News Releases

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Oct. 3, 2011) - BMO Bank of Montreal is going online to celebrate the Year of the Entrepreneur and the upcoming Small Business Week with the BMO SmartSteps for Business Online Community, a virtual hub with new media features and numerous tools, including a blog, a live Twitter feed, and hot topic polls, for small businesses to get engaged.

On the docket this Fall are a feature on young entrepreneurs and a new video series profiling savvy small business owners. The blog will be expanded to other regions and an even greater audience in the coming months. The community blog, updated daily, features advice for small business owners from small business bankers, commercial account managers, industry experts, and BMO's Vice-President of Commercial Banking, Cathy Pin.

"We launched this online community to engage business owners and offer a forum for them to take their conversations that are happening offline, and bring them online," said Ms. Pin. "It's constantly being updated, whether it's a blog post, podcast or tweet, as we're always looking at new ways to connect with small business owners across the country."

The BMO Business Coach Podcast series has more than 140 episodes to date in English and French, and each episode is available for streaming or downloading. The series pairs a host with an industry expert, including the 100th episode of "Best Business Advice" featuring Robert Herjavec of Dragon's Den, Global Sustainability leader Bruce Poon Tip and Canadian billionaire Michael Lee-Chin.

Business owners can also take advantage of the BMO SmartSteps for Business online assessment tool, which generates a free, customized Action Plan in minutes with solutions to help entrepreneurs run their business more efficiently.

As small business owners increasingly look to the web to execute their business strategies or create a digital presence, BMO recently paired with Google for a special offer. With this, any business owner who signs up for the commercial banking solution recommended in their Action Plan will receive one of the following:

• $100 credit from Google AdWords® – to help you learn how you can use the Internet to market your business better
• 20GB of storage space free for one year with SecureVault™ – to help you safely store your business documents online