Hiring A Ghostwriter? Ensure They Understand Principles You're Communicating
When they launched a Sonoma wine business in their laundry room in 1986, Bonnie Harvey and Michael Houlihan were business consultants with no industry knowledge and no money, just $300,000 worth of bulk wine.
Today, the Barefoot Wines label they started is a top international brand. They’ve written thousands of articles and two best-selling books—The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle and Heart Built America’s Number One Wine Brand and The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways to Engage and Empower your People. Now they’re helping other entrepreneurs tell their stories in imaginative audio books.
The common theme running through all these successful endeavors is being outsiders, continually forced to come up with novel solutions. “We’d never written a book before. We’d never done an audio book before. We’d never done a wine business before,” Michael tells Published Author Podcast host Josh Steimle. “We weren’t wine people. We were entrepreneurs.”
TOP TAKEAWAY: YOU CAN DO IT!
That’s the message Bonnie and Michael want to pass on to entrepreneurial consumers of their print and audio books. “The Barefoot Spirit is a you-can-do-it story, says Michael. “No, it’s not what you expect. It’s more work and different work than you thought, but this is doable. That’s the message, an encouraging message for entrepreneurs.”
After 19 years of a “get-rich slow scheme,” Bonnie and Michael sold Barefoot Wines and wrote a book, at their staff’s insistence. “Once we sold our company, our staff came around and said working for us was the most unique, wonderful experience they’d ever had. And that we’d have to write a book about the company culture, which is why they’d all stayed with us.” says Bonnie. “Because our approach was so unique, we wanted to share it with other people, and the only way to do that was in a book.”
But they didn’t want the Barefoot Spirit to be a typical, top-down business book. “So we thought why don’t we just give them a story and let them draw their own conclusions, because they’ll see the action and outcomes and learn the lessons even better than in a prescriptive text,” says Michael.
HIRING A GHOSTWRITER? MAKE SURE THEY UNDERSTAND THE STORY YOU’RE TELLING
After a disastrous first attempt at hiring a writer for their book, Michael and Bonnie found Rick Cushman, a longtime food-and-wine columnist for the Sacramento Bee, who impressed them with his humor, style and ability to tell stories.
“He talks to the average person, which was our end user in the wine industry,” says Bonnie. “So we’d tell him stories, and he’d take notes.”
“I would recommend to your listeners if you’re going to get a ghostwriter, make sure they understand the principles you’re trying to get across,” adds Michael. “What is the basic message here? Is it a message of tenacity, of innovation, of humanity?”
TURNING BUSINESS BOOKS INTO AUDIO PLAYS
The couple’s latest publication, is an audio book version of their new York Times Best Seller, The Barefoot Spirit, intended to reach a wider, younger audience. But it has a twist.
“We bought the top 10 business audiobooks on Audible, and every one was great. But they were all read to you. They were all narrated,” says Michael. Driving across the Nevada Desert one day, they heard a PBS radio play complete with actors, sound effects and music. “We thought this is a fantastic way to communicate, through an audio play, like we had in the 1940s, before television.”
“Audio is entirely mobile, and you’re not tethered to a screen or a page—you’re jogging, driving, cooking pasta, vacuuming the floor—and you’re listening to a story and you’re learning from it. And you can put it down or pick it up anytime you like.”
The Entrepreneurial Culture was named a top-five audio book of 2020 by the Audiobook Producers Association. The award’s judges said they’d never heard a nonfiction audiobook like it, let alone one that was self published.
Bonnie and Michael are now offering their audio theatre services to other entrepreneurs so these companies can preserve, in story form, their legacy, successes and knowledge. “We’re motivated to help others and educate ourselves, to stay on top of the entrepreneurial education industry.”
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Today, our guests are Bonnie Harvey and Michael Hoolahan, co authors of the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America's Number One Wine Brand, which chronicles their humble beginnings in a laundry room in 1986 to their creation of an international bestselling wine brand, and their latest book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage And Empower Your People, tells entrepreneurs how to better lead their teams. Bonnie and Michael, welcome to the show.
Bonnie Harvey
Thanks, Josh. We're happy to be here.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah, Josh, great to be here.
