Assisting the Entrepreneur:

Managing Expectations

Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, MLIS

Business Librarian, Portage District Library

Entrepreneur Expectations: Types

Entrepreneurs who are not used to using libraries,

and who think you cannot do anything.

Entrepreneurs who are not used to doing market

research, and who think everything is available on

the Internet for free. Your job is to find it.

Entrepreneurs who have recently cut ties in one way

or other from large company with research

department or house librarian, and who have no idea

how many resources were dedicated to market

research in their former space.

Entrepreneurs who are not used to

using libraries, and who think you

cannot do anything.

These people can be among your staunchest

converts, because everything is a wonderful gift.

Push resources and actively engage them in

discussions of what they are doing right now,

because they have little idea what you might be able

to do for them.

Entrepreneurs who are not used to

using libraries, and who think you

cannot do anything. Associations-one secret for getting more research for less

Databases—they are unlikely to know about them

DVDs

Personnel or hiring or job description manuals

Business plan resources

Entrepreneurs who are not used to

using libraries, and who think you

cannot do anything.

These patrons may not know the wealth of knowledge

that the librarian possesses

Referrals

Help with search terms (explain that they may be a

subject expert, but you are a searching expert).

Free resources on the web—even if they say they’ve

“already searched Google.”

Entrepreneurs who are not used to doing

market research, and who think everything

is available on the Internet for free. Your job

is to find it.

Remind them of their entrepreneureal sense: if THEY

were running an information company, how would they

pay their employees if they put all the product up for

free?

Show them some things that they can do that they might

have thought they had to pay for—biz plan examples on

Small Business Resource Center, mailing list generation

on a directory database, if you have one.

Through Associations, show them that they might not be

able to get the $10,000 report that they saw online, but

there might be other research available to them

Entrepreneurs who are not used to doing

market research, and who think everything

is available on the Internet for free. Your job

is to find it.

Show them material that they can get that is excellent, but is free (or, rather, paid for already) because there is “some assembly required. “ There may not be a complete SWOT analysis on the company that they are looking at (though there are more SWOT analyses than there used to be in our resources) but they can get strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats so that they can assemble their own SWOT analysis.

They might be able to get more if they make a road trip to a nearby college or university.

Entrepreneurs who are not used to doing

market research, and who think everything is

available on the Internet for free. Your job is

to find it.

Show them through the wonders of Google advanced search how to get at government data or the census. Again, there may be “some assembly required” but it is valuable.

Explain, kindly, that your job is to help find some materials, and to get them started and over humps, but that resources do not permit you to do the entire research task for them. Give them your card, but with the explanation that they contact you “if they run into snags.”

Entrepreneurs who are not used to doing

market research, and who think everything

is available on the Internet for free. Your job

is to find it.

Make a call to one of your larger libraries to see if

the information is available there.

Tell them that you can make a try at finding

something.

Give them contact information of agencies or

associations who may have the information that they

need.

Entrepreneurs who have recently cut ties in one way

or other from large companies with research

departments or house librarians, and who have no

idea how many resources were dedicated to market

research in their former space.

These are your hardest customers. They are on

their own doing some process possibly outsourced

by their former employers in major industries (like

Big Pharma in my case). Be ready for them to Refuse to believe you that the information is not available to you

without a price tag.

Suggest that you get it from a neighboring library who does

have it.

Suggest that you hack into a neighboring library or company.

Ask you to teach them to hack into a neighboring library who

has it.

Entrepreneurs who have recently cut ties in one way

or other from large companies with research

departments or house librarians, and who have no

idea how many resources were dedicated to market

research in their former space.

Feel their pain. You are not going to have the

specialized resources that they do unless possibly

you are a major research university . They may be

temporarily filled with despair that they cannot

compete in the only arena they really know.

Try to find out what government information might be

available to help them—permits lists, bids from

agencies,