If you think that strategic planning should be reserved for large multi-national corporations that have over 1000 employees… you are dead wrong.

I am stretching my stiff neck, rolling my shoulders back and walking out of a 4 ½ HOUR long Catalogs.com strategic planning session. All I can say is WOW!

Take note CEO’s, marketing and advertising executives, operational gurus … this is the BEST, most valuable 4 ½ hours we have spent the entire month.

All too often, executives get bogged down with the micro-management, micro-problems, micro-analysis of day to day, hour by hour situations.

Today, Catalogs.com had gathered around a closed door conference table with NO computers, no phones, no interruptions... Only large plain paper taped to walls with our creative ideas, brainstorming and out-of-the-box ideas strewn all over the walls. Five top executives sat around, ate lunch, and thought up incredible NEW ideas, as well as critiqued what has gone right and gone wrong over the last year.

Our last strategic planning session was on January 27 of this year. As an 8 month check-up… I am delighted to say Catalogs.com is not too far off course.

Remember, checking in and doing a bit of self-analysis can be a humbling experience, especially if you are brutally honest. But the rewards of self-assessment as a company are priceless.