Foster Business Library


Personal Selling Resources


Foster Business Library research guides are aimed at University of Washington students, faculty, and staff, highlighting resources available to them; users not currently affiliated with the university may be unable to access some of these resources.
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Foster Business Library Databases:

The Foster Business Library offers an extensive collection of over fifty databases on its homepage; see under Databases. For a complete list of Foster databases, see the List of All Business Databases. Access to these databases from off campus requires that you first go to the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. These resources may not be accessed from off campus except by those with a valid UW Net ID and password. For more information on Foster business databases, click Databases, A-Z. For information on which Foster business databases to use, see the Database Index. For information on accessing Foster databases from off campus, see Database Access. For guidelines on responsible database usage, see Database Usage.

  • Gale Virtual Reference Library:   On the Foster Business Library homepage, listed under List of All Business Databases.   The Gale Virtual Reference Library is a database of encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research; go to Business for three major business sources:   the Encyclopedia of American Industries (4th ed., 2005), the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance (2001), and the Encyclopedia of Small Business (2nd ed., 2002).

    See Personal Selling and the Marketing Mix in the Encyclopedia of Business and Finance. See also Sales Management and Personal Selling in the Encyclopedia of Small Business.

  • JSTOR:   This database may be found under List of All Business Databases. JSTOR is a subject searchable index of 360 journals, with full-text backfiles of scholarly journals, some of which date back to the 1800's. Among the collections of scholarly journals on this site are ones for Business and for Economics, encompassing 72 journals.

    A search in this database for "Personal Selling" produced over 1,000 references, including a large number of reviews of books on this topic.

  • Social Sciences Citation Index:   Under Databases, on the Foster Business Library homepage. This database "is a multidisciplinary index, with searchable author abstracts, covering the journal literature of the social sciences. It indexes more than 1,725 journals spanning 50 disciplines, as well as covering individually selected, relevant items from over 3,300 of the world's leading scientific and technical journals. It "provides access to current information and retrospective data from 1956 forward."

    A search for "Personal Selling" produced over fifty references.

    Web Resources:

    Unlike library databases, Web resources are available wherever you have web access; they do not require that you access them via the Off-Campus Access button, in the upper right of all library webpages. When using web resources, be sure to evaluate the credibility of these resources. For a subject index to web resources, see Business Resources on the Web on the Foster Business Library homepage.

  • Direct Selling Association:   This organization is "the national trade association of the leading firms that manufacture and distribute goods and services sold directly to consumers. More than 200 companies are members of the association, including many well-known brand names." See their Direct Selling by the Numbers for data on salespersons, sales dollars, sales force demographics, etc.

  • Fisher Institute for Professional Selling:   The mission of this University of Akron College of Business Administration institute is "to enhance the image of the sales profession; to promote professional selling and sales management as rewarding lifelong careers; to provide high quality instruction to university students through our sales major, minor, and certificate programs; to provide outstanding training to sales executives; and to conduct research that advances the field of sales." See their Direct Selling by the Numbers for data on salespersons, sales dollars, sales force demographics, etc.

  • Sales and Marketing Management Magazine:   This companion site to the magazine Sales and Marketing Management (available in the Foster Business Library periodicals collection) offers online editions of new and recent articles from the magazine.

  • SellingPower.com:   This companion site to the magazine Selling Power (available in the Foster Business Library periodicals collection) offers previews of the latest issue plus some free articles, in a variety of categories, including Sales Web Links.

  • The United Professional Sales Association:   This organization is a nonprofit trade association, based in Washington, D.C., that represents and advances the selling profession by promoting a universal selling framework and providing professional certification. See their articles on Professional Selling, their Highlighted Authors, and their Glossary of Sales and Selling Terms.

  • Wikipedia:   This free online user-created and maintained encyclopedia, Wikipedia, can be a good starting point for an orientation to a topic, often with a definition of the term, a history of its practice, its effects, and links to related information. See Sales, Selling Technique, and more articles in the area of Personal Selling.

    Foster Business Library Reference Collection:

    The Foster Business Library Reference Collection consists of business handbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other quick reference tools. It is located behind the Reference Desk in Foster, arranged by call number. Reference materials cannot be checked out; they may only be used in the library.

  • Business: the ultimate resource.
    This 2,200-page single volume is "designed to offer a wide range of insights, information, and practical guidance on every aspect of management" via 2.5 million words of text from 200 contributors, with 700 illustrations and 150 maps, in seven major sections including best practice, a management library, business thinkers and management giants, a business dictionary, a world business almanac, and a guide to business sources.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HD38.15 .B878 2002.

