The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – Reflecting on 2011

The New Year is a time for reflecting on the last 12 months and trying to figure out what went well in your life and what didn't.  It's the same for business.  This is the perfect time to take a good look at what your business has accomplished this past year.  What process have worked, what ideas brought great success…and which ones went down in flames.   And this is exactly what I’ve been doing over the last several weeks.

Business, as in life, has its peaks and valleys.  I’ve come to learn that it is important for the success of any business to learn from both our accomplishments and our mistakes and more often than not, our mistakes end up teaching us more than our accomplishments.  As I took a long look at the year past and the year ahead here are a few questions I  asked myself

1. What ideas and/or processes worked and which didn't?
2. Which product/service did I spend the most money on?
3. Which projects and/or tasks took up the majority of my time?
4. Are their areas of my business that I feel are still falling short of your expectations?

As I asked myself these questions, I took a good long moment to contemplate the answers.  It might seem like a silly task, but I realized that it revealed a few underlying issues and problems that I may not have seen while caught up in the momentum of day-to-day business.  It was also reassuring to know and understand the processes and ideas that have worked and were successful [insert pat on the back here].

I have decided to take a few moments each week to brainstorm solutions to these issues and tackle them head-on…one at a time (now if they’ll only get in line).

To all my fellow entrepreneurs and business associates, I extend this challenge you as well…and perhaps together we can improve our overall business outlook in 2012.

To a SUCCESSFUL and PROSPEROUS New Year!!!