2013 Charleston Conference

Sales is the art of persuasion. It is intentional activity to move another individual (or group of individuals) to a desired outcome—e.g., “no” to “yes”; “maybe” to “yes; ”yes, someday” to “yes, now.” And, not surprisingly, there are numerous strategies for selling—challenger, consultative, high-touch, solution selling, etc. Regardless of the particular sales method in use, it’s important to recognize that sales activity is purposeful, goal driven, and remarkably effective. Paradoxically, the most effective sales interactions are those where the customer doesn’t even recognize that they’ve been “sold.” The mark of a great sales person is the ability to leave customers thinking that it is they—the customers—who have realized their will.

This program looks at three questions related to library sales:

1) What are the characteristics that library suppliers look for in their sales personnel?
2) How do library vendors train, manage and incentivize their sales teams?
3) Should librarians—especially subject liaisons in academic libraries—be recruited, trained and managed as if they were sales workers, charged with influencing faculty and student uptake of library materials and services?

While libraries generally characterize themselves as “learning organizations” as opposed to “sales organizations,” the fact remains that when libraries talk about liaisons assigned to provide “outreach” or “engagement,” they might just as well be talking about sales. And, if they were to think about library work in the context of sales, administrators would undoubtedly hire differently, manage differently, and use different criteria to evaluate and incentivize library staff. They would also recognize the need for different strategies for management, including the recruitment of experienced sales managers to direct the goals and activity of their library sales force.

This program, led by librarians and professional sales managers, is intended to address the need of libraries, as customers and service providers, to understand more about the theory, practice and management of sales, including the potential use of tools like Salesforce.com to monitor and evaluate librarian performance.