other words, what does it cost to take Jim over there out to lunch four times a year? What does it cost to fly to Chicago three or four times a year and stay in a hotel? What does it cost to put up collateral materials in the stores, little signs and whatnot display? What does it cost to provide an incentive for sales people to do what they're supposed to do? And you just keep going on. And when you add up all those costs, you go, Oh my gosh. I wonder if there's certain territories that are cheaper to expand into than others? Like for instance, we found out it was easier for us to go into South Carolina right off the bat instead of New York City right off the bat.

Tony:

That makes sense. And, you know, guys, I remember years back, I'm trying to think of when it was, but I walked into my grocery store, which I did every week. We buy groceries. So we walk into the grocery store, usually it's every week. And I see these footprints on the ground as soon as I walk in the store, and I'm like, Oh, okay, and the first thought in my head, cause I'm a marketing person. I go, whoever did this is a genius. This is cool. So I follow it and walk to it and you audience, you know where it was? It took me to a shelf. I think it was down on the bottom, but it took me to the Barefoot Wine. I was like, these people are smart. And I was thinking to myself, this is going to go places.

Michael:

There's a great story behind that. Bonnie: It's in the book The Barefoot Spirit.

Michael:

It's in the book, but this really has to do with an attitude. Part of the barefoot spirit, people say, Oh, that's the spirit or the team's got great spirit or what's the spirit of this, or what's the spirit behind it. And what they're really talking about is what is the attitude? What is the overall view? And you know, our view was to include people. We were inclusive. So we started out, as you remember, by asking lots of questions hand in hand, because we were afraid and we didn't know what we were doing, so that was a good thing. We got good answers, but we didn't stop there. We would involve our people. We believed in what we call know the need, as opposed to need to know. Now many big companies, they don't want to tell their people they're having a problem with sales or marketing, because they're afraid that they're going to rush to the door and say, well, this place is unstable. I've got to find a better job. We didn't believe that. We believed that people who work for us had brains and that if they were given a problem that they could maybe noodle it out and come up with an idea that we never thought of. So what happened, Bonnie? How did that happen? Bonnie: Our sales meetings, which I think were monthly, all of our salespeople throughout the nation would call in. We'd put them on a speaker phone. Everybody from our office would gather in our conference room and listen to each sales person in their own territory talk about their challenges, talking about their opportunities and their goals. So one particular sales person in Florida said, you know, I've really got great news. Well, I've got good news and bad news. Good news - we have a test market in the largest chain store in Florida. Yay. That was all good news. So what's the bad news? Well, in these stores where the buyer's going to see if we do okay in a small number of stores before he puts us in all the stores, they put us on the bottom shelf. So how are we going to be found on the bottom shelf? It's the worst place for a product to be because nobody looks down. And somebody said, well, maybe we'll pick up the foot traffic. So we all got a little laugh out of that. And somebody else said, you know what's not a bad idea? Let's take some sticky paper and put big purple feet on them, and just like you saw Tony, walk people from the front door into the wine aisle and then turn them to face the shelf where our product is. They're going to wonder why they're there. They're going to look down to reconfirm that that's where the feet have led them, and when they look down, they're going to see a big sign that says Barefoot with an arrow pointing to the bottom shelf where our product is.

Tony:

Who came up with that idea? Bonnie: Well, that was the receptionist. I think she needed to know the challenges that we were up against because she came up with a brilliant idea. It worked so well that we used it throughout the nation. That helped us grow.

Tony:

Absolutely brilliant. This is the Tony DUrso Show where you could learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Just ahead the chat continues about the barefoot spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. But first it's time for us to take a short break. See you back here in just a moment. We are with you wherever Alexa and Google are - at home, in the car, on your smart TV and your connected devices. Hey Alexa! Hey Google! Play my favorite voice America podcast on Tune In. It's just that easy, but make sure you actually mention the name of the podcast show to make it work. You're listening to the Tony DUrso Show with special VIP guests. Now back to Tony and his guest.