Josh Steimle
I'm excited to have you on today because you're a perfect example of the type of people who are listening to the show entrepreneurs who want to write a book that they can leverage to help them grow your business. Before we dive into your book too much, give us a little bit of background. What's your story? How did you guys come together and decide to create a wine company of all things? And then take us up to the point where you decided we're gonna write this book as well.
Bonnie Harvey
Well, that's a period of time of about 25 years or more, but we'll try to keep it short.
Josh Steimle
We've got time, go for it.
Bonnie Harvey
Michael and I both met here in Sonoma County in the wine country, we were both business consultants. And though neither of us were really wine drinkers, our clients were in the industry. They were the grape growers or wineries that we were consulted with, I had a client who was a grape grower. He hadn't been paid for his grapes for three years, when I started working for him. And I asked for the contract. And he didn't have a written contract, he had a handshake, which is just fine. But it wasn't producing any income here. So I said, well, let's see if we can't collect those funds. It was $300,000. So I sent my new boyfriend here out to collect the funds.
Josh Steimle
He was the enforcer.
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah.
Michael Houlihan
So yeah, so I went out to this winery. And the day I got there, they had just declared bankruptcy. So it didn't look good for the home team. But I went through with the meeting anyway. And I was able to secure a trade goods and services instead of money for the debt. So what we got out of the deal was $300,000 worth of wine in bulk, and bottling services to put that bulk wine in bottles, no labels, no cords, no fire, foils, we had to get all that we had to get the glass, we had to get the marketing program, we had to understand the distribution system. We had to do all that. But you know, ignorance is bliss. And so, so we said, you know, hey, it's better than a stick in the eye. You know, how hard could it be? Right?
Bonnie Harvey
How long could it take? Right? We figured maybe three, four or five years at the most.
Josh Steimle
You literally fell into the wine business by accident.
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah, Yes, we did. We took advantage of an opportunity that we really couldn't let go. The grower who was owed the funds, he had a full time job winemaking. And he also had the vineyard he was managing. He said I can't take over a new business. So we said, well, I guess we can. We can't let that money just go away. So that is how we got started in the wine industry. We started with no knowledge of the industry. And we started with no money. And we started out of our laundry room. That was the only place where we have some extra room because we couldn't afford to rent an office. And we had this extra space with a washer and dryer supposed to be because we couldn't afford a washer and dryer. So we went out to the old barn out back and found a door and washed it off, put it on to sawhorses and put it in that space where the washer and dryer was set up to be. And that was the first office of Barefoot Wines, which is now the number one wine in the world.
Josh Steimle
I love it. So you couldn't afford a washer and a dryer. But somehow you owned a wine company.
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah, it was.
Michael Houlihan
Somehow we did. That's right. He then the other thing too as Bonnie said, you know, we had no knowledge of the industry. Yeah, we were business consultants. But so what the industry is very particularistic. I mean, every state has its own laws. You know, every supermarket has its own procedures. Every distributor has certain policies and whatnot. And so we had to learn all that. And we had no idea how much we had to learn. But because we didn't know any better, we proceeded in the direction of success, we asked people questions, we like to say, we made friends with people in low places. And these are the people that do the actual work. See, because we didn't know enough about the wine industry to ask the white collar people what to do. So we asked the blue collar people, and they were the ones who would really spilled. And they told us, they said, you know, brands look like this, they don't sell, you know, packages that look like this, they get lost in the warehouse, you know, don't do this, because this will happen. Don't do that. That'll happen.
Josh Steimle
So that's fascinating. What would have happened if you had listened to the white color people?
Bonnie Harvey
if we'd gone in thinking that we came from a family that had been in the wine industry, we knew all about it? Well, we wouldn't have asked any questions. And barefoot wouldn't be in your fridge today,
Michael Houlihan
it would have just been another also ran that, you know, hit the market for a few years and then disappeared.
Josh Steimle
So now you end up with this wine business, and you're getting good advice from the people who really know what they're talking about. But still to go from that to becoming the number one wine brand, like walk us through a little bit of how that happened.
Michael Houlihan
Well, you know, it, may I?
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah.
