Aside from when I go out of town, I tend to stay in my neighborhood bubble. Why leave? Everything I need is within 15 minutes of my house. Earlier this week I ventured out of my bubble to pick up a gift for a client. I learned a few lessons from my trip:

• Call for store hours and directions before you leave. I didn’t call before I left because I knew my iPhone would help me find the store. Big mistake. My iPhone GPS couldn’t find the address and when I called the number on the store’s site, a woman in the billing department of a doctors’ office answered. She was tired of getting another company’s calls.

• Don’t count on your GPS (or iPhone) to get you where you need to go. (See lesson #1.)

• Call the store before you leave to make sure they have what you need. When I finally found the store (I called another location for their correct address and phone) I was thrilled that they had the gift I wanted. This time I was lucky. Next time I’ll call ahead.

• Make sure the correct phone number and address are on your site, unless you don’t want clients or prospects to find you. When I told the store’s owner about the wrong phone number on his site, he said that other people had been telling him the same thing for weeks. I guess correcting the number on his site wasn’t a priority.

The final lesson I learned: I need to leave my bubble more often.