Tony:

All right. We're back on the Tony DUrso Show where you can learn from the wisdom and success of others to help you move on your vision path. Let's see what we can learn today. Today's show is about the barefoot spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. At the end of this interview, I'll give you a summary of what I got out of this, and I'll share some pointers with you. Stay tuned for that. Michael and Bonnie are regular contributors to the business journals in 43 cities nationwide Entrepreneur and they contribute articles and interviews to Inc., The CEO Forum, Forbes and they are regular media guests on radio, TV, and podcasts. And here's a clip from their new audio book. This one's titled The Party. If there was a bare footer in the area and state laws allowed it, Randy would send the bare footer to the house to make the delivery. Hi, I'm from Barefoot. I heard you got a bad cork. The people at the door would have their jaws hanging open. Here's another bottle and here are a couple of t-shirts. Have a nice evening. Oh gee, thanks. Some of the calls were so good, Randy would play them on the answering machine at Barefoot's office. My lovely wife and I are enjoying a nice glass of your Cab. We're both barefoot. Not only that, we're both naked. Later I'm going to drink some wine from her shoe. When he could, Randy called back quickly, though he generally steered clear of people drinking from their shoes. He picked up a message one Friday evening from a party in Chicago. The caller said they loved the wine and made everyone take their shoes off before they phoned. Randy called back. Hi, my name is Randy. I'm from barefoot wine. Everyone, quiet. The barefoot guy is on the phone. How good was that? A salesman returning a phone call got turned into a superhero. It also got him the permanent nickname, the barefoot guy. I just called to say, I'm glad to hear you're having a good time. Thanks for drinking barefoot. Hey everyone, he said thanks for drinking Barefoot. People at that Chicago party started cheering. Randy could hear the whoops and yays! That doesn't sound particularly groundbreaking in this current hyperconnected world when making personal connections is a mainstream business tactic, but it was new then and it came from thinking the way any business needs to think.

Tony:

And now back to the chat with Michael and Bonnie. And now you teach a style. Obviously, you're not teaching putting logos on the ground, but you do workshops. You're in schools. You do so much and you teach a particular style. Can you encapsulate that for us a little?

Michael:

Well, the style is the attitude with which you conduct business. And for us, it's several things. We call it the Guiding Principles for Success. Bonnie: GPS.

Michael:

GPS, just like the GPS on your dash, but this is Guiding Principles for Success And the big, most important one is to put yourself in the other guy's shoes, have some empathy. A lot of people talk about the golden rule, but when it gets down to the practicality of how you actually execute that in the real business world, it requires asking a lot of questions and being humble and listening with both ears. And so that's the second thing. The third thing is you're going to make mistakes. You're going to make a lot of mistakes. And so, you have to make mistakes write and that's W-R-I-T-E. It's not just R-I-G-H-T. So you write down the mistake. You write down the assumptions that you had that led you to make the mistake or the miscommunications, and then you change a document. Maybe it's a sign, maybe it's a job description, a clause in the contract. You improve your documents and your business gets better. We like to say, never waste a perfectly good mistake. And another principle is the principle of humor. Don't take yourself or your business too seriously. You've got to see the fun side of things. And you know we have a game that we played that actually made fun out of adversity and anybody who's been in business will tell you there's adversity every day. So how do you make fun out of adversity? We created the NO game.

Tony:

That's very interesting. The NO game, Michael? Bonnie: Sales people hear NO all the time and no matter what position you're in in a company, you're going to get NOs. So in order to keep the spirits up, we created the NO game. We discovered that the average number of NOs was seven. So we said, well, if you haven't gotten seven yet, you're not even average so there's no complaining about that. Now if you've reached seven, then you're closer to yes. Yay. That's pretty encouraging, isn't it?

Tony:

I like that. Seven NOs to yes. Bonnie: So if you're still getting NOs, you ask a different day, you ask a different way or you ask a different person because really the only time you're going to get a no, instead of a later, when you're going to get the yes is when you say no to yourself and you stop asking.

