The Okotoks Chamber of Commerce and the Economic Development Committee have done something that hasn't yet been done in town.

The two have teamed up to form a formal partnership to better the local businesses by creating the Business Visitation Program.

Chair of the Committee Tanya Thorn says the whole purpose of the initiative is to improve the local business community by connecting with the business owners.

"The Economic development committee has been looking to get a better sense of what's happening with our business community, what are things that they feel are lacking, what are things they really like that we do, kind of get that whole sense and feel for it."

The team has launched a survey for Okotoks industries that will help identify what the committee is doing right and what they can improve on, it also helps identify areas of opportunity, Thorne says, "for example if a business said we go to Calgary for Patent Lawyers and we have three or four of those that are going to Calgary for those services, well it opens up the opportunity for us to start talking to local businesses here and say hey there's a need for this in our community. Or we'd go out and directly market for a specific kind of business that would compliment some of the businesses that exist here."

The program and survey are also an opportunity for the chamber and committee group to start building relationships and educating businesses about being available to them as liaisons to the town, as the new partners plan on visiting 20-35% of the 529 storefront businesses after collecting the surveys.

Thorn says if a business owner wants a visit from the committee they can request it on their survey.

"They have the opportunity on the survey to actually request a visit, so we would come out to those businesses who requested that... And if we haven't got enough requests from the surveys then we will kind of randomly pick down the list of various different industries that we want to get an understanding from and we will go and visit with them."

Personal visits will continue through the summer months and monthly evaluations or responses will occur at the end of July and August.

For the survey go to okotoks.ca.

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