In the mid-1980s, as my professional career began to accelerate, I aimed my love for reading at a target that had developed a healthy stranglehold on me: the secrets to business success. Not just any run-of-the-mill success but Warren Buffet- or IBM-type success. I had an insatiable desire to understand the nuts and bolts of sustainable, elite performance.

My study of successful people and companies in competitive environments became first a habit, then an obsession. With a keen eye toward discerning the various crucial success factors that enabled that kind of prosperity, a trend emerged.

Becoming the best at something requires a confluence of factors. What I've learned, though, is that one attribute almost always trumps the others: focus. Monomaniacal focus. An all-encompassing single-mindedness in one specific area of expertise designed to triumph in a crowded marketplace.

We've made this business of growing our businesses too complex. All that's needed is a visit to Latin America, Canada and Mexico's deadly Copper Canyon region.

Did you know that one of every four players on Major League Baseball rosters is either from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico or Cuba? If you open up the sports page right now, odds are that five of the top 10 batters in the American and National leagues are from Latin America.

With Hall of Fame players such as Tony Perez, Juan Marichal and the late Roberto Clemente - who is something of a deity in his home country of Puerto Rico - there's no question about the rewards this level of focus provides. And if you're a kid from one of these "beisbol" hotbeds, there's no shortage of inspiration. (Question: Whom do you or your business inspire?)

Their love, passion and devotion to this singular game enable their dominance. It's cultural, embedded - just as with our next two examples.

For our great neighbors to the north, there's only one national obsession: hockey. The Canadians invented the game, it's a source of deep civic pride, and its traditions are centuries old. Sure, even us Yanks know about Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky and Canada's most recent Olympic hero, Sidney Crosby. But if you say "Paul Henderson" anywhere within the 10 Canadian provinces, most every citizen of a certain age can tell you where he or she was on Sept. 28, 1972. That's when Henderson scored the greatest goal in hockey history, a tie-breaking game-winner against the evil Soviet empire in the famed Summit Series.

If you're a 16-year-old from Toronto with professional potential, you're often shipped off to a surrogate family in Moose Jaw or Saskatoon to play at the highest levels of junior-league hockey. Now that's focus! How would your teenager feel about that? Also, consider that "Hockey Night in Canada," which first appeared on radio in 1931 and then debuted on CBC television in 1952, not only is the world's oldest sports-related television program still on the air, but it is consistently among the highest-rated Canadian programs.

Let's remove our skates and slip on running shoes. In his spellbinding New York Times best-selling book "Born to Run," author Christopher McDougall chronicles his journey to the Copper Canyon region of Chihuahua, Mexico, where he seeks the magic of the Tarahumara Indians and their fabled 70-mile runs: "Isolated by the most savage terrain in North America, the reclusive Tarahumara are custodians of a lost art. For centuries they have practiced techniques that allow them to run hundreds of miles without rest and chase down anything from a deer to an Olympic marathoner while enjoying every mile of it."

Let me get this straight. Super-athlete hermits living in a quasi-jungle capable of running hundreds of miles for fun, many of them older than 60? Surprise - the Kenyans do this, too. Kind of forces you to adjust your paradigms of what's possible, doesn't it? If nothing else, it reinforces the concept of focusing on a niche as a core strategy for industry domination.

Think of Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong or Michael Phelps and the commitment, discipline and laser-like focus that it took to become the titans in their respective sports.

Any winner in sports or business will tell you that having more than two primary goals is the same as having none. Similarly, tell your customers that you stand for a multitude of things and confusion sets in, especially if they're an outsider and not a connoisseur of your business.

Welcome to the new economy, where "one-stop shop" is an old paradigm and "niche" and "tribes" are the contemporary watchwords for success.

Sean Stormes www.speedtorevenue.net Stormes is an author and chief revenue strategist of Speed to Revenue.