Taking Care of Business

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Taking Care of Business

• Reference for
• Small Business Customers

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Profile of our Business Customer
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Descriptions of Businesses

• Gardening landscape
• After-school care daycare
• Bookkeeping or virtual office assistance
• Bakery café
• Graphic arts
• Interior design
• Urban game center
• E-commerce retail
• Gift novelty shop
• And more and more and more and more.

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Business Life Cycle

• 1.Seed Stage
• 2.Start-up Stage
• 3.Growth Stage
• 4.Established Stage
• 5.Expansion Stage
• 6.Decline Stage
• 7.Exit Stage

Entrepreneurial
Grow or Die
Darrell Zahorsky, Your Guide to Small Business
Information www.about..com
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Main Sources of Information for Small Businesses
Source Statewide Small Business Study, Morrison
Institute for Public Policy, School of Public
Affairs, ASU, July 1990.
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15 years later?
What do we do when our slice of the information
service pie is shrinking?
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Whos Using Your Business Information Now?
People who use libraries without reminders now
are usually those who learned about them early in
life and who are transferring that experience to
adult needs.

• The entrepreneur
• The salesperson in between calls
• The self-starter
• The researcher
• The marketer using ReferenceUSA

Source Helping Business The Librarys Role in
Community Economic Development by Maxine Bleiweiss
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Business Reference

• Gain the trust of the client to get to the heart
  of the question

• Businesslike demeanor, professionalism
• Exchange business cards
• Become an equal partner in their venture
• Full confidentiality

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Business Reference

• Gain an understanding
• of the business customers question(s)

• Get the context
• Probe with open-ended questions Tell me more..
• Encourage dialogue, paraphrase So, you want to
  find
• Give food for thought Have you considered?

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Business Reference

• Gain an understanding of the customers business,
  as well as the question

• Asking about their business helps them feel that
  you share their concern, Tell me more about your
  business concept
• Discovering more about the business helps alert
  you to other resources that would be helpful

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Business Reference

• Play a more aggressive role

• Exhibit confidence
• Make suggestions of sources for related areas
• Have you considered.?
• Proactive business reference
• Make referrals

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Rethinking our Roles

• What roles do we play as we do reference work?
• What roles do we play as we do business reference
  work?

Facilitators, Guides, Human Answer
Machines, Teachers and more
ALL of the above, but also as Partners in the
business