Michael Houlihan
Okay. So it was like, as we say, in the book, getting your brick for the day, right? Like, every day, a brick falls out of the sky and hits you in the head, right. And this goes on for like five years of just getting wake up calls and insights. And because we're outsiders, we come up with solutions that the industry has never thought of. And some of these solutions really bolt us up in the marketplace quickly. And, you know, our whole approach was, you know, fun, easygoing, you know, consistent flavor. That was just the opposite of the wine business at the time, you know, they were uptight, you know, they were very standoffish, very kind of prudish. And, you know, they worship the French. You know
Bonnie Harvey
There was no French on our label, you could pronounce every word. I was intimidated by wine, because I don't speak French. I couldn't pronounce the names of the varietals, and sometimes not even the winery. So I thought, well, if we're going to be in this industry, I better be able to pronounce every word on the label, we'll come to find out there were other people out there that were intimidated by wine. And Barefoot was really an entry for them into the wine consumption. Because it was not intimidating. It had a cute foot on it, it was big, you could remember it, the names the same as the logo. It was easy to see out on the shelf. The price was right, it was low price, we had gold metals, we started putting gold metal stickers right on the bottle. And we cared so much about what we were doing. We felt that everyone who touched our product was our customer. And the way to get our product on the shelf and keep it there. So the consumer could find it was really to give each person who touched our product, each company, the distributor, the retailer, all the distributors, sales staff and our own staff, treat them like they were all customers and give them what they wanted, find out what they wanted and give it to them. Now the wine was really designed for the female shopper, because that's who was buying the most wine in California. And we started with the chain stores. So when she's going out and shopping, you know, for her groceries on a weekly basis, she wants to grab a bottle of wine. Well, we wanted that wine to be our product. So we made it easy for her to find it. And the taste was not only delicious, but easy on the palate, shall we say?
Josh Steimle
Is this interesting. There was a professor at the Harvard Business School Clayton Christensen, and he wrote a book called the innovators dilemma. And he talked about how if you want to disrupt a market, you go from underneath, you start at the bottom and you target non-consumption with a product that's good enough for the people who don't have anything. And that sounds like exactly what you did you. You targeted people who were intimidated by the wine that was out there and you gave them something that was good and good enough for them and made them feel comfortable. And then you work your way up. Right?
Michael Houlihan
Right. You have to remember that when we started Barefoot, it was like eight to one beer over wine in the United States. Wine was not popular in 1986 and we What we did is we popularized wind, you know, we made it easy to drink, we made it non vintage, we made it $5.99 you see, as opposed to $25.99. So, I mean, nobody's going to try something new for $25.99. See? So for us, it was more about expanding the wine aficionado envelope than it was competing for the people who are already inside of it. In fact, we didn't even we didn't compete with them at all.
Josh Steimle
Is that how your competitors saw it? Did they see you as a threat? Or did they say no, we don't want those customers anyway.
Michael Houlihan
At first, they said, You're cheapening wine. You're making a joke out of it. But then they said, Thank you for sending all those people into our tasting room who used to drink beer and martinis!
Josh Steimle
Right? Because you created a lot more wine drinkers that then wanted to move up and try the more expensive stuff. Right?
Michael Houlihan
Exactly. Right. So yeah, it's it's quite a story. But it's, it's a story of, you know, education. And it's kind of an outsider's inside view of the wine industry. And you know, the wine industry has very little to do with wine; it has to do with distribution and distribution management. Because wine is heavy, you know, you're not going to buy a $5 bottle of wine on the internet, because it's going to cost you $5 to deliver it. But you might buy a $90 bottle of wine because it only costs $5 to deliver it. So the point is that with a product like wine, which is which is you know, weight intensive, it goes better in a store, even though it is sold direct to consumer at the higher price points, but the lower price points is going to be in the stores, because it's easier for the customer. It's a better price.
Josh Steimle
Gotcha. Now, eventually, you sold the business, is that right? Yes. So how did that come about? And was that a, I assume that was a good deal for you?
Bonnie Harvey
Well, both parties were happy. Let's put it that way. And it didn't take the three to five years that we thought it would it took 19 years. So it was a get rich, slow scheme.
