Chapter 4. Taking Lessons from the Past

In This Chapter

  • Reviewing last year's successes and failures

  • Determining your profitable products and services

  • Assembling a successful portfolio

  • Evaluating your financial performance

Didn't you always hate it when your mom (or grandma) would say, “Back in my day. . . .” Yeah, yeah, I know. You walked everyday to school uphill both ways in a perpetual snowstorm. God bless her for trying to share her past, but it always seemed so trying. The future's much more exciting than the past. The future is where the action is. It's moving. It's shaking. It's sexy and bright. The past just slows us down. It's like getting stuck in molasses or running underwater. Or is it?

Learning from your past can save hours and hundreds of dollars spent on fruitless activities. Ignoring your past can be very costly because you aren't adding to your knowledge base. Instead, you're just continually trying new things. By taking a good look at your past performance, you can move faster into the future by avoiding roadblocks and pitfalls you've already encountered.

In this chapter, you look at your past performance. You don't have to spend too much time wandering down memory lane, but taking a few hours by yourself or with your team to work through the exercises in this chapter may pay high rewards in the future. With a better understanding of what happened last year and the years before that, you're able to catapult your company's growth by developing a strategic plan based on ...

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