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hopes to compete successfully with the letter as a selling medium. Put the points of advantage in parallel columns and the letter has the best of it; consider, in addition, the item of expense and it is no wonder letters are becoming a greater factor in business.

The country over, there are comparatively few houses that appreciate the full possibilities of doing business by mail. Not many appreciate that certain basic principles underlie letter writing, applicable alike to the beginner who is just struggling to get a foothold and to the great mailorder house with its tons of mail daily. They are not mere theories; they are fundamental principles that have been put to the test, proved out in thousands of letters and on an infinite number of propositions.

The correspondent who is ambitious to do by mail what others do by person, must understand these principles and how to apply them. He must know the order and position of the essential elements; he must take account of the letter’s impersonal character and make the most of its natural advantages.

Writing letters that pull is not intuition; it is an art that anyone can acquire. But this is the point: it must be acquired. It will not come to one without effort on his part. Fundamental principles must be understood; ways of presenting a proposition must be studied, various angles must be tried out; the effectiveness of appeals must be tested; new schemes for getting attention and arousing interest must be devised; clear, concise description and explanation must come from continual practice; methods for getting the prospect to order now must be developed. It is not a game of chance; there is nothing mysterious about it—nothing impossible, it is solely a matter of study, hard work and the intelligent application of proved-up principles.

Gathering MATERIAL And Picking Out TALKING Points

PART I—PREPARING TO WRITE THE LETTER—CHAPTER 3

Arguments—prices, styles, terms, quality or whatever they may be—are effective only when used on the right “prospect” at the right time. The correspondent who has some message of value to carry gathers together a mass of “raw material”—facts, figures and specifications on which to base his arguments—and then he selects the particular talking points that will appeal to his prospect. By systematic tests, the relative values of various arguments may be determined almost to a scientific nicety. How to gather and classify this material and how to determine what points are most effective is the subject in this chapter

An architect can sit down and design your house on paper, showing its exact proportions, the finish of every room, the location of every door and window. He can give specific instructions for building your house but before you can begin operations you have got to get together the brick and mortar and lumber—all the material used in its construction.

And so the correspondent-architect can point out the way to write a letter: how to begin, how to work up interest, how to present argument, how to introduce salesmanship, how to work in a clincher and how to close, but when you come to writing the letter that applies to your particular business you have first to gather the material. And just as you select cement or brick or lumber according to the kind of house you want to build, so the correspondent must gather the particular kind of material he wants for his letter, classify it and arrange it so that the best can be quickly selected.

The old school of correspondents—and there are many graduates still in business—write solely from their own viewpoint. Their letters are focused on “our goods,” “our interests” and “our profits.” But the new school of letter writers keep their own interests in the background. Their sole aim is to focus on the viewpoint of the reader; find the subjects in which he is interested, learn the arguments that will appeal to him, bear down on the persuasion that will induce him to act at once.

And so the successful correspondent should draw arguments and talking points from many sources; from the house, from the customer, from competitors, from the news of the day from his knowledge of human nature.

“What shall I do first?” asked a new salesman of the general manager.

“Sell yourself,” was the laconic reply, and every salesman and correspondent in the country could well afford to take this advice to heart.

Sell yourself; answer every objection that you can think of, test out the proposition from every conceivable angle; measure it by other similar products; learn its points of weakness and of superiority, know its possibilities and its limitations. Convince yourself; sell yourself, and then you will be able to sell others.

The first source of material for the correspondent is in the house itself. His knowledge must run back to the source of raw materials: the kinds of materials used, where they come from, the quality and the quantity required, the difficulties in obtaining them, the possibilities of a shortage, all the problems of mining or gathering the raw material and getting it from its source to the plant—a vast storehouse of talking points.

Then it is desirable to have a full knowledge of the processes of manufacture; the method of handling work in the factory, the labor saving appliances used, the new processes that have been perfected, the time required in turning out goods, the delays that are liable to occur—these are all pertinent and may furnish the strongest kind of selling arguments. And it is equally desirable to have inside knowledge of the methods in the sales department, in the receiving room and the shipping room. It is necessary for the correspondent to know the firm’s facilities for handling orders; when deliveries can be promised, what delays are liable to occur, how goods are packed, the condition in which they are received by the customer, the probable time required in reaching the customer.

Another nearby source of information is the status of the customer’s account; whether he is slow pay or a man who always discounts his bills. It is a very important fact for the correspondent to know whether the records show an increasing business or a business that barely holds its own.

Then a most important source—by many considered the most valuable material of all—is the customer himself. It may be laid down as a general proposition that the more the correspondent knows about the man to whom he is writing, the better appeal he can make.

In the first place, he wants to know the size and character of the customer’s business. He should know the customer’s location, not merely as a name that goes on the envelope, but some pertinent facts regarding the state or section. If he can find out something regarding a customer’s standing and his competition, it will help him to understand his problems.

Fortunate is the correspondent who knows something regarding the personal peculiarities of the man to whom he is writing. If he understands his hobbies, his cherished ambition, his home life, he can shape his appeal in a more personal way. It is comparatively easy to secure such information where salesmen are calling on the trade, and many large houses insist upon their representatives’ making out very complete reports, giving a mass of detailed information that will be valuable to the correspondent.

Then there is a third source of material, scarcely less important than the study of the house and the customer, and that is a study of the competitors—other firms who are in the same line of business and going after the same trade. The broad-gauged correspondent never misses an opportunity to learn more about the goods of competing houses—the quality of their products, the extent of their lines, their facilities for handling orders, the satisfaction that their goods are giving, the terms on which they are sold and which managers are hustling and up to the minute in their methods.

The correspondent can also find information, inspiration and suggestion from the advertising methods of other concerns—not competitors but firms in a similar line.

Then there are various miscellaneous sources of information. The majority of correspondents study diligently the advertisements in general periodicals; new methods and ideas are seized upon and filed in the “morgue” for further reference.

Where a house travels a number of men, the sales department is an excellent place from which to draw talking points. Interviewing salesmen as they come in from trips and so getting direct information, brings out talking points which are most helpful as are those secured by shorthand reports of salesmen’s conventions.

Many firms get convincing arguments by the use of detailed forms asking for reports on the product. One follow-up writer gets valuable pointers from complaints which he terms “reverse” or “left-handed” talking points.

Some correspondents become adept in coupling up the news of the day with their products. A thousand and one different events may be given a twist to connect the reader’s interest with the house products and supply a reason for “buying now.” The fluctuation in prices of raw materials, drought, late seasons, railway rates, fires, bumper crops, political discussions, new inventions, scientific achievements—there is hardly a happening that the clever correspondent, hard pressed for new talking points, cannot work into a sales letter as a reason for interesting the reader in his goods.

SOURCES OF MATERIAL:

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