Opportunity Knocks News

I am happy to announce that OK has received the ultimate donation from 18 talented business people from around Deschutes County. No, I’m not talking about the “ultimate donation” being a pile of cash; rather I’m referring to the commitment those 18 talented people have made to help OK as

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Opportunity Knocks News

“All good things must come to an end”, we’re told, and once more that adage is proven as Susie Stevens moves on from her OK duties to the next phase of her life. Susie is leaving a solid imprint of enthusiasm, passion and caring upon OK’s culture, a legacy that those of

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Opportunity Knocks News

Susie Stevens is moving on from her position as Opportunity Knock’s Facilitator Relations Director on September 1.  We’d like to thank her for her many years of service to the organization. Susie was a member of one of the first OK teams; she then became a facilitator; and she served as

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Opportunity Knocks News

At Opportunity Knocks, we all are firm believers that entrepreneurs and strong organizations are the basis for healthy communities. We are thrilled that you and your business are a part of the Opportunity Knocks community! Your contribution to your teammates is what makes Opportunity Knocks and the Central Oregon business community

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Opportunity Knocks News

Dear Opportunity Knocks Facilitators, Thank you all for the very warm welcome to Opportunity Knocks! For those of you I haven’t met in person yet, I’m happy to introduce myself as OK’s new Executive Director. I’m thrilled to be a part of such an incredible organization. I’ve currently visited four of

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Developing Good Business and Management Skills

“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately” – Ben Franklin It’s easy to get advice about your business challenges. Generally, either you can buy advice from an expert with the copious excess funds in your business that weren’t previously allocated elsewhere, or you

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Planning and Managing for Growth

If you develop and test your own applications, provide a web-based service, or host customer websites, you need a server. But, building your own server rack can be daunting—and expensive. Hardware costs alone can be astronomical. Power and cooling costs can quickly skyrocket out of control. And, once you purchase

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Hiring and Developing the Best People

Too often, employees who are struggling to meet minimum performance standards get a disproportionate amount of managerial attention in an organization and the high performers are left to work with little or no support. This situation is unavoidable to some degree, but when the energy and talent of high performers

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Finance

My fellow Opportunity Knocks members, I want to tell you about a consulting engagement I am working on. It’s a family owned company that has been in business since the 1960s. During its heyday, this business was doing almost $30 million a year in revenue. In 2012, it did $14

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Effective Marketing

Businesses like to focus on marketing and what they can do to increase their customer base. If they could only unlock the magic box of marketing, then new and profitable customers would start showing up at all hours of the day, buying products and services that would grow their business

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