Winners Make It Happen

A great innovator of our time, Leonard Lavin epitomises the American Dream. Forced to leave college to take care of family matters, Lavin entered the workforce early. He began his career as a salesman, but quickly discovered that he would rather own a company than work for one. Lavin purchased a tiny beauty supply company called Alberto Culver Corporation -- best known for its chief asset, a hairstyling product called VO5 (for five vital oils) -- and built the regional company into a revered Fortune 500 corporation. Now, in Winners Make It Happen, this self-made millionaire takes readers on a trip through his extraordinary life, and shares with new generations of entrepreneurs his blueprint for success. Lavin reveals how his instinct-driven vision led him to build a small family business into a corporate giant, without the help of any formal business education, start-up funds, or financial backing. He revisits his groundbreaking achievements -- and he looks outside his corporate triumphs to explore his international success as a breeder of thoroughbred horses, from his first stakes winner in 1967 to his filly One Dreamer, who won the prestigious Breeder's Cup Distaff in 1994. I