Sky Walker? Sky Walking?

Having read about the walk through the trees in Kew which I haven't managed to visit and try aout yet, I was thrilled to hear about the Sky Walk in Bloomsbury as part of the London Festival of Architecture.

I , of course, wanted to go walk on it and was planning to on Monday but I have since discovered that it was only there for a weekend 4th - 6th July and I missed it.

Getting onto the LFA site though I browsed and there are a number of walks available so perhaps I'll do one of these instead.

Really impressed with this festival. Hope it's annual as I'll be on the ball more next year.

The power of PR.

The programme hasn't even gone out yet but already I've had enquiries from 4 new people to join my East End Girls and a potential client in the North West.

What will tomorrow bring? It's all very exciting.

Don't forget, radio 4 at 3.00 p.m. July 18th.

On the Radio.

I love to walk and I'm also a little bit of a performer hence the reason that I love to train, to talk to people and to appear in the media.

I was delighted to get a chance to do a mix of these on June 9th when myself and some of the East End Girls (my walking group) did a walk in the Lakes for Radio 4's 'Ramblings' programme.

Here we are about half way through the walk

The programme will be broadcast this Friday, July 18th on Radio 4 at 3.00p.m. If you can, do listen and tell me what you think. We even got a write up in the Radio Times!

You can comment through the blog or on heather@walkerscoach.com.

If you are inspired and want to walk, then the East End Girls are always looking for new members - http://www.walkerscoach.com/east_end_girls.htm and Walkers' Coach also runs a range of local walks called Walk your Way to WOW - http://www.walkerscoach.com/walk_your_way_to_wow.htm

If you'd like something in your area, wherever that might be, please let me know as we will be rolling out our programmes and services throughout the UK and Ireland in 2009.

Pick your travel mates carefully.

Currently some of my walking group are planning a trip to France in October to walk the first part of the St James Way, also known as the Camino de Compostella. We all get on really well and have been away now in various combinations on a few occasions with no problems. But are we just lucky or will this always be the way?

It's not always been like that though, and in the past I have holidayed with good friends only to find that being in their company 24 hours a day lets you see a different side to them. I'm sure they felt the same way. Some of those friendships didn't recover.

All this was brought to mind when I read an article recently about two guys who set out on an 18 month Amazon Trek and fell out after 68 days - one of the guys has now returned home.

I was surprised in some ways as I could see women falling out more easily as perhaps they are more pernickity but I thought blokes would just laugh it off or find a way to get over it. Here, I suppose they'd go to the pub but there would have been a lack of those in the Amazon! In fact, perhaps not having that cop out forced them to address the situation?

These guys planned for every eventuality which is really important but what brought it to a head was one of the guys emailing for one ipod to be sent and this was his way of announcing that he was leaving. The exact reasons remain a mystery but both expressed that getting on with each other was very difficult.

Be warned, as well as thinking through the practical planning, also give some time to what might be problematic and it is worth discussing what will happen if you do fail to get on.

My tip is to make some shorter trips together first and not only the comfortable weekends away when everything is perfect. Try some under conditions of hardship if this is what your trip might be like.

As I write it seems as if it may just be Teresa and I on the Camino. We have been away on three occasions now, all walking and have shared a room on two of those. The third occasion was camping on the Inca Trail. We walk regularly and have been walking in weather so wet to cause misery and came out of it still friends so things look good. Anyhow, we're not going up the Amazon so that makes a difference straight away and we're not camping!! Plus, we each have ipods!!

Chaos, or not really!

Feeling rather out of control as I survey all I have to do personally and professionally before going on leave.

It's been a hectic few months which is great as many plans are coming to fruition and it's so exciting. I've also been taking on more one to one clients and I love working out their needs and tailoring walking plans to deliver what they want.

At the same time as all this is happening, it's Ellie's last few weeks at Junior school and life is full of parties, trips, performances etc all which require planning, chauffering and shopping - I just spent a couple of ddays getting all her new school uniform.

...and I'm still celebrating my big 50, although I feel more like 30!! Hope I look it too.

Trying to manage all of this and one way is not to lie in bed mulling it over but to get up and take action, hence sitting in my office working through it all at 5.15 a.m. Sanity and control is seeping in though so good plan really.

Hope you're sleeping soundly.

The Inca Trail, relived....

It took me about a year to find the time to do it but finally , starting on the anniversary of the day we returned from this amazing trip I did. You can read it in it's entirety at http://www.walkerscoach.com/inca_trail__the_dream_comes.htm

I really did relive it all again and it was fantastic and of course also fuelled the wish to do something else. A few of us are off to France in October to walk the beginning part of the Camino de Santiago, that will be another tale to tell.

In the meantime, I had this lovely feedback from Gemma, one of my fellow travellers - 'Just read your write-up of the Inca Trail. It brought back so many memories, I even had a tear in my eye!!'

Read it for yourself and be inspired and if you need some help on how to train, Walkers' Coach is there to help.

Watch out world...

It's going to be a fabulous week. I can just feel it all around.

Perhaps it's because the month of July is about to dawn, who knows but it is my birthday month and there's a rather big one heading this way at the end of the week.....

I read some great stuff about business over the weekend and most specifically about marketing, which I am immersing myself in at present and also to do with niches.

When I started Walkers' Coach I was trying to run one full time business in the world of careers and set up another one re walking. Was that a successful strategy? No, of course not. I was pulled from one to the other and of course was doing neither justice. I ploughed on like this for a year or two, trying to keep them more and more separate as I knew that is was confusing to talk about both but that didn't work either.

I did have some successes and learnt a great deal along the way but it was only at the start of 2008 when I focused on my walking and honed in on my Walk your Way to WoW groups that things really started to develop as I wanted them to.

Why?

Well, I believe that it's because I had then really developed my niche and within that started to work with a micro niche within that which is local women.

As Will Craig of 'Promoting You' says 'The more focused you are on a specific market, the better you can serve that market'. He goes on to talk about how much easier it then is to research and meet the needs of that market.

If we try and do too much people wonder how we can possibly do all that we say we do or how can we be good at it all if we do that much. People want expertise not generalists.

So, how about you? If you are in business have you got your niche defined? Are you serving it to the best of your ability? If you're not in business but shopping for services, who are you going to? What attracts you to buying what you want and need?

I love my niche and I am trying every day to serve it better and better. If you have questions or comments, then ask. I'd love to serve you too.