Boot camp offered in North: increasing success rate of businesses behind initiative.

The Timmins and Area Business Self-Help Office is partnering with the South Temiskaming Business Self-Help Office and Ross Pope & Company to deliver a boot camp for businesses.

"This boot camp is going to be an opportunity because it is a common fact that 80 per cent of businesses fail during their first year, and the Number 1 reason for this failure is the lack of planning and the lack of proper management skills," says Paul Dandavino, a small business consultant with the Timmins and Area Business Self-Help Office. "This is aimed at businesses that are just about to make the big move, but they are not sure how to do it. So, before businesses take the plunge, we definitely want to make sure they plan ahead. If it does take six months, then that is what it will take. Instead of risking your entire existing operations, why not plan for the future and make sure it is a success?"

"The goal is definitely to increase the success rate of businesses and make sure that during that transitional period, that they have all the tools," he adds. "It is about making businesses as successful as possible in a shaky economy and to give them a little bit of help."

Dandavino explains that the boot camp is a six-month program in which business owners will meet once a month to learn new ways to increase business and to network within a work group. Advice will also be offered on such topics as human resource development, marketing, advertising, sales and finance. During each of the meetings, which are open to any existing business, but limited to only 15 people at a time, participants will review and discuss the topics on hand and find new ways to implement the strategies within their own businesses.

Participants who complete the first six seminars and continue with the next six will subsequently have input into those topics. The first workshop will be called "Four Ways to Grow Your own Business;" program start dates have not yet been set.

"We feel there is a real need in Northern Ontario for this type of service," says Barry Ryan, a businesses consultant with Ross Pope Inc. "To go to some place in southern Ontario and take in a two-hour seminar, it is going to cost you $800 to $900. We are offering it here in Northern Ontario, probably staring out in Timmins, New Liskeard and Kirkland Lake, and we are coming to businesses as opposed to businesses having to go somewhere else to take in these seminars."

"Our main goal is to help people build business value," Ryan adds. "The big cause of business failure today is what we are calling FTI, failure to implement, and that is the big message we are trying to get across to people...they should get their business strategies and ideas in place in the beginning and not part way through."

For any business just starting out, Ryan suggests they prepare a written business plan, make sure they have all of the necessary capital in place before they start, and that they attain the assistance of a qualified accountant.

"We want businesses to work smarter, rather than harder," Ryan concludes. "We want to get a membership atmosphere where participants can network and share experiences with other businesses, as well as learn business strategies and ideas."

The Business Self-Help Office in Timmins, which has been operating for 10 years now, was recently asked to switch to a small business enterprise centre set up as mandated by the province because of a misconception about their name, Dandavino explains. "It was not the preferred name for these offices," he says. "It gave the wrong impression to clients out there that this was just sort of like a library, but we do a lot more than just provide information. We assist with business plan operation, we do consultation for the clients, we do research and any questions they have, we answer."

So although the self-help office was initially aimed solely at assisting startup business, in April of 2003 they will be switching to assist existing businesses. One of the ways the self-help office felt they could prepare for the change was through the boot camp. The self-help office was approached by Ross Pope Inc., who was already running the program under a different name and who was already a member of RAN-1, an international network of private chartered accounting firms that specialize in small- to mid-size business enterprises and family businesses. That is when the Timmins and Area Business Self-Help Office decided to organize the program and establish Ross Pope Inc. as the ones who will deliver the program.

"Our initial structure was basically aimed at assisting startup businesses and making that process as easy as possible," says Dandavino. "Now, we are moving to a new structure of the office; this small business enterprise centre. We are trying to do this for existing businesses to help them succeed and remain in business. We are still going to assist small businesses that want to start up, but definitely we are going to find ways to help existing businesses. One of the ways we identified is through this business boot camp."