When it comes to business and products, what sets your product or business apart from the rest of the crowd? Some may say the best products or the new innovative method of training. Some may say staff. But, unless you have exclusivity, then products, methods, and education courses for fitness professionals are available to your competitors as well. Sometimes it can be the little things that make the difference between good and amazing in relation to how your new class, service or product is perceived by your customers.

For example, on a recent trip to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, I walked through the park in the very centre of the financial district and spotted a great example of this exact thing: how paying attention to the small details can really pay dividends. Practically in the shadow of the Petronas twin towers, this park is a perfect opportunity for financial high flyers to relax with a walk in nature or maybe a run. So what small detail would a forward-thinking developer do to make a park more accessible and specific for runners or walkers? Well as the image shown clearly displays, Kuala Lumpur stands apart from every other park that I have been to with a couple of innovative modifications: distance markings and specialised flooring.

The distance markings mean that runners can run laps and know exactly how far they have gone without GPS, Nike+ or any other electronic gadgets. Simple, low cost and just a small consideration which makes the life of active users just that little bit easier.

As you can also see from the image, they have also laid a different surface to run on, rather than the brick payment to the side of it. Not only will it designate this “lane” as being designed for walkers/runners, more importantly, it provides significant bio-mechanical benefits. This surface is designed to absorb stress, thus decreasing the potential for stress-related injuries like shin splits which are very common with runners. What a difference this could make over 5-10 years to the active users of this park.

That was the first thing I thought when I saw this - these two small things, that make this park stand out from the parks that I use for doing my sprint work in Bristol. Someone had taken a little bit of time to really think how some small attentions to detail may not only help the active users of this facility, but also maybe attract others to use it for this purpose as well.

So, when you next implement your new functional training area, or class, or product or service, just take a walk in the park for an hour and really think what small attention to details may make for their success.