For anyone agonizing about swapping a successful, bird-in- the-hand career for a scary, bird-in-the-bush future, Jane Cooney's story is an inspirational doozy.

With nearly 30 years of experience under her chic belt, she had hit the top as a librarian on both sides of the 49th parallel by the time the '90s dawned. Then she decided to walk away from her long-time profession to take a risk on something that was not only new to her but unique in the marketplace.

Cooney's big gamble was launching Books for Business - the first stand-alone bookstore in North America dedicated exclusively to the topic specified by its forthright moniker.

Nearly 15 years later, the handsomely designed shop in Toronto's business district still retains its unique status. And it is still flourishing despite stiff competition from the dominant book chains and online booksellers that didn't exist when, as Cooney puts it, "we had the market for business books entirely to ourselves right across Canada."

Ken Kerr, Business Edge
Jane Cooney, owner of the Books for Business store, has come a long way since starting the business out of her basement.

Perched on the ground floor of the Richmond-Adelaide Centre with a tall, all-glass storefront, Books for Business is across the street from the Toronto Stock Exchange. The shop is surrounded by towers that are home to five major banks and numerous corporate head offices. Next door is that perennial favourite of carnivorous wheeler-dealers, Hy's Steakhouse.

Cooney's perspicacity in spotting and securing such a prime location was a coup for someone whose retail experience was non-existent. But there were precious few other clues that she could succeed as a store operator.

Growing up in Montreal as the daughter of a Montreal Star editor, she says she developed a love of books early on. That's why, after undergraduate studies at the University of Montreal, she moved west to pursue library science at the University of Toronto, where she earned a bachelor's and a master's degree.

A self-confessed news junkie since her teens, Cooney recalls becoming interested in the world of commerce after "stumbling across a copy of BusinessWeek while working in a summer job. I read it and thought: 'Oh, these are really interesting stories; business isn't dull at all.' " That realization lead to Cooney's specialization as a corporate librarian and business information specialist. Her career in those capacities would include being on the faculty of library and information science at the U of T, manager of worldwide information services at CIBC, and posts in the business collections of public libraries in Toronto and Calgary as well as Montreal's McGill University. In Chicago, she was vice- president of information services for the Bank Marketing Association.

It was while Cooney was in her third year as executive director of the Canadian Library Association in Ottawa that a tantalizing but excruciatingly iffy opportunity suddenly arose.

"Someone I'd known from the banking world for many years came to see me and said that what Toronto really needed was a good business bookstore. I hummed and hawed and said I thought that would probably work. And he said: 'Great, do you want to start one?' " After contemplating the possibility for six months, Cooney quit her plum job and returned to Toronto. She did a solid year of market and inventory research, and then launched Books for Business out of her basement.

Even with such an undistinguished headquarters, she says publishers eagerly sought her out "because they really had very few outlets for their business books at that time, so they all came to my house to show me their lists. I made my selections, hired a PR firm to help me put a newsletter together and sent it out to librarians. And I mean like in a minute, I sold $20,000 worth of books and I thought: 'This is going to work.' " But what really propelled Cooney to be in a position to open her store in early 1991 was something she calls serendipity. "A librarian from Calgary called to ask if we could get a particular book. I had never heard of it or its publisher and there was no Internet back then, so I had to fiddle around quite a bit before I found it from an organization in the States.

"They had no idea I was sitting in my basement, so they asked me to be their Canadian agent. And that contract essentially kept the business going for the first two years while we tried to attract customers."

Looking back, Cooney says she realizes that her timing could not have been better because "there was an explosion of interest throughout the population in business subjects at the time. More individuals were getting into the stock market, the Financial Post had gone from a weekly to a daily, and television programs like (CBC's) Venture were drawing a million viewers."

As well, she says Peter C. Newman and other authors were waking Canadians up to the reality "that we have our own very interesting business history," replete with colourful moguls. So Cooney "collected as much of that sort of thing as we could get our hands on" as well as a myriad of other pertinent titles.

And gradually Newman and scores of his business acquaintances became regular patrons at Books for Business, as did other customers from around the world who accessed its mail service.

Growing her inventory, which now tops 11,000 tomes and about a dozen periodicals, meant enlarging the store from the 1,600-sq.-ft. space that originally had been occupied by a brokerage firm to its current 1,800 sq. ft. by the time of its fifth anniversary in 1996.

But that same year, Cooney's lock on her market was assailed by the opening of the first Chapters mega-store. More or less coinciding with the advent of the first of the online booksellers, this new wrinkle walloped Books for Business with its first serious challenge.

How did Cooney cope? "We decided not to panic and to just stick to our knitting because there was no way we could match their discount policies.”

Instead, Books for Business fought back with ahead-of-the-curve inventory and superb service from a well-qualified staff that now numbers 10.

In addition to providing expertise and congeniality that far exceeds what's generally on offer elsewhere, Cooney sends lively and informative quarterly newsletters to customers, media and others, as well as promotional mailings on pertinent topics. She provides curbside service to customers who call in orders from their cars. And she offers mobile mini-store services for business meetings and conferences, tradeshows and training sessions.

That all worked in 1996 and it continues to do so today. After what Cooney calls "minor temporary defections," her customer base has continued to grow.

What brings so many people coming back with open wallets, says Toronto-based executive business coach and long-time customer Ross Roxburgh, "is not only her staff's service orientation, but Jane herself.

"She very much bridges the gap between knowledgeable librarian and savvy business person. She helps me keep up to date on trends and particular books that are hot. And she's got a sense of humour that always makes me smile."

If any other explanation for Cooney's success in her second career is needed, she unconsciously provides it when asked to name her all-time favourite business book. "It's Customers for Life by Carl Sewell," she says, boiling down the author's advice into three basics. "He says do what you say you're going to do at the price you said you'd do it for in the timeframe you promised it.

"I think if every business does those three things, they're going to be as successful as ours is."

(Terry Poulton can be reached at poulton@businessedge.ca)