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COPYRIGHT 2006 Alert Publications, Inc.
In an article in the September/October 2005 Law Librarians in the New Millennium (a publication of West Librarian Relations), Nina Platt writes: "It's not too early to start developing the leadership and marketing skills our changing world expects." She continues, "Although we will continue to advance scholarship ... we will also need to develop new skills."
In the past three decades, we have witnessed not only the explosion of information, but also its commercialization. We have watched as law firms became like businesses, with their managers making objective and strategic decisions. We have seen marketing departments take on bold new roles that include incorporating sales tactics in their initiatives. In this law firm climate, we must ask if our next step as information professionals is to commercialize ourselves. We can walk the walk and talk the talk, but do we think the thoughts that make this possible? If law firm partners and administrators are embracing sales, shouldn't information professionals do so as well? And, if so, should we not start coaching our information teams as sales people are coached?
In this article, I will take you on a tour of my thoughts on this subject as I try to determine if using sales strategies and the coaching necessary to be successful with these techniques are right for the Dorsey law firm.
First Things First
Sales people are creative in order to obtain a financial end. Information people are creative in order to obtain knowledge. Sales skills aimed at improving sales force performance can be directly applied to a research team. "The job of sales managers is to help each of their people achieve more than they would have achieved if just left alone,"...
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