Michael Houlihan
What was interesting is our acquirer hired us as brand consultants, to as they say, keep the Barefoot spirit alive. And we like that term, the Barefoot spirit so much that we entitle our book, the Barefoot spirit. It's kind of like it's the entrepreneurial spirit behind the Barefoot brand. Because we weren't wine people, but we were entrepreneurs. And so we practiced entrepreneurship. And that includes things like being resourceful. It includes things like finding strategic allies, it includes things like not taking no for an answer. It includes things like making a mistake, but writing it down. So you don't make it a gap and figuring out what you have to do to prevent that in the future, and a myriad of other principles that are woven into the book. We also, as we spoke before the show, I didn't want the book to be a litany of do's and don'ts. You know, our first, you know, why did we write this book in the first place, Bonnie?
Josh Steimle
Yeah, that's my next question is back up a little bit. What was the inspiration for the book? What was the day that you said, you know, we need to write a book. How did that come about?
Bonnie Harvey
Well, Michael, and I've always loved writing in the first place. But once we sold our company, our staff came around, that we were still in touch with and said, you know, working for you was the most unique, wonderful experience we've ever had. And you have to write a book to talk about the company culture that you had, which is why we all stayed with you. And no one quit in the last five years. Some had been with us for nearly 20 years, as long as we've been in business. And because our approach was so unique, we wanted to share it with other people. And we thought, Well, the only way to do that is in a book. So we wrote a book. And it was all in story form. We knew that we had to use humor or people weren't going to read it. We don't like anything unless we're entertained by it personally. So if you're going to put a photo on your label, you'd better be entertaining.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah, and like she said, we wrote it in story form. And the reason we did was because we we looked at most of the business books and they are written kind of in a patronizing way and in the last 25 years business books have become more and more of an outline the even, you know, have the little key words out in the margin now, you know, and you can say, oh, here's the three things you got to do. Here's the five things to never do. Here's the 20 things your customer wants from you.
Bonnie Harvey
And it's all good advice
Michael Houlihan
it is if you can stay awake for it, right? The problem is, when you when you're, when you're it's a top-down approach. It's like, I'm telling you, this is what to do, right? And, you know, so it turns a lot of people off. So we thought, Well, why don't we just get away from that and just give them a story and let them draw their own conclusions. Because they'll see the action and the outcomes, they'll see the characters, they'll know what motivates the characters. And as a result of the outcomes, they will learn the lessons, and hopefully, even better than they would in a prescriptive text. Because now they can say, you know, I want to be like john, you know, in that scene where he goes into the buyer, and the buyer says, Get out of my office, I never want to see you again, but then winds up going out of the office with the two truckload order. So how did I remember how that transformation took place? See, I'm going to apply that in my business.
Bonnie Harvey
You see, it's the story that they remember. We could write out all the principles, yeah, that we use that made us successful. But that's not as easy to remember the story, remember, and then the principle naturally follows through. So that's how we felt we could get the most information, the lessons that we've learned to others so they can succeed faster.
Josh Steimle
Well, speaking of stories, tell us the story of how you actually wrote the book because sometimes having a co-author makes it easier. Sometimes it can make it harder. How did you split the work? How did you actually get the words out onto paper?
Michael Houlihan
Ha ha.
Bonnie Harvey
Well, we had a writer, we worked with someone who was helping us get the book together. And she suggested a writer and I felt right away. This was not a good writer. So she'd actually written the first draft of the book and we looked it over and it was terrible. We threw it right in the garbage can. 100% and then we went out to find our own writer, and we found Rick Cushman. He has a great sense of humor. He'd been writing for the Sacramento Bee for the food and wine column for many years. he'd gotten a lot of awards, he'd written a book or two himself, and I read one of his books, and just writing the foreword cracked me up, I said, this guy's got great humor. And he talks to the average person, which when we were in the wine industry, that was our end user was the average person, instead of trying to make wine sound, you know, so much above most of you peons out there that we don't have to, you know, address your needs whatsoever. No. He wrote with humor. He wrote with great style. He loved to tell a story and we fell in love with him right away. So Rick Cushman is the one we gave our stories to. And he came from Sacramento, it's over an hour from here, what, two hours. Yeah. And he would come and stay with us for a couple nights. And we'd tell him stories, and he'd take notes. And sometimes he'd record it. And then we'd have a wonderful dinner and have a bottle of wine or two and tell him the stories that don't go in the book! So he really got a full feeling of who we were and what we'd gone through, which enabled him to put our personalities in the book as well. And that's how it was written. Yeah.
