It's Small Business Week in the Town of Okotoks.

It's a chance to give recognition to all members of the community that strive to make Okotoks a better place and acknowledge their hard work in their ways of making an honest living.

President of Okotoks & District Chamber of Commerce Andrew Gustafson says the words 'Shop Local' really help more than just one business if money stays close to home.

"Money spent in a community will be spent seven times verses money that's spent outside of our community obviously goes away forever," he says. "If you spend a dollar in any local business that's going to go towards wages, profits within that business and it is then going to be spread around and spent and re-spent seven times before it potential leaves the community."

There are over 1400 registered business licenses in the Town and Gustafson says whether you're a part of the chamber or not there's ways to help promote your business and open more opportunities to create even more business.

"The Chamber of Commerce is a conduit through which those businesses can connect and learn more about each other and the more that we know as local citizens understand that's available locally than the more likely we are be able to stay local, shop local  because we know it's here we don't look immediately elsewhere so that economic leakage into the city can be slowed up a bit."

That being said, Gustafson says the local business community has been extremely supportive to not just their neighbours but also the chamber itself.

"We have a lot of assets locally in terms of knowledge base as well so there's a lot of people in town that we can learn from and expand our own knowledge base so we can help our own businesses and Small Business Week is another opportunity to learn from each other through those connections that we build."

For more on Small Business Week visit the Okotoks & District Chamber of Commerce website.

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