Heroes in Business - Michael and Bonnie Houlihan Founders of Barefoot Winery Interview

Episode Date: February 4, 2024

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey are the Founders of the world-famous Barefoot Wine brand and the New York Times Bestselling Authors of The Barefoot Spirit,  are interviewed by David Cogan, host of the Heroes Show and founder of the Eliances Entrepreneur Community. 

welcome back to alliances heroes where heroes in business align to be part of our super community and find out more about alliances visit www.alliances.com that's right and we're back we're back that we're back and thank you so much too i just interviewed bill goldberg right yep the famous wwe wrestler wc. So make sure you go ahead and you can find out past interviews by going to eliancer.com. E-L-I-A-N-C-E-R.com. All right. Are you ready for this? Oh, you may need a drink. I'm super excited about our next guest we have with us. Are you ready? Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey.

Now, they are the founders of the world famous Barefoot Wine brand. The New York Times bestselling author of The Barefoot Spirit, How Hardship, Hustle and Heart Built America's Number One Wine Brand. So welcome back both of you to the show. It's an honor and I'm so excited you're here again. Thank you, David. It's been way too long. We're just delighted to be here. Yeah, great to be back, Dave. Now, there's a lot that's been going on in your world since we certainly last interviewed and stuff. And you've been a regular guest at the Alliances Grand Table. By the way, again, listeners, it's something you're definitely going to want to attend because you may have the lifetime opportunity to meet them both in person.

So just make sure you go to alliances.com to check that out. What is going to bring you again back to Arizona for that? Well, it's the American Heart Association International Stroke Conference. And it's the largest gathering of neurologists in the world, over 2,000 neurologists and about as many suppliers and services. And they get together once a year to learn the latest breakthroughs in science and the latest breakthroughs in technology to save us all from strokes. And, you know, strokes are on the increase in America and throughout the world. So this is a really important conference. We're really excited to be part of it. Now tell me about how did you get from wine to Hollywood to the International Stroke Conference? That's a very good question. Yeah, it's a circuitous route, that's for sure. Yes, yes, indeed. It has to do with our new business, which is Business Audio Theater,

and our latest production from Colin McDonald, who's a neurologist, and telling his story of how he started a business using telemedicine to bring health care to rural communities. And the name of his production, we told his story as a founder in our business audio theater. The name of his production is The Brain Savers, how a scrappy startup, what?

Transformed. Transformed telemedicine and patient care. Wow. Oh, that's great. That's great. And now explain to our audience, some may not really understand or know what business audio theater though, what is that? What does that mean? Okay. So Bonnie and I, you know, we sold the Barefoot brand in 2005. And since then, we've been helping other businesses from Fortune 500s to startups alike on how to improve their businesses, improve their culture and whatnot. And so we became business educators, you know, ipso facto. And in the process of that, we wrote a book and became a New York Times bestseller, The Barefoot Spirit.

And we started to speak all over the world. And boy, I guess about five years ago, everybody showed up with earbuds on. And so we said, well, what the heck are they listening to, right? Is it bebop? Is it hop? Is it rock and roll? What is it? And they said, oh, no, I'm listening to a podcast.

I want to improve my business. Or I'm reading War and Peace. The thing is so thick. Listening to it, yeah. Yeah, I'm listening to War and Peace. It's so thick. I can't sit still for it. And we thought, sit still?

They're really talking about being mobile now, and they're talking about on demand. So they want something that can be riding their bicycle and being educated at the same time. You can't do that with video, see? You can't do that with a book. You can only do that with audio. So we thought, why don't we take our book

and make an audio book out of it? So we started to listen to audio books. We listened to the top 10 audio books that were for sale. And they were all narrated to you. They were all narrated, you know, and they were all kind of prescriptive. Here's the three things you got to do, the five things to never do, the 20 things your customer wants from you. And we thought, you know, this is great information, but it's pretty boring. If you're

going to keep a 24-year-old's attention, you're not going to do it with this approach. So we were driving, ironically, from Phoenix down to Tucson, you know, one of the stretches in Arizona that I know really well. And the mountains don't move, but you're doing 100 miles an hour. And here comes Guy Noir, Private Eye, on Prairie Home Companion. And it's a spoof on a 1945 radio show where they've got sound effects and music and actors and actresses.

And instead of telling you the story, they're acting it out. And the theater is in your mind. And so we thought this is the way to go. So that's how we got the idea. So we did that with our book. And how did it come out? Well, it came out pretty good.

We did get an award for it from Audis, which is the Audiobook Publishers Association. It's their Oscars. And we were voted one of the top five business books in audio for that year. Wow. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you.

And I love the theme of theater in your mind. Yes, because it has sound effects. It's got original music. It's got various many actors playing all the different parts because it's done in a story form, David. It's not just talking to you like we are, but it's telling stories that the founder had when the founder started the business with all the challenges, all the mistakes, all the changing course that most businesses have when they're starting out. And that's what really makes it exciting. It makes that business sound like, you know, it's real and that the founders

are people that have the same challenges that we all have every day. And certainly they do. Absolutely. And again, you're listening, watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com to check out other things that are going on. So make sure you go to that. Because again, we're talking with Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. They are the world famous founders of the Barefoot Wine brand. Make sure you go and you go to thebarefootspirit.com, thebarefootspirit.com. And again, this has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show.

