Many companies and/or teams have an annual Retreat - or as we choose to call it, a Team Advance. This is where we look at the year past, the year ahead, set our marketing budget and choices, etc.

This year we started out by measuring our year against our Mission Statement.  Two parts of our missions statement are that 

    we have fun

and

    we make a significant difference in our clients' lives.

We truly believe that if we read our clients properly and put them in the right house, that it makes a difference in their lives. Having the right base, the right foundation, the feeling of HOME, makes a difference in their lives.

So - two questions each of the 4 of us had to answer to start off our Planning Day (actually divided into 3 sessions for the first time, since we've been so busy) were:

•     Who was the client you had the most fun with?
•     Who was the client for whom you felt you made the most significant difference in their life?

The answers differed, as did the meanings. The point we made - which of course we want to duplicate in our plans for 2008 - was: yes, we did have fun, and yes, we did truly make a difference in the lives of some of our clients.

I won't share the stories here - some are sad, some happy, some very poignant - but it's so worthwhile to know that despite the obstacles of 2007 (or perhaps because of them) we DID make a difference.

What a wonderful profession we're in, that we CAN make a difference!

12/27/07 9:56 pm:  There's a bit more to our mission statement, so I posted a Part II blog just now.