    See Selling and Salesmanship resources on pages 2109 to 2111.

  • The IEBM encyclopedia of marketing.
    This volume includes twelve-page essays on about five dozen topics, under such headings as marketing management, the marketing mix, marketing in practice, and special topics.
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: HF5412 .I32 1999.

    See Personal Selling and Sales Management on pages 518 to 530.

  • The big book of business quotations.
    As the book describes itself, "more than 5,000 indispensable observations on commerce, work, finance and management."
    Foster Business Library Reference, CALL NUMBER: PN6084 .B87 .B54 2003.

    See famous quotations on Selling on pages 325 to 328.

    Foster Business Library Books:

    The Foster Business Library maintains a collection of over 70,000 books on all business topics. To search for materials on all three campuses of the University of Washington, go to the UW Libraries Catalog, in the upper left corner of the Foster Business Library homepage. Search by keyword, title, author, series, etc.

    To limit the results of your search just to materials in the Foster Business Library collection, use the Modify or Limit options at the top of the search results and change the library location to Foster Business Library. Availablity is indicated on the right of each online catalog record. First, note in which collection, within Foster, your materials are in, since the library has ten different Collections, each in a different location and often with differing arrangements. "Available" indicates that the book should be on the shelves under that call number and available for you to check out. "Due" and a date indicates that the book is already checked out to someone and is due back on the date indicated; you can have the "Request/Place Hold" feature to recall the book for your use.

    If the material you want is not in the collections of the University of Washington, you can use the "Search Summit" feature to repeat your search in the combined holdings of over thirty cooperating libraries in Washington and Oregon. Use the "Request This Item" feature in Summit to have books in those library sent here to Foster for you to check out.

    The Foster general stacks collection is located south of the main part of the Foster Business Library, through the two pass-throughs into the basement of Balmer. The arrangement is by call number, from A (at the east end, near the Copy Center) to Z (at the far west end).

    A search for the subject Selling, limited to the Foster Business Library, produced a list of over two hundred records, including titles such as:

    See also books in the Foster Business Library on related subjects such as:

    For an extensive list of books on selling, see the list of Sales Club Books used in Marketing 335, Principles of Selling, based on a collection of books donated to the library by the Business School Sales Club, with subsequent donations.

    Foster Business Library Articles:

    Articles in academic journals, magazines, trade periodicals, and newspapers are one of the best sources for any kind of research. While the Foster Business Library offers a large periodicals print collection, comprising over 800 titles, articles are most easily accessed online, 24/7, in such fulltext article databases as EBSCO Business Source Premier, Factiva, LexisNexis Academic, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest Databases. These article databases are available in the library or from off-campus, and provide access to over 10,000 periodicals and millions of articles.

    Library access to most ProQuest databases will terminate at the end of spring quarter 2008, except for ProQuest NewsStand, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, Historical New York Times, and the Historical Wall Street Journal. For more about this change, see UW Libraries Providing New Databases. After this change, comprehensive article searches should be performed in EBSCO Business Source Premier, Newsbank Infoweb, and ProQuest NewsStand. Also, after this change, links to the articles below will be broken.

    ProQuest Databases:

    This database--actually, a family of over two dozen databases--offers full text articles for over 10,000 publications, including scholarly journals, magazines, trade and industry periodicals, newspapers, and reports on a very wide range of topics. To find articles on specific topics, search by word or phrase by keying your search phrase into the search box--or search for your topic in the Topic Guide.

    Your search terms will be highlighted in red in each article.

    A subject search in this database for SUB(Personal Selling) produced over 8,500 articles, including over 580 articles in scholarly journals, over 440 magazine articles, over 7,400 articles in trade and industry periodicals, and over fifty articles in newspapers. Among the publications included in the results of these searches are the American Salesman, Agency Sales, American Agent & Broker, Selling Power, Sales & Marketing Management, and many more.

    This subject term can be combined with other terms to narrow a search, including:

    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Salespeople)   (Over 1,600 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Guidelines)   (Over 1,500 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Sales Presentations)   (Over 660 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Techniques)   (Over 600 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Sales Prospecting)   (Over 520 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Recommendations)   (Over 460 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Success)   (Over 400 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Case Studies)   (Over 360 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Training)   (Over 350 articles)
    • SUB(Personal Selling) and SUB(Studies)   (Over 270 articles)

    Examples of articles from such searches include:

     Help:
    30 December 2005; updated 7 March 2007.   Peter Stevens, Business Librarian, stevens@u.washington.edu, 206-543-4360.