Our city’s purchasing policy says we have to go through state approved contracts/vendors before going to other vendors. I was just informed that Staples has a state wide contract, and the sales rep is answering my emails, so they get our business going forward.
Usually it's pretty easy, I reach out, ask how their day or week is going and if they mention kids I ask how the family is doing. We talk about random things for a bit, then we start going into the latest projects the library is working on and how I could use their help. The usually response is, I never thought a Library would need that, and we schedule the next set of meetings to talk with their internal experts.