Marys Books: Proposal

OakForest Consulting, LLC

BORDERING HISTORY
A PROPOSAL TO MARYS BOOKS

PRESENTED ON OCTOBER 15, 2013

Partners: Tucker Bergmann

Nicholas Miller

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 2

Current Situation ................................................................................................... 3 Approach ............................................................................................................... 6 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Objectives ...................................................................................................................6 Methodology ...............................................................................................................6 Benefits .......................................................................................................................8 Schedule .....................................................................................................................8

3 4 5

Qualifications ......................................................................................................... 9 Costs ................................................................................................................... 10 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 10

Appendix A: Timeline ................................................................................................. 12 Appendix B: Budget ................................................................................................... 13

Marys Books: Proposal

1. CURRENT SITUATION
Before we describe our plan, it would first be prudent to discuss your current standing within the Oak Park and the Chicago metropolitan area and your situation with who is greater within the book selling industry as compared to Borders Books. While we will attempt to ascertain whether competition with Borders is or is not a reality for you, but if it is, than our findings will hopefully show that your business will not be in such bad shape to challenge Borders Books if it has too. Marys Books is a small, local book outlet that has served the Oak Park and Chicago community for the last 25 years with a chain of three stores with the mission to improve the welfare of the citizens of the United States though the encouragement of reading. We would like to note that because of this, Marys Books have an appreciated reputation within those communities. The stores main inventory includes history, architecture and books written by local authors. Those books pose as an example of how the chains success in Oak Park has increased due to providing products that are highly valued to this area. The focus on childrens books at the Marys Children, the smallest store of the chain that is located in Evanston, IL, also aids in this mission to provide attentive care to the reading needs of the youth. In terms of personal advantages, Marys Books enjoys several distinct advantages over Borders Books. Marys Books is closely associated with the historic Oak Park community. This is proven by specializing in selling books written by local authors, books that are no longer being printed, and as well as displaying art created by local artists. In a city that has produced such legendary authors such as Ernest Hemingway, your business strategy is actually quite business savvy. This move not only increases your stores personal appeal to the common Oak Park citizen, but you stores pleasant and customer friendly environment. To add, Marys Books provides additional community interaction from book readings, author signings, a coffee shop, hosting meetings for the Dominican University and by various book clubs. It is a wonderful thing that your business is mainly interested in selling books that are not available from the major publishing companies, because you firmly believe in the policy of free reading and avoid unwanted interference and censorship from upper level publishers that focus more on business. In all, you
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remain committed to the intellectual and artistic welfare of the public by providing the best quality reading to foster intelligent minds. Not only does it appeal to the citizens of Oak Park for cultural reasons, but in the current business world such niche sales are what have given small book sellers the edge to compete with bigger, but clumsier bookselling chains. Marys Books, as a smaller book outlet, is doing steady in a market that currently favors the small bookstore. The Economist.com reported Aug 23rd, 2013 that sales for small booksellers are up 8% whereas bookselling giants such as Barnes and Noble have lost 3.4% of its sales while Borders Books has taken worse financial hits. As opposed to six years ago, when the number of small bookstores plummeted to about a thousand, today they have nearly doubled their number and survived through the recent economic turbulence. The secret to this success of small bookstores against the larger chains is two-fold: flexibility and survival skills. Small chains, like Marys Books, survive in this business world by finding a niche in the market to exploit that larger chains miss due to their more general inventory and customer base. This aids a small-time stores appeal to their customers with their more responsive management which allows customers and store owners to get to know each other on a personal basis and increase the appeal of the store. Larger stores lack this easy customer connection and as a result many have lost business due to, among other problems, a lack of connection to their customers. However, a leveling factor in the business world exists in the form of social media. According to Social Media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix by W. Glynn Mangold and David J. Faulds for Business Horizon the impact social media has had on the business world, particularly in the realms of marketing and public relations, has so far been astounding. Beforehand a business could count on retaining near full control of information on product quality, customer service, and other aspects of their business in the community. Word of mouth could travel only so far and so fast and businesses could easily win the minds of the public with magazines, TV, newspaper ads, and other marketing tools that they were experienced in handling. Since the advent of social media websites (Facebook, Youtube, Amazon.com, LinkedIn) and devices that simplify access to them (smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc.) news about a business, good or ill, can now pass through thousands of people within a few hours, reaching exponentially more people until it has reached potentially national or international audiences. Traditional forms of advertisement, such as

