Walking is good for you.

My first ever sales manager taught me a much but one thing that has stayed with me was: "If you want to find out what's happening, get out of your car and walk."

I haven't got time for that, I thought. I have appointments to be at, targets to achieve - I can't just spend my time walking about. But because I trusted him, I thought I'd give it a go. So one Sunday, I drove to my sales area, parked up the car and went for a walk armed with a notebook and pen.

I was working on retail sales at the time for a publishing house so my job was basically to increase the subscribtion sales of our publications. So what did I see in an hour.

• New housing development scheduled for completion in 3 months.
• 7 For Sale signs therefore 7 potential new customer soon to be moving in
• Our main competitor had renewed their point of sale material
• A planning consent notice for a new mini market shop
• A poster for a summer fair in 2 weeks time

So in all around a dozen new opportunities for me to follow-up.

• I posted welcome to you new home leaflets in the new development and the 7 for sale homes
• Put new point of sale material up
• Wrote to the owners of the mini market to take our publications
• Set up a stall at the summer fair

Think about it in your business, what are you missing that's there to see if you just set aside an hour a week. By the way following up on that hours walk about, I was asked to do a 20 minute presentation at theweekly sales meeting.

Anyway, it's Sunday - so I'm going for a walk!