Your retail store is open and you are finally in business. But some questions have been left unanswered. Like how do you reach your customers? What neighborhoods do you distribute pamphlets to? What doors do you knock on? And you certainly should find out how to harness your current customer base to pull in new customers.

Print a map mural and cover your wall with it. Not one of those oversized flattened globes with a picture of a panther in South America and a whale in the ocean. Your map mural must be relevant to your business district.

Or your campaign district. Most campaigners understand the power of a map mural to a successful campaign (I know; I've been through my share of them!), but few business people realize how their strategy could be so much easier to achieve with the help of a wall map. I talked to Kent Hargesheimer of Geo Printer.

Here are five reasons he cites that your business could use a wall map:

5 Reasons to Love Wall Maps!

1. You have people delivering pizzas or crown jewels, political flyers or newspapers? Let your staff instantly find where they are going. Wall maps are ideal for deciding where to go before leaving the store or depot.

2. Wall maps help you plan. You can plot where the competition is, where your customers are...in fact, you can do entire SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis based on geography. If you plot demographic data, you can easily see where your best target customers are located.

3. Wall maps can help you define delivery or sales territories to maximize revenues. Use erasable markers to redefine territories as need...such as when you add new customers to the map.

4. Map Murals can actually draw traffic in off the street. If your map shows the surrounding neighborhood, people will drop in to your store to find out where other stores and services are located. Here's a tip - let customers post a small colored sticker on the map to "mark their spot"...As a bonus, you'll get an excellent visualization of where your customers are located.

5. Local map murals are a great addition to the office decor. They make your employees feel a little more connected to the community and can also instill a sense of who the customer is and why they are there (to serve the customer, right?)

Before you print a map mural, the map will have to be designed. There are many great options available at online software stores.

A map on the wall motivates staff and keeps them organized. It connects you to your customers. Posting a map mural says," We are in business and ready to conquer." Just don't try putting up a map of the world...at least, not to start with.