Connections:Tips for Small Business Excellence

Halfway through 2012, I thought I might give everyone an update on our progress and a look forward to our plans. Seven months have passed since the retirement of our longtime executive director, Susie Stevens.  In her place, Eric Meade took over membership activities and volunteers stepped up to handle administration, events, marketing, etc.  The goal was to increase the total number of members enough to replace the most time-consuming volunteer efforts with paid staff. 

Our strategy to increase the number of new members largely succeeded.  We’ve signed up approximately twice as many new members as in previous years during the same period.  Opportunity Knocks has also experienced setbacks as member retention was higher than normal too.   Small business owners are a dynamic group.  People often leave Opportunity Knocks because they move or need to find a job. 

Sometimes, members leave because Opportunity Knocks was not the right fit for them.  That’s often because the member was mismatched with his or her team, the facilitator needs improvement, or we fail to meet some other need.  Opportunity Knocks’ strength lies within our teams.  If people don’t get value from team meetings, members will not waste their time attending.

Overall, things are going well at Opportunity Knocks. With our reduced staff, board and committee members have stepped up to fill teams, train facilitators and organize events. 

As we move forward we know that there will be surprises along the way. Transitions can be a bit bumpy especially when everyone has many other commitments. We will be smoothing out these bumps during first half of 2012. After we stabilize our processes and budget, attention will be focused on helping the teams be as successful as possible.