Marys Books: Proposal

TV and magazines, are more and more supplanted by social media that can provide the same service over the Internet where consumers now tend to spend their time. Thus it is essential for a business to utilize such online sources to establish a connection to customers and the public across such online sectors to make their presence known, interact with customers in this new medium, and use it as a new medium of promotion. Social media and the Internet has become so ingrained in modern society that online presence is even seen by customers these days as a sign of professionalism and basic access to services for browsing products, examining services, and online orders. Whether or not some of these services are actually offered by the business online, websites and presence online via social media are now considered essential for both a businesss marketability and professional exterior by consumers worldwide. Regardless of online presence or the success of small, independent booksellers the bookselling industry worldwide is hitting bumps in the road with failing book sales. According to Publishing Perspectives.com sales in the book selling industry are down 9.3 in the US since 2008, a trend that is also reflected in the world at large. While at first the trend had been attributed to e-books and other forms of mass media, the factors are now being attributed to global economic problems and furthermore an overall decrease in reading globally, print or digital. Other factors, not even identified yet, could exist as well. These factors impact all booksellers, both large and small, especially in regards to Borders Books. Borders has not only torn out a chunk of Oak Parks vaunted architectural and historical heritage, but has also likely garnered a negative perception by the Oak Park community as a whole this way. Its attempts to purchase your business could be a symptom of such difficulties and by eliminating competition, Borders Books can thus afford time to recover lost publicity. The current issues plaguing the book selling industry and the rise of social medias prominence in society and business both present complications for future business, but if competition with Borders Books does become reality, Marys Books is on rather good footing to rise to the challenge.

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2. APPROACH
2.1 OBJECTIVES
We at OakForest Consulting will first determine whether or not Marys Books is in direct competition with the company Borders. Your company prides itself on playing an active role in furthering the community values that the village of Oak Park was built on. Keeping this at the front of all interactions, OakForest would approach analysis of the situation primarily through the customers eyes. We wish to define the effectiveness of your bookstores customer incentive program compared to those of national booksellers and determine the affect an incentive program could have. We would like to analyze the number of college student customers, as well as potential for expansion within that market, specifically through cooperation with area universities and possible impacts of expansion. We know there is a website for Marys books and would utilize the website to discover customer connectivity and levels of interest in a more web-based business approach. We plan to explore possible employee benefits programs, and potential impacts of offering these programs, how a benefits package fits into the lifestyle of your average employee, and whether or not it would affect employee retention.

2.2 METHODOLOGY
We at OakForest Consulting value your opinions and ideas. We value the opportunity that we may be able to work alongside with you on implementing not only our suggestions, but yours as well. Below we have included a list of steps that you may find beneficial in pursuing your research goals. Major steps: Interviewing and surveying customers about Marys store and Borders books including what their likes and dislikes are.

Marys Books: Proposal

OakForest will produce and distribute a 10 question survey, gathering information about customer demographics, qualities customers value in a bookstore, customer experience, suggestions for improvement, feelings about national-brand booksellers, and frequency with which the customer shops at bookstores. It is important that the voices of the communities in which Mary has built her business can be heard. The survey will be kept brief, but will allow space for customers to write in responses that explain their thoughts more thoroughly than a number-based survey would. These surveys will be available within the store for all guests, not just purchasing customers. In order to boost interest and stimulate customer involvement, the survey will offer an incentive coupon upon completion. The resulting data will be analyzed by the OakForest team, and will be compiled into an easy-to-read report that will give Mary an in-depth, tangible account of the customer experience. Utilize a focus group setting to interview current employees to establish a functioning list of values and desires within their employment. Ask questions regarding level of interest in an employersponsored benefits program, observations about customer behavior and habits, and any possible suggestions they may have for improvement or change. It is OakForests desire to determine employee retention in the face of Borders opening, as well as to use employees first-hand customer interactions as a means to determine potential impacts that might otherwise be overlooked. Minor Steps: Distribute surveys to customers who buy books at Marys store, and make additional surveys available for browsing customers and reward surveyed customers with an incentive coupon for their next purchase. Educate store associates on how to encourage customer participation in the survey process by using open-ended questions to stimulate insightful comments. Ensure all employees are brought up-to-speed about the survey so they can readily provide answers to any customer questions or concerns.

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Encourage existing employees and current job applicants to fill out surveys regarding potential benefits programs that they may be interested in. Ask for feedback and insight to personal benefits and drawbacks surrounding current benefits as well as proposed changes from current employees. E-mail out a listserv to customers on her e-mail list to complete more surveys and at the end give them a printout coupon that can be used in store or online. Forward the online survey to local colleges and universities to gain a student perspective on the business. Partner with local student services to offer the reward coupon as an incentive to encourage students to participate in the survey, and invite them to experience Marys Books firsthand. Hire three mystery shoppers who have never been to either bookstore to visit Marys bookstore and Borders twice a week for three weeks. Each shopper will be debriefed after each visit to ensure that observations are recorded while they are still fresh and poignant. This will be done by filling out a survey that we have provided, that includes both open-ended and multiple choice questions.