Josh Steimle
And he didn't sneak any of those other stories into the book.
Michael Houlihan
No, he didn't know he didn't. He didn't.
Bonnie Harvey
He had to cut a lot of those a lot of stories out that we wanted in the book. And the way he said it is it doesn't look like the king. He said, If it doesn't really fit the story and the message you want to tell. It's still a great story, but it doesn't belong in the book.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah, when he wrote the book, it was about eight inches thick. And I said, How are you going to get that down to a bicoastal airplane ride, which is about, you know, five eighths of an inc?
Josh Steimle
That is really hard to cut, isn't it? Because you're sure that you had stories where you said, Oh, but this story is so good. We've just got to include it. And Rick was probably saying it's great, but no, it doesn't fit. We've got to cut it out.
Michael Houlihan
So I would recommend to your listeners if you're going to get a ghostwriter, make sure that they understand the principle that you're trying to get across. You know, what is the basic message here, you know? Isn't a message of tenacity? Is it a message of, you know, innovation? Is it a message of humanity? You know, what is the message?
Josh Steimle
What is the core message that you are trying to get across in the Barefoot Spirit?
Michael Houlihan
I would recommend to your listeners. If you're going to get a ghostwriter. Make sure that they understand the principle that you're trying to get across you know what is The basic message here, you know, isn't a message of tenacity? Is it a message of, you know, innovation? Is it a? Is it a message of humanity? You know, what it? What is the message? It's a 'You-can-do-it' story. It is 'This is doable'. It's not what you expect, it's more work than you thought, and it's different work than you thought, but this is doable. That's the message. It's an encouraging message to entrepreneurs.
Bonnie Harvey
So they probably went out and rented an office and hired a bunch of people. Didn't take that for us to be successful.
Michael Houlihan
Innovation. Yeah, in practicality, I think practicality is the key here. You know, you want to be successful? Get practical, you know?
Josh Steimle
Yep. I went out and rented that office and bought all the furniture for my first business and it didn't work. So I'm a testament to that as well.
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah, that's not what it takes.
Josh Steimle
Right. So when the book when you were writing the book, who were you thinking was going to be the audience? I mean, your your team had asked you to write it. But who else were you thinking about as you wrote that book? And as you put it together? What was kind of a dream reader?
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah, when we started off, excuse me, we thought it would be people who enjoyed Barefoot Wine. And certainly none of those have, have read it. But as we got through the book, and about the time it was finished, we said this is really a story about entrepreneurs, and their struggles and their success. And it's a story about how to work with various people, how to support your community, and how your community can support you. And we realized that in order to reach more people with these business lessons that really apply to any business, then Michael and I had to go out and speak at the universities that teach entrepreneurship, which was a big surprise to me. Michael announced to me one day that we were going to become speakers for schools that teach entrepreneurship. And I said, No, we're not. But yes, we were. Now we've spoken at over 60 schools, internationally and nationally, that teach entrepreneurship and tens of 1000s of students have really benefited by reading the book, they'd all take the book as well. And hearing us speak, they were inspired by the struggles that we had overcome. So like
Michael Houlihan
just, I was just gonna say, it's not just the people who are thinking about being entrepreneurs. It's the people who are entrepreneurs, and they're faced with challenges, like, you know, okay, so I got my business started, okay, so now I built it up, and I got a few big customers, but now they're blackmailing me and threatening to discontinue me, you know, and I'm stuck, so I have to expand, oh, I expanded, Oh, now I can't afford the expansion because I can't cover the, you know, the cost of expansion. I can't wait three years for it to pay off. So those are the kinds of problems that you face in business. So the Barefoot story is really inception to monetization. You know, it's it's like, here's the here's the journey. This is our journey. Your journey may be different, but you're certainly going to face the same challenges.
Bonnie Harvey
Yes.
Josh Steimle
Like reinventing yourself, like becoming the owners of a wine company that you weren't expecting or becoming a speaker when you didn't expect to become a speaker.
Bonnie Harvey
Exactly. Yes, that's right.
