Network, know your customers, and sell: former librarian, now a bookseller, has the same advice for information professionals and entrepreneurs

Information Outlook, June, 2005 by Karen Santos Freeman

Jane Cooney's career has covered a lot of ground--geographically, professionally, and philosophically.

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It started in the 1960s in a newspaper library in Montreal in the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec. From there, her career took her to the mountains of western Canada and the Calgary Public Library. She worked happily surrounded by books and rows of bookshelves. Then she returned to Montreal before heading home to Toronto.

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There, her career took a turn and she began teaching at the University of Toronto, imparting to students the basic principles for information management, business literature, and government publishing. While still serving in the classroom, Cooney joined the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. There she worked for 14 years, rising to become the bank's manager of information resources worldwide.

By this time, people were starting to hear about Cooney. She was gaining a reputation as an innovative information professional and problem solver.

That's when, in the early 1980s, she got a call from the Bank Marketing Association in the U.S. The executive director sought to entice her south of the Canadian border. After initial reluctance, she accepted the job in Chicago and became the association's vice president and director of Information Services. But her heart was still in Canada, and she returned home in 1986 to take the helm of the Canadian Library Association as its executive director.

All the while, books in her heart, the gears in her head were spinning like Swiss watch parts.

In 1990, Cooney gathered her courage, wits, and resources and struck out on her own. Applying the lessons learned over three decades in libraries, classrooms, commerce, and associations, she launched Books for Business, a business book specialty store in her beloved Toronto.

As they say, the rest is history. Readers who make pilgrimages to legendary book stores like the Tattered Cover in Denver or Kramerbooks in Washington, D.C., or who enjoy their neighborhood Barnes & Noble or Borders on a weekend afternoon, will understand that customers don't consider Books for Business just another book store. And Jane Cooney is not just a librarian-turned-bookseller.

Every step of Cooney's path from the newspaper library to the classy polished glass and steel storefront near the corner of Adelaide and Bay in downtown Toronto was a learning experience. Her personal and business success are directly related to her uncanny ability to apply what she has learned.

And she is, as in the beginning, joyfully surrounded by books and rows of bookshelves.

How does a corporate and public librarian rise to become Canadian Bookseller of the Year? The answer is easy to discern.

One of Cooney's "Favorite Books of All Time," as listed on her Books for Business Web site (www.booksforbusiness.com), is Customers for Life by Carl Sewell and Paul B. Brown. Drawing on that favorite book and a lifetime of experience, Cooney has learned the art of phenomenal customer service--she may be the quintessential practitioner of the art. What she knows first-hand might not fit into a book.

Treating each interaction on each day with the knowledge that you have the opportunity to create a customer--a relationship--for life, has made all the difference.

"We work really hard to get to know the customer," Cooney says. "Know your customer, get under their skin, see what makes them tick. Then tailor your service toward that."

Cooney strives each day not only to meet her customer's needs but to exceed their expectations. Her Books for Business staff members greet many customers by name and offer friendly assistance to everyone. They pay attention to detail and customers' unspoken needs that may have nothing to do with what they are looking for on the shelf.

"It's hard for a customer to look for a book when they're standing with a wet coat and umbrella," Cooney advises.

She and her staff take the traditional retailer-customer exchanges to new heights. She has been known to telephone customers to request one-on-one meetings. Cooney goes to them, to their office or a coffee shop nearby, and asks about their experience at her store. What do they think of the products and services? Were their needs met? What would they suggest for improvement?

"You have to ask the right questions," she says. "You can't tell the customer what they want; you have to listen to them as they tell you what they want. Then you adapt to that."

There's another aspect of dealing with people that's vitally important, Cooney emphasizes. "You have to treat people--everyone--with respect, dignity, and good humor."

These views and practices have combined for a winning strategy. Books for Business has steadily grown as a retail store, and Cooney has expanded into mail order, acquiring a business she operates as "Britnell Book Wholesalers."

Cooney's success has resulted in her becoming highly-sought as a marketing and information management consultant. She also serves on the jury for Canada's National Business Book Award.