2.3 BENEFITS
The information we gather from her customers will help Mary measure how loyal her customers are to her business giving her a sense of security. Also, it will give Mary the positives and negatives of her store through her customers eyes. OakForest wishes to establish measurable as well as abstract potential outcomes so that Marys Books finds itself suitably prepared for future action or inaction. The methods proposed seek to accomplish a holistic view of the situations scope, valuing the voice of the village in which Mary has built her business. The surveys providing the opinions of the customers who dont always get a chance to visit her store on a weekly basis and for those who only buy her books online, and by making them available to

Marys Books: Proposal

browsing customers, allows insight into why someone might have chosen not to purchase a book at Marys Books. Mystery shoppers will give Mary an opinion from those who have unbiased opinions of each store and their reaction to each. She can gain a sense of how a new customer values her store compared to Borders. By visiting multiple times, our mystery shoppers will gain a more consistent, repeatable result.

2.4 SCHEDULE
Please refer to Appendix A for a complete Timeline

3. QUALIFICATIONS
Based out of Forest Park, OakForest has served the Forest Park, Oak Park and River Forest neighborhoods for more than 50 years. Unlike large corporations that give you a case number, we create a collaborative environment to explore your needs together. Consisting of only four partners, OakForest focuses completely on you, not on shareholders, to provide in-depth research and analysis. We firmly believe that it takes a community to build and sustain business, and pride ourselves on taking an active role in our communitys legacy.

Members:
Tucker Bergmann- Tucker grew up and graduated from high school in
the rural town of Long Prairie Minnesota. After graduating high school he attended North Dakota State University where he received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Business Administration. Tucker has been with us for 9 years and is currently the Project Manager and partial business owner.

Nicholas Miller- Nicholas Miller is the senior researcher at OakForest. He

has held this position for the last four years after working as an archivist for the Frances Willard Memorial Library and Archives. Despite being our newest partner, Nicholas has made substantial improvements to OakForests research department. His specialty lies in his web of contacts in various business, historical, and legal firms, which greatly expands his access to information needed by customers. Nicholas also specializes in making information available via electronic formats. So far, he has worked on several historical projects around the Chicago area, including helping
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several reconstruction projects around Oak Park, Chicago and Cicero, as well as contributing works to the Pritzker Military Library, the Newberry Library and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Anna Pieri- Anna Pieri graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern
Universitys MBA Business Management program, and Summa Cum Laude from North Dakota State University. She has been working for OakForest for the past 7 years. Annas track record in management roles has earned her distinctions from Forbes magazine and the Chicago Tribune. She served as a tax commissioner for the River Forest area in 2010 until 2012. Anna is an avid art and architecture history enthusiast, and loves going on walking tours of any town she visits.

Danielle Jolayne- Danielle Jolayne is a multi-disciplined woman who has

earned her M.S. in Nutrition & Exercise Science from North Dakota State University and in a Ph.D in Public Health from Northwestern University of Illinois. She has been actively involved in creating numerous educational programs throughout the Chicago area for low income families and minorities, including opening three food shelf centers that offer top quality fresh foods to those in need. She is also a strong advocate for womans health. Her interests include reading classical works from the minds of J.R.R. Tolkien, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, George R.R. Martin and even William Shakespeare himself. She also enjoys visiting local independent restaurants, bakeries and coffee shops.

4. COSTS
Please refer to Appendix B for a complete Budget analysis.

5. CONCLUSION
OakForest Consulting is a local, family-owned business, eager to offer its services to Marys Books. Marys Books represents many of the values OakForest champions. By utilizing mystery shoppers, focus groups, surveys and current market analysis, OakForest will assist Marys Books in planning for a future serving Oak Park and Chicagoland. Our staff is passionate about preserving the history and heritage of Chicagos unique neighborhoods. Based out of Forest

Marys Books: Proposal

Park, our company has served the Forest Park, Oak Park and River Forest neighborhoods for more than 50 years. Unlike large corporations that give you a case number, we create a collaborative environment to explore your needs together. Consisting of only four partners, OakForest focuses completely on you, not on shareholders, to provide in-depth research and analysis, allowing you to plot your best course of action.

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APPENDIX A: TIMELINE

Marys Books: Proposal

APPENDIX B: BUDGET

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