Michael Houlihan
Writers when we didn't expect to be writers.
Bonnie Harvey
Oh, but we both enjoyed writing. Yeah. Now we write two articles every single week on two blogs that we have. TheBarefootspirit.com and consumer brands,
Michael Houlihan
and consumer, er consumerbrandbuilders.com
Bonnie Harvey
Consumerbrandbuilders.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah. So if you have a CPG brand, you want to go to consumer brand builders, and you'll get 20 years of experience right there for free.
Josh Steimle
That's great. And we'll link to both of those in the show notes as well. So tell us about how the book ended up becoming a New York Times best selling book for a lot of people that's kind of the dream of being an author is seeing their name on that list. How did that happen?
Michael Houlihan
Well, first of all, you have to realize that the New York Times unless they've changed their policy doesn't necessarily make self-published people New York Times bestsellers. They want you to go through a official publisher, okay? Now that publishers really aren't going to do anything for you, they're not going to sell any books, you're going to sell all the books yourself. And so you wind up going through the paper publisher, just so that you're qualified to be a New York Times bestseller. Okay, so the idea here is you want to have a deal with your paper publisher where you can buy the rights back, after you become the New York Times bestseller, because why pay them when they didn't do anything to start with? And then the second thing is, in order to be a New York Times bestseller, you really have to sell a certain number of books in in designated retail stores around the country in a certain week, like sweeps week on television, right? And it really does have a lot to do, like sweeps week on television has to do with how many of your UPC codes on your book, scanned across the scanner, in a cash register, in a bookstore, you know, like Lose books in Little Rock, Arkansas has to sell two of your books. And maybe there's one in Manhattan that has to sell 100. And maybe there's one in San Francisco that has to sell 30. So one of the things that we had going at Barefoot was that we were distributed nationally and internationally. So we were able to go to those distributors and say, Listen, you know, this is your opportunity to get the story, your customers want the story more than the product, you can buy this story from us, it is at this bookstore in your neighborhood, buy it on these dates, okay, and they have to be careful that you don't ship it to the store ahead of time.
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah, we've got a lot of pre-orders, we really work to get that family, friends, distributors, sales people, everyone that we've ever known.
Michael Houlihan
It's very difficult, Josh. And it's very complicated. I don't think if we didn't have the experience in the wine business and understand, you know, the Nielsen ratings and how they are, how they're averaged and how they're scanned, we probably would have never been a New York Times bestseller. But we understood it, you know, because it's what was beaten into our head for almost 20 years.
Josh Steimle
That's very interesting how you're able to use your distribution network for your business to actually get the book on the New York Times bestselling list. And that's, that's unusual. I don't know many people who have done that, if anybody else has done that. But there might be somebody listening to this out there who says, hey, I've got a consumer brand, I've got distribution, maybe I can at least use that to give my marketing for my book a bump.
Michael Houlihan
So the thing is, it doesn't give your book a bump. You know, you can have New York Times bestseller, you can have Amazon bestseller. You can have all those badges. And yes, you should have those badges. Because some people won't buy them if it doesn't have a badge. But it's not going to do anything for you. I mean,
Bonnie Harvey
what's going to happen a lot of money in your pocket.
Michael Houlihan
What's going to happen is you're going to write the book, you're going to sell almost every copy yourself. Yeah. Yeah, see, and then and then you might be able to go on speaking tours, and incorporate book sales in your fees. That's one way to do it. Another way is to is to go to schools and get and get professors to buy them for their classes. That's another way to do it. But it's a tough business. Let me tell you, wine selling is easier.
Josh Steimle
So if you want to make money, start a wine company, if you want to make an impact, be an author.
Michael Houlihan
That's it. That's it.
Josh Steimle
So tell us about the second book, then where did the idea for that come from?
