Winning Like The Most Successful Car Racing Team

Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 at 11:10 am

While flipping through my father’s old sports magazines, I came across this famous story:

In the 1970s there was a car racing team that won one race after another. The team consisted of two men: British pilot Henry Liddon and Finnish driver Timo Mäkinen. They took part in races for more than twenty years, and their trophies included:

1964 Tulip Rally (Mini Cooper S)
1965 Monte Carlo Rally (Mini Cooper S)
1965 1000 Lakes (Mini Cooper S)
1966 1000 Lakes (Mini Cooper S)
1966 Three Cities Rally (Mini Cooper S)
1967 1000 Lakes (Mini Cooper S)
1972 Hong Kong Rally (Ford Escort RS)
1973 Arctic Rally (Ford Escort RS)
1973 1000 Lakes (Ford Escort RS)
1973 RAC Rally (Ford Escort RS)
1974 RAC Rally (Ford Escort RS)
1974 Ivory Coast Rally (Ford Escort RS)
1975 RAC Rally (Ford Escort RS)
1976 Ivory Coast Rally (Peugeot 504 V6)

They were mysteriously successful, absolutely unbeatable…and there was a solid foundation- a great strategy. And this is how it looked like:

Henry Liddon being a pilot arrived at the location of the future race two weeks before the start. What he did was – he borrowed a car, examined the track of the race expertly , not just for one day, but for several, wrote his notes, and found out where the important places like the service bays were going to be. After several days when he knew the plan nearly by heart, Mäkinen would arrive and they would practice together, using Liddon’s notes. They were sure about their success as they prepard so well and knew the track.

The result was obvious: they won.

The race requires from the navigator: intuition, experience, quick solutions to questions, and the answers come from preparation.

Business – has similar strategies. When you can look far into the future what you need more are: sharp skills, passion, will to win, love for speed. What is essential to your success is to write a detailed business plan, and to prepare…those two actions make you failure-proof. So what makes writing a business plan so phenomenal- first: it makes you more creative, second: allows you to see what is necessery in order to succeed and third:you create the big picture of your idea.

We all love to win. There is always one winner. What makes the winner is nearly obvious :

- passion and drive, as well as awareness of purpose (that’s the driver)

- a detailed plan of action, a business plan (that’s the brain of the race).

Without a plan you may end up going nowhere, while still having the pleasure of driving, but driving without a clear purpose. It is the strategic planning process that takes you further. A winner is created by having a plan.

Success leaves clues.

Nowadays it is far easier to prosper than ever before. The key to prosperity is known well. But the proverbial devil sleeps in the details- in the knowledge how to use it. We have the tools that revolutionize the speed of progress. If you are interested in learning more, visit the link: Young Entrepreneurs.

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