What Magic Bullet?

A friend of mine has recently been involved in judging the national “Business Of The Year Awards” for Hair Dressers.  I was naturally very interested to find out how the 3 winners made the difference and cut their way to the podium.
My friend said there were 4 common denominators between the top 3:
1) They had a written, up to date business plan
2) They had clear income targets and a step by step plan to materialize those targets
3) They knew precisely where they wanted to take the business within the next 3 to 5 years
4) They had a compelling vision statement: How their business was adding value, making a difference to their community and their customers’ lives

Combined with the above master plan were the following 3 factors
1) They had a high quality product or service
2) They were sales and profit oriented at all times
3) They had systems for everything
I hear you say….right, so what’s new? And I agree with you…NOTHING! Nothing new at all…
So what happened to the other contestants? Why didn’t they get to the top ranks? I guess they belong to the group of business owners who “Know what they are doing”. They don’t need all that “White Collar Stuff”. They are good salon owners with a solid experience in the industry.
Michael Gerber talks at length about the latter group in his book “The Emyth Revisited”, so I will spare you further details, but I certainly recommend you to read the book if you haven’t done so.
My point is you have 2 choices: Apply all the basics to your business and watch it gradually take off and grow under your control, or dismiss all that theory as a waste of time, and potentially leave hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table.
Have a great week out there

P.S. The Quote Of The Week
“You can’t do it unless you can imagine it.”
– George Lucas, director