Bonnie Harvey
The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage And Empower Your People is basically the 'what to do' book that came from the Barefoot Spirit. So it's a smaller book, it really just tells you in different areas, exactly what we did and how to do it; 23 ways to engage and empower your people. And that is to give them the entrepreneurial spirit themselves. So they're encouraged to excel in their own way to improve the company and that is a very good book as well that really companions, the Barefoot spirit and the entrepreneurial culture. But then we did something else. We took the Barefoot Spirit book. And we turned it into an audio book. We found that our audience in conventions as well as university, we're coming in wearing headphones. And we asked them what they were listening to, they were listening to self improvement tapes, and podcasts like yours. And we said, in order to reach more people, which really has been our goals, to share our experiences, because we've been through the landmine, so you don't have to get blown up like we were. If you want to be an entrepreneur and start a business, you can learn a lot of lessons that we learned the hard way. And in order to get to more people, we said we have to put it in an audio book.
Michael Houlihan
But we didn't want to put it in any audio book: we went out and we bought the top 10 audio books that were for sale on Audible. And they had seemed to have the monopoly on audio books. And so we, we listened to them, and they were great. Every one of them was fantastic. But they were all read to you. They were all, you know, narrated. So one day, we were driving across the Nevada desert, and Here Comes Prairie Home Companion on PBS, and its Guy Noir, private eye in 1945-style radio theater, you know, with actors, actresses, and sound effects and music. And we thought, this is a fantastic way to communicate through audio, which is an audio play. You know, like we had in the 1940s, before television, right. And so, and especially considering the fact that it's entirely mobile, you're not, you know, tethered to a screen, you're not tethered to a page, you know, you are jogging, you're driving, you're cooking pasta, you're vacuuming your floor, and you're listening to a story that is taking you on an adventure, and you're learning from it. And you can put it down anytime you want. You can pick it up anytime you want. So we thought let's do it this way. So we started asking around, and we got hooked up with some friends in Hollywood, who are actually produced movies, and they have actors and actresses, you know, like, like, Ed Asner plays the part of this snarky supermarket buyer that throws Barefoot out because . . .
Josh Steimle
Oh that's great.
Michael Houlihan
But you see, that is a fun approach to a business book. That's a new and fun approach. And for people that are like 24, to say 44 they really appreciate audiobooks. It's like one of the fastest growing mediums out there. So we were very fortunate to win the top five business audio book of the year from the Audiobook Producers Association says Publishers Association for 2020.
Josh Steimle
Well, that's great. I mean, probably because it was so unique.
Michael Houlihan
That's what they said. They said they never heard anything, never heard nonfiction like this.
Bonnie Harvey
And it was self-published. And this is this award ceremony is put on by all the audiobook publishers,
Michael Houlihan
who are the big boys.
Bonnie Harvey
I talked to one of the judges and she said she was flabbergasted that a self-published audio book had actually made it to the finals.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, well, it sounds like you put the work into it. And you are creative and unconventional. I'm loving this, because this is you're giving a lot of unconventional tips here to our listeners and hopefully helping them think of things they've never thought of doing before.
Michael Houlihan
Well I told you, we were outsiders. So I mean, we never written a book before. We've never done an audio book before. We never did a wine business before. So
Bonnie Harvey
So far so good. Yes.
Josh Steimle
It seems to be working out well for you.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah, we approach it, we approach it differently.
Josh Steimle
So what's your real motivation behind all this? Because you sold the number one wine company, you don't need the money. You don't need the exposure. And yet you're writing all these articles, you're publishing these books, you're going to all this work to get this word out there. Why are you doing all this?
Michael Houlihan
Well, we like we'd like to help others.
Bonnie Harvey
Yeah, we do. And we want to keep this working, you know.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah. And the and it's really interesting for us to meet people who are, who have great stories, and to hear their story. Because we already know what our story is, you know, we've told it a million times. But we're interested in their story because we learn so much. And we and we have so much in common with them and we can say yes, I know exactly how you felt at that juncture. I know I know about this challenge that you had, how did you solve it? And they solved it in a different way than we did. And we learned from it. So yes, we're motivated by, you know, helping others and educating ourselves. And, you know, staying on top of the of the entrepreneurial education industry,
Bonnie Harvey
Yes, and that's why we're now offering business audio theatre to other founders, so they can preserve their legacy. So they can put down in an audio form, the principles that they use that you created, the success that they're having.
Josh Steimle
That's part of the same motivation I feel is, that there are so many experienced entrepreneurs out there, and they have this amazing career. And then they retire, and then they die. And all that knowledge is lost unless they record it somewhere.
