Business Correspondence, Anonymous [classic reads .txt] 📗

hold the old position; tells what kind of a new position to try for; explains the various ways of getting positions; suggests how the aid of prominent people can be enlisted; shows the kind of endorsements that count; teaches how to write letters of application that COMMAND attention; gives hints on preparing for the interview and on how to make the best impression; tells what should be done when you are selected for a position and take up your duties; deals with the question of salary before and after the engagement; with the bugbear of experience; the matter of hours; and gives pages of horse-sense on a dozen other important topics. The clear instructions for writing strong letters of application, and the model letters shown, are alone worth the price of the book. Not one in a hundred—even among the well-educated—can write a letter of application that convinces.

How many of yours fail? The engagement usually depends on the interview; and the interview cannot, as a rule, be obtained without the impressive letter. Consequently, the letter is of tremendous importance.

If you carry out the suggestions set down in plain language in this little book, you can hardly fail to land a position. And I am offering the book for twenty-five cents a copy. Just think of it! The principles and plans outlined in its pages have been the means of securing high-salaried positions for its author and for others, and this valuable information is yours for the price of five car rides.

This is my offer: Send me a 25-cent piece in the enclosed coin-card, or twenty-five cents in stamps, and I’ll mail you a copy of HOW TO GET A POSITION AND HOW TO HOLD IT. If, after reading the book, you do not feel it is worth many times its cost, just tell me so and return the copy in good condition. I’ll send your money back without any quibbling. Could any offer be fairer?

Order today—now. Next week there may come to your notice an opening that may be the chance of a lifetime—when my little book will be worth its weight in gold. Besides, it tells how to create openings when none are advertised. You need not write me a letter. Just write your full name and address on the back of this sheet and wrap your stamps up in it, or put your name and address on the coin-card after you have enclosed the 25-cent piece. I’ll understand.

Write plainly. I am selling the book so cheaply that I cannot afford to have any copies go astray in the mails.

Yours truly, [Signature: Charles Black]

 

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Now as to the other kind of original sales letter—the one that is merely the first of a series of three or more letters skillfully planned to build up interest until the climax, the purchasing point is reached. This letter is really a combination of the two kinds. If you can land the order with the first letter, you want to, of course. But you know you can expect to do this only in a small percentage of cases. So while you must put into the initial letter enough information to make your proposition clear and must give at least one good reason for buying, you must keep good convincing sales talk in reserve for the succeeding letters. And you must plan this first letter so that the re-enforcements to follow will logically support your introduction.

This can best be illustrated by a clever first letter from a very successful series. The manufacturer of a $5 fireless cooker planned a letter campaign to induce hardware dealers and department stores to buy a stock of his product.

The first sales letter of the series scored strongly on one or two points and at the same time paved the way for the second letter:

 

Dear Sir:

Are you ready for the woman who wants a fireless cooker but can’t pay ten or fifteen dollars?

The aggressive advertising done by the manufacturers of fireless cookers and the immense amount of reading matter published in women’s magazines about the fireless method of cooking has stirred up a big demand.

But just figure out how many of your customers can’t afford to pay $10, $12 or $15.

Think of the sales that could be made with a thoroughly reliable cooker at $5—one that you could feel safe in standing back of.

It’s here!

We had the $15-idea, and we worked out the prettiest cooker you ever saw at any price. But we got together one day and figured out that the big market was for a low-priced cooker that every woman could buy.

How to get a Jenkins-quality cooker, one that a retailer would be proud to sell, down to the retail price of $5 was the question. But we figured our manufacturing up into the tens of thousands, and the enclosed folder tells about the result.

Our advertising next month in the Woman’s Home Companion, Ladies’ Home Journal, Ladies’ World, Good Housekeeping, Everybody’s, Cosmopolitan and McClures will do big things for you if you have the Jenkins $5 Fireless Cooker in your window.

We have a good sized stock on hand but they won’t last long the way orders are coming in from far-sighted retailers.

How would a dozen do as a starter for you?

Yours truly, [Signature: Black & Black]

 

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A letter of this kind should be effective because it gives enough information to make a sale in case the reader is an unusually good prospect, and at the same time it lays a good foundation for the second letter.

 

Are you willing to make more money on soap?

Yes, we suppose you are carrying many soaps, but when a distinctive soap is advertised as thoroughly as we are advertising WESINOD, it actually creates new trade, and of course you aren’t sorry to see new faces in the store.