So talk to us again. How about everything else that's going on with business audio theater, future of it, where you see things going with it? And why do you think audio has taken or continues to grow much larger than actually video? Well, I think that, you know, audio is a smaller file. It's easier to transfer. And also video is rather expensive. The other problem with video,

and I love video, don't get me wrong. You know, I'm Mr. YouTube. But the bottom line is, you have to sit there and watch it. You can't be doing other things. You can't be working out, you can't be vacuuming your house, you can't be cleaning your car. You can't be running errands. You've got to focus. And so that's one of the reasons that we think that audio has become so popular is because we're so busy these days and it fits into a busy lifestyle. Multitasking is what we want to do. Exactly. And people want to be entertained. And there's great entertainment value in audio because it's in your mind. You're seeing the situation and you're like a fly on the wall hearing the stories of a

founder as they start a new business. Yeah. So one of the big challenges that we have in education today is how do you get the students or the listeners to really pay attention to what's going on? And so we have this idea that if we can get them to participate in the experience, that they're more likely to recall and apply it. So when you are listening to a story and you're witnessing the story and John comes into the room, you know what John's wearing because you took a suit of clothes from your own mental closet and dressed John. You know what the room looks like because you took a picture in your own categories of offices and you said, here's the office he's in. So you're participating by bringing up these props in your

mind. So it's a very interesting thing that audio does, that video does. Video will expand your imagination to the size of the screen. That's it. That's why we forget video so fast, because we're not participating. We're just watching it. But when you listen to audio and audio is dramatized, you're there. Makes it more memorable. Yeah, and much more exciting. I mean, business is a cliffhanger. You know that. And everybody in alliances knows that.

Nobody was a success overnight. Everybody had to overcome challenges and find their first client and get turned down for a loan. And, you know, so there's all these cliffhanging spots. So what we do at Business Audio Theater is we take the story of the founding days and we break it down into little podcast segments. And each one of those podcast segments is broken down into even smaller segments that are like two minutes long that are seen from a seminal meeting, or maybe they're driving together in a car and having a discussion. But the discovery is through dialogue rather than narration.

Oh, I love it. Also, too, have you seen my background? You see my winery here? I love it. I love it. This is real. This, by the way, is not one, you know, one of those backgrounds. It's an actual.

We've got to fill it up, David. You know what? I know. I know. That's why you guys will have to help me fill it up, right? That's a very dry wine cellar. There's a little bit, you know, kind of here, a little bit down there and stuff. But yeah. So amazing. Do you both ever kind of here a little bit down there and stuff but yeah um so amazing you do you both ever kind of look back i think one of the things is is how you know when people work together just be together number one there could be stress but certainly when you're building a business

right and you've built barefoot you know again you make sure you go to the barefootspirit.com, barefootspirit.com. But you've built this wine company and working together endless amount of hours at the beginning. You ever look back like, how did you both last together? And now here you're still laughing and loving and all of that. It always seemed to work out well for us as far as our relationship went, because we're not only partners in business as we've continued to be, but we're also partners in life. And we have different responsibilities. We have different talents and we don't interfere so much with the other guy's business. We share the same goals. We have just different paths that we use to get to those goals.

And we are very confident that we are successful and that the other person has the best in mind for us and for the business. So what's not to love? You know, we gave a talk down in Florida at a college that focuses on family business. It's actually Stetson University, and it's run by the woman who was really the backbone behind the Stetson hat and all that. But very interesting. So we get up on stage, and what's the first thing we say? Kids, don't try this at home. Don't try to be in business with your romantic partner or your family member, because most of the time it does not work. So that's our number one advice. After that, you'd better have a good sense of humor and have patience. And separate offices. I like that. Interesting. And how do you not like, because again, you know,

how do you not bring homework? How do you not both have the same thing on your mind? Okay, you got a great call. We're all excited. You also got, you know, a not so great one, right? You know, and it's now you both have to think about it. Yes, that happens all the time. There's really no way to prevent it. And you don't really don't want to, but there's certain areas such as the bedroom that you don't bring those things up or on Sundays for us where you don't bring those things up or a certain maybe it's a vacation, some special dinner or whatever. And you just leave those things aside because you still need your personal life

and your romance. Keep things sparking between the two of you. And you plan a vacation and you pay non-refundable on the tickets. I love that. I love that. And also too, is even your first production received top five finalists for business audio book of the year from the audio book publishers association. I mean, so, you know, clearly you've won other awards on that. I mean, the, the, what, what's the magic of it? You know, someone who's, you know, wanting to write a book or, you know, about their history or something that they've accomplished in that. Like, how do you navigate to have it where others will listen to it and or read it? Everyone has a story. And we are great storytellers. And we use humor. We use good writers. We also are writers ourselves. And we do a lot of editing and interviewing of our clients.

In fact, our latest audio book that we did through Business Audio Theater was for Dr. Colin MacDonald. And it just took an award, we're very happy to say. And it was for the International Business Minds. Top 20. One of the top 20 awards that they were given, and it is an international for audiobooks and also for print books. Exactly. But getting back to your point here, I think the other thing is, you know, when we think of audiobooks, most people think, oh, well, the ROI is selling the book. You know, I got to tell you, we have a New York Times bestseller and you're not going to make a lot of money selling books. OK, it might be nice for you to write the book, get some things off your chest or communicate.

You can use it as a business card. It certainly is a great credibility badge. But when you really think about it, what these people are doing is they're giving the book away for free to their stakeholders, to the people that might be interested in buying stock in their company, from their website website to their employees, to their buyers, to their suppliers. Why? Because they want those folks to identify with the founder and the founder's principle because they believe that they are more likely to be more loyal. So this is really an HR tool and a marketing tool. It is not a build for sale tool. Excellent. Well, again, it's been an honor having you both on the show. And make sure again, you check them out. You can go to barefootspirit.com. Thank you again to Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. They are the founders of the world-famous Barefoot line brand and New York Times best-selling author. That's right.

The Barefoot Spirit, a hardship, hustle, and heart-built America's number one brand. And you may have the opportunity to see them at the next E-Liances Grand Table. So again, you've been listening to me, David Kogan, make sure that you go to Eliance's.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. But you both got to dance with me now too. All right.