Opportunity Knocks
How Opportunity Knocks Works
Opportunity Knocks (OK) brings together individual small business owners and managers to form a peer advisory groups.
The groups meets monthly to solve problems, avert crises, and discuss opportunities.
Each OK member pays $199 a year in return for a board of experienced advisors, an off-site meeting place, and professional organization and facilitation of all meetings.
Group participants are matched with 12 other non-competing small business owner/operators from companies of common size. Using a carefully tested format, group members brainstorm together and apply problem-solving skills techniques.
Monthly meetings give group members an opportunity to:
- Present business challenges or crises in need of
immediate attention.- Present longer-term strategic issues or problems
for discussion and insight.- Identify a specific plan of action to solve imminent
or long-term problems.- Report on the effect of action items suggested at a
previous meeting.- Gain education by hearing and questioning
small-business-issues experts.OK provides a meeting site for the group, prepares monthly agendas and provides two trained facilitators to conduct the three-hour monthly meetings.
More Information Contact:
Alexis Welsh 250-493-2566 ext. 232 alexis@cfokanagan.com Sponsors:
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the benefits of an OK membership?
1. OK serves as an unofficial Board of Advisors
2. OK solves problems through peer brainstorming
3. OK provides a networking device for developing new sales opportunities
4. OK is an antidote to loneliness, the entrepreneur�s number one enemy.
What is OK's primary purpose?
To assemble business owners and managers into thirteen-member networking teams. Each team will meet monthly (three hour meetings) and each individual member's mission will be to help one another solve their business problems, thereby substituting one member's "experience" for another member's "trial and error." Each meeting will be organized, administered, and facilitated by trained volunteers.Why thirteen members?
It has been proven in other networking groups that ten to twelve people make for the ideal discussion group. Since two or three members may be absent on any given day, the ideal number to begin with is thirteen.Who would be my team members?
Team members are in non-competing businesses.Describe a typical meeting?
Meetings will be held at a site to be provided by OK. Each networking team member will bring to the first meeting his or her three "critical issues", that is, the three most important long term issues facing his or her business at that time. Those critical issues may range from sales shortfalls to receivable collection problems, from employee related issues to financing concerns, from shareholder issues to proposed acquisitions. In other words, "critical issues" can be problems, opportunities or both.Every meeting will also include an opportunity for team members to get feedback and advice on his or her "immediate crises", that is, problems or opportunities requiring immediate attention. Experience has proven that the supply of critical issues and immediate crises are infinite, there will be no lack of material available for OK meetings.
Additionally OK maintains a roster of speakers available to speak to team members on a wide variety of small business subjects. Team members will designate who they wish to hear speak and when they wish to hear them.
What time are the meetings held?
Your facilitator will determine the time of the first meeting. At that first meeting the team members will then decide what time works best for them.Does this networking concept have a track record?
Yes. A San Diego based company, the The Executive Committee (TEC) offers a similar peer networking concept to "emerging CEO's" in many of the West Coast's larger cities, proving that the concept works, and that businesses believe that it's worth many thousands of dollars in order to participate. However, there are differences between TEC and OK. TEC�s annual fees are in the neighborhood of $4,000 while OK's are $199.Also, the Young President's Organization (YPO) has a networking track record. YPO, a nationwide organization, has offered similar networking opportunities to its members for many years.
What is the cost of OK?
$199 for the year. This fee is renewable each year and is intended to cover the expenses of initial member recruitment and ongoing administration. Such items as brochures, postage, forms, letterheads and telephone expenses are some, but not all, of the additional expenses are covered.How long will my OK team continue to meet? One year? Two years? Five years?
An OK team's longevity is whatever the team decides it to be. We suggest you continue to meet for as long as you determine the meetings provide value. Some networking teams have existed for ten years or more.What if I wish to become involved in OK as a facilitator?
E-mail us at alexis@cfokanagan.com and we will contact you.
