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Entrepreneurs' Forum, a Nova Scotia-based organization, connects entrepreneurs with corresponding professionals

When home organizing entrepreneurs Kim Eagles and Elaine Shannon first sat down with seasoned professionals as part of Entrepreneurs' Forum, a program that connects entrepreneurs with industry experts, they were bluntly told that their business model wasn't working.

"They basically told us that our baby was ugly. Which wasn't easy to hear," said Shannon, empress of inspiration - an innovative title for president - of web-based Organizing Connection Inc. The company offers the benefits of home organizing, which usually involves individuals coming to a house and organizing rooms, through downloadable videos online.

Eagles and Shannon didn't despair after hearing they needed a new business model. Instead, they took the advice, and redesigned their website.

Their hard work eventually paid off. At a home organizing conference in Orlando, Fla., earlier this year, industry veterans told them that their web-based organizing videos were the type of innovation that was setting the benchmark for the industry.

Eagles and Shannon's success is an example of what Entrepreneurs' Forum, a Nova Scotia-based organization that opened in New Brunswick this month, can do for business mavericks looking for sound advice. The organization has been operating for more than 15 years and has offices in Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.

"There's a ton of support for entrepreneurs in New Brunswick. What I think is missing is the bridge," said Nancy Mathis, executive director of the Wallace McCain Institute at the University of New Brunswick, which is administering the program in the province. "Entrepreneurs' Forum basically helps people get the services that help entrepreneurs get connected to the wealth of support that is out there."

The service is free and open to companies at any stage of business. Once entrepreneurs register, a dinner is set up with experienced business moguls for feedback and advice. Advisers, as the professionals are called, are partnered with budding entrepreneurs based on their corresponding industries.

According to Mathis, the service helps prevent the kind of incompatibility that can happen when entrepreneurs seek out professionals not particularly suited to their type of business.

"What if there's no chemistry in a situation like that? It's like a bad date. A bad blind date," she said.

The advisers are hired onas volunteers, comprising a pool of nearly 600 business professionals throughout Atlantic Canada. There are no real criteria for what industry they work in. Rather, advisers represent a broad field from lawyers to venture capital investors according to Deborah Hashey, executive director of Entrepreneurs' Forum.

"Essentially, whatever type of field you're involved in, we can more than likely connect you with a corresponding professional," said Hashey.

Advisers who choose to join Entrepreneurs' Forum don't have an obligation to continue mentoring once a dinner meeting takes place. However, in many cases, the meetings are so successful that a business relationship emerges soon afterward.

For Eagles and Shannon, the professionals they met have now become part of their company's unofficial board of advisers.

"It wasn't 'We're just going to sit around this table and that's it'," said Shannon. "We've had lunch, we've had extensive meetings and we've had several of them review our business plan based on their suggestions. They're like having a big brother and a big sister."

Entrepreneurs' Forum has already done several previous sessions in the province before it formally opened here this month. Companies interested in using their services should get into contact with the Wallace McCain Institute at UNB.