It has been good to see so many bloggers, writers and speakers beginning to express more interest in “going back to the basics”. Why did we, as small business owners, ever get away from the basics? The solid foundation of any business is sound fundamentals.

Fundamentals, when they are executed brilliantly, with a strategic objective firmly in mind, will allow your company to out-think, out-maneuver, out-sell, out-ship and out-collect your competition every single time. Far too many companies are chasing the “flavor of the month” as expressed by its “guru”, at the expense of the basic fundamentals.

In my series on Systemization, I write extensively on stability. You can not improve a task, process or function without first attaining stability in that area. Every process has four distinct components – man, materials, machines and methods (the 4 M’s) and until you have attained stability in all four you have no chance of implementing improvements and making those improvements take hold. Stability is nothing more than applying the fundamentals in a consistent and constant manner.

When we seek out and engage strategic partners, no matter what their marketing copy says they are always practitioners of fundamental concepts and methods. Whether it’s Chet Holmes, Michael Mills or whoever, they are all fundamentally sound experts. We do not seek out the newest rage or the most recent flash-in-the-pan guru – for good reason as for the most part they are not fundamentally grounded nor do they practice and apply the basic business principles that will build any business into a powerhouse.

So go back to the basics, if you apply sound fundamental business principles to all things you do in business you will be able to scale up (or down) your enterprise to dominate your market.