Guest Article
When we started the Barefoot Wine brand, our two biggest fears were being small and broke. In retrospect, they were our two biggest strengths and we didn’t even know it!
Barefoot is now the #1 wine brand in the United States. Its success has given the wine industry permission to be fun and inclusive, instead of staid and exclusive, like it was 25 years ago.
Because we were small and inexperienced, we tried new things that had never been done before. Sure, some of them failed, but because we were small, we were light on our feet and could quickly turn on a dime. Because we were inexperienced and didn’t know any better, we inadvertently broke all the “rules”. We went against convention and thought out-of-the-box, because we were never in the “box”.
For instance, when we discovered, that most wine was being purchaced by a woman in the supermarket and that she was buying it as a staple with her other groceries, we realized she wanted a consistent taste profile. So we blended several vintages to achieve the dependability she was looking for in an every day wine. At the time, that was a radical idea. Not only were most of the supermarket food buyers men, but they would never buy a non vintage wine themselves. As gatekeepers, they were hesitant to put in any wine without a vintage date. When they saw the sales take off, they changed their minds and our sales grew.
When we looked at the wine business as outsiders, we saw it was part of the larger beverage alcohol business. It included not just wine, but beer, and spirits as well. By far the largest segment was beer. So, because we were small, inexperienced, and didn’t know any better, we asked, “What has beer got that makes it so popular?” We saw slogans like “Just want to be your Bud,” “The silver bullet,” and “It’s Miller time.” They were friendly. The wineries were talking about how the wines were made, mid notes and wine making terms the average person just didn’t get. We came up with, a big friendly foot on the label and “Get Barefoot and Have a Great Time!” Imagine, if we were big and established? This would have been unheard of, risky, and unconventional.
We couldn’t afford a washer or a dryer. So we had plenty of room for our first world headquarters – in our laundry room. Our second office was in an attic and was so small that everyone had to sit down when there was a knock at the door so it had room to swing open. But guess what? Everybody knew exactly what was going on – all the time. We didn’t need a lot of meetings or email. We worked as a close-knit team.
Being so small gave us one of the most effective and enduring principles we used at Barefoot: “know-the-need.” Instead of the conventional big business policy of putting everyone on a need-to-know basis we shared all our challenges and asked for help. We were amazed at the creative suggestions and solutions that came from our own people.
Being broke forced us to be resourceful, creative and efficient. We couldn’t just throw money at every problem. We didn’t have it. When the big supermarkets told us that they wouldn’t carry our brand because it was unknown and we would have to spend big bucks advertising, we got the word out a different way. In fact, if it wasn’t for being so broke, we would have never stumbled upon what we called “worthy cause marketing” to promote our brand.
We supported small non-profits that were important to our consumers with wine donations and even helped at their fund raising events. We got their message out on our bottles. We became part of their community. It was rewarding because we got to make a difference with so many causes that already resonated with us. It also gave their membership a social reason to buy our product. As a result our customer loyalty was greater than what we could have achieved with expensive conventional advertising. We never went to conventional advertising– even when we could afford it.
Being small and broke was challenging at the time, but in retrospect it was our greatest asset, and it can be yours too!
Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey, founders of Barefoot, now America’s #1 wine brand, trace their entrepreneurial adventure from the laundry-room to the boardroom their new, bestselling book, The Barefoot Spirit
Great insight on how to start a business on a shoestring.
Great story, Melinda. Thanks for sharing! I think all companies – big or small – can learn from the Barefoot story. Understand your customers and bring them value. Doing that will eventually return that value to your business tenfold.
Very cool story. I love the “From Rags To Riches” stories, always, ALWAYS my favorite, hands down!
Thank you for featuring them Melinda!
Very inspiring ! Thanks for sharing.
Melinda:
This was a great post.
Its for this same reason that I tell a lot of entrepreneurs to think twice about getting loans or investment capital.
Once you get money, it’s easy to get lazy and blow through it. When you don’t have money, you have to find a way to satisfy the customer or else you’ll go out of business!
Thanks again for posting!