Wednesday's Fall Town Hall with the SIBA Board drew 26 booksellers and focused on two primary questions: How to create more and better linkage between SIBA's owners -- bookstores -- and the organization itself, and what strategies are bookstores using to make the 4th quarter successful?

Booksellers met with individual SIBA board members in two different breakout sessions to discuss each question.

SIBA and her Owners

"Linkage" was described by Board member Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore, as points of contact between SIBA's members and the organization that promote accountability and good communication, and underscore the role of SIBA member stores as owners of the organization.

Executive Director Linda-Marie Barrett received general praise from attendees and the Board for her responsiveness and accessibility to members who reach out to SIBA for help.

Some suggestions to improve and expand owner linkage included:

• Making the concept of members as owners more prevalent in SIBA's own messaging
  
• Create more opportunities for frontline booksellers and bookstore staff to talk to SIBA staff and board members
  
• Focus on reaching new owners, and create an onboarding process for new stores
  
• Develop more creative ways for booksellers to meet with each other, both virtually and in person.
• Implement a mentor program that lets booksellers share their experience with other members.
• Shift offered education to earlier in the day, when people are more focused.
• Have SIBA take an active role as a liaison between bookstores and their suppliers
• Add a book club component to the Reader Meet Writer series
  

The 4th Quarter Strategies section was comprised primarily of stores sharing their concerns for the forthcoming season, including supply chain and fulfillment issues, a depressed economy, and worries on how to operate safely while the pandemic remains a serious concern. Booksellers traded tools that they found useful, including Batch and Autoentry.com for managing repetitive accounting and invoicing tasks, and Ringcentral.com to consolidate phone calls to multiple lines and voice messaging.

Kelly Justice recommended that stores who use Trello take advantage of the templates developed by Jill Hendrix

Jamie Rogers Southern cited Edelweiss 360 as a powerful tool for enhancing targeted email marketing to customers, which has generated significant real sales for their store.

(Watch the Edelweiss 360 presentation from New Voices New Rooms)

Booksellers requested that SIBA add a section for mental health resources on the website and create a list of best practices for hosting safe in-person events.