Tony:

Very wise. I like that. Guys, what are you looking to accomplish in the next few years? Bonnie: We want to share what we've discovered through business audio theater with other founders, so they can keep their own principles and their own history and legacy alive and share it with the people that they're hiring and share it with their staff in this format that is more memorable for their employees.

Michael:

See, the best way to convey business principles is through story, and we believe the best way to convey a story is through theatrical acting. And so, our goal for the next few years is to find clients really who want to engage us to put together business audio theater for them and their companies to keep their spirit alive, to keep the founders' principle and the founders' history alive. You know, people go to work for a company. They could go to work for any company. They don't realize that there really was a person who had the name of the company or that that founder was in his garage every day, scared to death that he wasn't going to get a purchase order because he was going to go bankrupt if he didn't. So that kind of humanizes the founder and it gives people a chance to identify better with the company, but you can hand them a book to read. But again, it's immobilizing. If you give them an MP3 and a file that they can play on their buds, they can be jogging, driving, commuting, whatever, and learning about the business that they're working.

Tony:

Absolutely brilliant. Well, I wish you guys much success and I myself am very interested in about your theatrical audio version of a book. I'm really interested to find out more about that myself and I hope and encourage the audience to check you guys out at thebarefootspirit.com. B-A-R-E. You can also say "the". thebarefootspirit.com. This is Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. They are legendary in the wine industry, which I believe created America's number one wine brand, which is called Barefoot Wine and hence the barefoot spirit. Thank you, guys so much.

Michael:

It's been great to be on your show, Tony, thanks so much, and we wish your audience all the luck in the world.

Tony:

Thank you, and thank you too Bonnie. Thank you so much. Bonnie: Yes, this has been fun, Tony.

Tony:

Hey, success squad. Thanks for hanging out with me while I featured some elite entrepreneurs who took their vision to reality. I hope this was as inspiring for you as it was for me to do this interview. I learned so much. The insights are so valuable. So how did you like it? The barefoot spirit with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. There's only so much I can comment on. There are such great insights here. I love it. Now, how would you like to get paid in bottles of wine for your services? This is remarkable. And how about an office in the laundry room of a rented house with a table from a barn? It's amazing how they started off with such odds stacked against them. Humble beginnings, indeed. Did you hear that from Michael? If you don't invest back into your business to expand, then your competitor will. Very wise words! Write those down and ensure this is in your regular planning if you're really serious about succeeding. Michael and Bonnie continue to bring up great points on how they achieved their massive success. Do you know if you have any of the popular misconceptions about what your customer wants? Did you ever fall in the trap thinking that everybody wants your product because it's some kind of a gold medal winner or it's inexpensive or it's in some magazine or media or ... Very interesting point of view here. Listen to that again after the first break as Michael lays it out, detail by detail. Key - can you get it out there and can you keep it out there? Guys, do you have a book yourself that you wrote? If so, do you have an audio reading of it? It's one of the most important things on your to-do list. People love listening to authors read their books as an aside. My vision map is also in an audio version and I'll tell you more about that later, but there's so much more I got out of this interview. There's so much more still to comment on. What did you get? I'd love to know how you use this information to help you in your business or career. Reach out and tell me. Now guys, grab hold of your vision. Decide you're either going to start something great or take it to the next level. You have to decide first. It always starts with a decision and you can get my vision map to help you along the process. The free eBook is at tonyD-U-R-S-O.com, and you can pick up the audio version and the training class too. Highly recommended! I created my empire in just a few years. That's all it took. I had the Vision Map as my guide. You can do it too. Now once again, check out all my shows on Spotify. They're all designed to help you get to the next level in your business or career. All right, let's help you move on your journey to success. And if you have any Apple device or access to Apple podcasts, please look up my name - Tony D-U-R-S-O - and subscribe to my show. A kind review there will get you tremendous appreciation back in return. Thanks guys, and remember just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Sow good seeds, do good deeds and join me on the next episode of the Tony DUrso Show. We hope you've enjoyed this week's edition of the Tony DUrso Show with his key influencers. Be sure to tune in again next Friday at 5:00 PM Eastern time, 2:00 PM. Pacific time on the Voice America Influencers channel.