December 17, 2004

Horizon Planning Group Inc.-Coast to Coast Journey Pays off: National Directory of Professionals Among Top-Ranked Web Sites in the World

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(CCNMatthews - Dec. 17, 2004) - Horizon Planning Group's online professional directory and financial portal has been ranked within the top 100,000 web sites in the world and president Kyle Dunn credits good old fashioned personal hand-shaking with his technological success.

The National Directory of Professionals is an independent source for consumers to find independent financial services in their local communities and Dunn embarked on an extensive personal cross-country tour to launch the online service.

"Just picking up the phone is not effective enough," Dunn said. "I wanted to meet business professionals face to face, a factor I felt was critical in establishing a credible national network consumers could access quickly and easily."

Over the past 12 months, from Victoria to Halifax, Dunn personally interviewed over 1,000 professionals - such as financial planners, insurance and mortgage brokers - and began building a powerful network of businessmen and women who are now featured on his website www.BestPlans.ca. The high-ranking statistic comes from the Internet web statistics tool www.Alexa.com, which also shows the directory ranked as third in the country in comparison to national independent financial firms.

"This proves that consumers want factual and unbiased financial advice," Dunn said.

Dunn's personal touch and technological savvy worked, and traditional paper telephone directories may soon start collecting dust. With an estimated five million pages of information and thousands of new websites online every day, the sites have secured a dominant presence on the Internet and hundreds of professionals in various specialties are now linked in this virtual directory from coast to coast.

Victoria-based Dunn started his journey on the west coast on November 30, 2003 by seeking out the best professionals in every community on Vancouver Island. On the coldest day in January aboard his sailboat 'Horizon', which sported a foot of snow the day he set out, he headed for Vancouver to develop the network in B.C. He picked up his journey in the spring and began traveling through Alberta, the prairies, central Canada and, by August, he was gazing at the tall ships in Halifax. In each community, he sought out established businesspeople through referrals by their colleagues to feature in the National Directory of Professionals.

"I was welcomed with genuine hospitality by Canadians coast to coast and feel I've laid the groundwork for a true national referral network," Dunn said. "It has helped me achieve my goal of creating a credible, unbiased financial portal for consumers and corporate buyers to navigate in today's financial maze of choices."

"I believe the legwork I have invested in this project will result in people being able to find top-notch professional services quickly and easily and make informed decisions from the comfort of their home or office," he added. "My sincere thanks to our professional and team members, friends and family, who all helped get this initiative off the ground - thank you, Canada!"

The National Directory of Professionals is just one of the innovative tools developed by Horizon Planning Group Inc., a federally incorporated national financial and technology marketing firm. This includes proprietary technology solutions to build custom websites, directories, web-based Client Relationship Management (CRM) systems and business technology solutions quickly and cost effectively.

During his cross-country tour, Dunn met with top decision-makers in Canada's largest financial firms to present and discuss the advantages of using innovative technological approaches when designing marketing strategies. As a result, Dunn will be announcing in early January his affiliation with a groundbreaking new health insurance protection product for Canadians. This insurance is a hybrid of a comprehensive critical illness insurance plan and an innovative long-term care insurance policy.

"There is no question the time is right for this product," Dunn said. "It will be the fiduciary responsibility of insurance brokers and financial planning firms to review these choices, in a timely manner, for health and life insurance protection now available to Canadians."

Introductory information is available at www.BestPlans.ca/lifebeat.

Horizon Planning Group's goal is to be the consumer's first choice when searching for information on the best plans for their life planning solutions.

For further information please contact:

Horizon Planning Group Inc.
Kyle Dunn, President /Founder
Toll free: 1.866.309.6711
Email: kyle@bestplans.ca
Website: www.bestplans.ca

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