Bonnie Harvey
That's right. That's right. That's right. And we don't want that lost his hard-earned lessons, and we want to preserve ours, which we did. And now we want to preserve yours.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah, we're basically, you know, we're this COVID business has really taught us all a lesson. You know, we sent everybody home, and we said, okay, here you go, you're going into the 21st century, like it or not, you're going to be on the screen, now, you're not going to drive to work, you'll be working on a keyboard. Now, we want you to stay loyal to the company. And we want you to be excited about the company. And we want you to practice our company culture. Very tough order. It's a very tough order. You know, with the baby screaming over here, the dog is barking over there, the mailman is at the door, and she's trying to conduct her work, the kids are trying to learn offline in the bedroom. what's to stop her when the COVID is over from saying, You know what, I really got to stay home. You know, I've had a taste of it, and this freedom, and I gotta have it, I got to work from home. So what am I bid who's gonna hire me to work for home for you? And so now you're going to start losing employees just because you want to bring them back to the office after COVID's gone. So how do you engage employees and make them loyal? We think it's by telling them your story. And we think that they can identify with you and pull for you and say, Wow, I sure hope Josh makes it through this next hurdle, right? And that's, that's what we got to do is create engagement and loyalty in an off-premise workforce. It's a tall order.
Josh Steimle
I love it. So do you have any more books planned for the future?
Bonnie Harvey
We're talking to several clients that are interested in business, audio theatre. And that will be what we're doing in the future, is we'll be telling someone else's story, and relaying their principles in story form in audio.
Josh Steimle
That's great. But for yourself, do you think you'll write any more yourself? Any other books?
Bonnie Harvey
Well, we write articles every week, and also in the business journals, they pick it up, they'd for three, four years now every month, they print one of our articles, and other magazines as well. So yes, we continue to write, but those are articles, not books.
Michael Houlihan
Yeah, you know, I suppose we, you know, we've written 1000s of articles. And we can, you know, curate them in a number of different fashions to create new books on demand. So the beauty of it is, is you get to be, you know, as experienced as we are, you know, which is writing really writing every week, you know, 600 words twice, that's 1200 words a week, for 10 years. You know, that's a lot of weeks and a lot. And, you know, it's it's so much fun for us to analyze current events, in terms of classic principles, so that people can start to see some continuity in life instead of just you know, chaos. So
Bonnie Harvey
not a fad. But a classic. Yeah,
Michael Houlihan
classic way of doing it's not retro with like, the Roman Empire is not retro. It's classic.
Josh Steimle
Right? Well, what I would what I would love to read from the two of you is if you ever write a book for this audience that you're talking about with the legacy and you write a book for them, explaining to them why they need to record all their lessons and how to do it. If you ever write that book, I would love to read that and I'd love to spread that around. Because there are a lot of people that need that message.
Bonnie Harvey
It's it's there.
Michael Houlihan
We did it.
Josh Steimle
He did it. Where's that?
Michael Houlihan
It's 21st century book form, it's a website with articles and endorsements and interviews, and podcasts. And it's www.businessaudiotheatre.com. If listeners go there, they will stay, we'll see, you know, the thinking behind business, audio theatre and why it is, we think the next big thing. Perfect.
Bonnie Harvey
You don't need a book already written to create an audio book. We have our author Rick Cushman and others that can listen to your stories and create a story in the form of an audio book, err dialogue. And then we can use our actors in Hollywood, and give you a fabulous production.
Josh Steimle
Awesome. Well, I hope we can send some people your way with this podcast. Well, Bonnie, and Michael, thank you so much for being with us here today. Where's the best place for people to find you? Is it the business audio theatre? Or are there other? Is there another website that would be better for people to go to first?
Michael Houlihan
Well, they can go to www.theBarefootspirit.com, which is the name of the book, the Barefoot spirit. And once they're there, they'll find links that will take them to all of our other sites. So it's a real library. When they go there they'll be entering a library. It's the kind of place that if you're serious, you can spend a month there.
Josh Steimle
Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Bonnie, thank you so much, Michael, for sharing your story and telling us about your journey to becoming authors. This has really been fascinating. Thank you so much.
Bonnie Harvey
Thank you.
Michael Houlihan
Thank you. It's been fun. See you Josh.