WESINOD SOAP has the curative and beneficial effects of Resinol Ointment, which is now used so extensively by the medical profession.

WESINOD SOAP is more than a cleanser: it is a restorer, preserver and beautifier of the skin, and as such is attracting the favorable attention of women.

Enclosed is a reproduction of our advertisement in the magazines this month and a list of the magazines in which the copy appears.

We are educating 10,000,000 readers to feel the need of WESINOD SOAP.

A supply of our liberal samples and a trial order to be used in a window display will show you the possibilities.

May we send samples and a trial gross?

Yours for more soap money, WESINOD SOAP COMPANY

 

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This is a strong selling letter that interests the reader, disarms his natural objection to adding an additional line of soap and presents briefly convincing reasons for stocking with Wesinod. While this letter is intended to get the order, it effectively paves the way for further correspondence

 

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It is unnecessary to take up here the elements that should go into the sales letter—attention, interest, argument, proof, persuasion, inducement and the clincher. But it is well to emphasize three points that are especially important in the original letter in the series: confidence, price and the close.

You may be sure, that unless you win the confidence of your prospect from the start, your whole campaign is going to be a waste of time, paper and postage. Distrust and prejudice, once started, are hard things to overcome by mail, particularly when you are a concern or individual unknown to the man to whom you are writing.

 

Dear Sir:

”If your magazine pulls as well as the Blank Monthly I will give you a twelve-page contract.”

That remark wasn’t meant for our ears, but one of our solicitors couldn’t help overhearing it. It was made by a prominent advertiser, too. We wish we could give his name, but when we asked permission to quote he smiled and said he’d rather not. So, we’ll have to refer you to our advertising pages.

But the remark speaks pretty well for the Blank Monthly, doesn’t it? It’s not surprising, though. The Blank Monthly goes into 151,000 homes. It is taken and read by the best class of technical, scientific and mechanically inclined men, representing one of the choicest classes of buyers in America.

Our subscribers are great buyers of things by mail. Dozens of our advertisers have proved it. They don’t sell shoddy or cheap goods, either. That’s why we believe your advertising will pay in the Blank Monthly. If we didn’t believe it, we shouldn’t solicit your business.

Try your copy in the June issue, which goes to press on April 27— last form May 6.

If you send copy TODAY, you will be sure to get in.

Very truly yours, [Signature: M. O. Williams]

 

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The quoted language gives the opening of this letter an interesting look. The first three paragraphs are strong. The fourth paragraph is merely assertive, and is weak. A fact or two from some advertiser’s experience would be much better

 

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And so with this in mind, be careful of the tone of your letter. Be earnest, make reasonable statements, appeal to the intelligence or the experience of the reader and deal with specific facts rather than with mere assertions or claims. There is no inspiration to confidence in the time-worn claims of “strongest,” “best,” and “purest”. Tell the facts. Instead of saying that an article is useful in a dozen different ways, mention some of the ways. When you declare that the cylinder of your mine pump is the best in the world, you are not likely to be believed; the statement slips off the mind like the proverbial water from a duck’s back. But when you say that the cylinder is made of close-grained iron thick enough to be rebored, if necessary, you have created a picture that does not call for doubt. But watch out that you don’t start an argument. Brander Mathews gives us a great thought when he says that “controversy is not persuasion.” Don’t write a letter that makes the reader feel that he is being argued into something. Give him facts and suggestions that he can’t resist; let him feel that he has convinced himself. This paragraph fails of its purpose, simply because it argues. You can almost picture the writer as being “peevish” because his letters haven’t pulled:

 

“This stock is absolutely the safest and most staple you could buy. It will positively pay regular dividends. We stand back of these statements. You must admit, therefore, that it is a good buy for you. So why do you hesitate about buying a block of it?”

 

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On the other hand, this appeals to the investor because it has genuine proof in it:

 

“No stockholder of ours has lost a dollar through fluctuation in the price of the stock, though we have been doing business for fifteen years. Our stock has been readily salable at all times. No dividend period has ever been missed. The quarterly dividend has never been less than 2-1/2 per cent. During the depression of 1907-1908 our stock maintained itself at 40 per cent above par when other industrial stocks were dropping to par or below. Surely, here is an investment worth your investigation.”

 

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Telling specific facts helps to produce conviction as well as to create confidence. Not every one is a genius in the handling of words, but every writer of a letter that is to bristle with conviction must use