Business Correspondence, Vol. 1: How to Write a Business Letter

_The man who sells goods by mail must overcome this natural inertia by reducing the act of sending in an order or inquiry to its very simplest terms--by making it so easy for hi...

_The two-page letter which a man would toss into the waste basket unread may be read by a woman with increasing interest at each paragraph. The average woman does not have a lar...

_Suppose that your most obstinate "prospect"--a man in the next block on whom your cleverest salesman had used every tactic and had been rewarded only by polite turn-downs until...

_Selling goods is considered the biggest problem in the business world. Hard as it is to close a deal with the prospect right before you, it is infinitely harder to get his orde...

_Over ONE-HALF of all the form letters sent out are thrown into the waste basket unopened. A bare_ ONE-THIRD _are partly read and discarded while only_ ONE-SIXTH _of them--appro...

_Methods of soliciting trade by mail are not confined to the letter or printed circular. The postal regulations are sufficiently broad to allow a generous leeway in the size and...

_Comparatively few propositions can be sold in the first letter; in most campaigns it is enough to stimulate a man's interest and get him to reply. This chapter gives specific s...

_The average business letter is machine-made. It is full of time-worn phrases, hackneyed expressions and commonplace observations that fail to jolt the reader out of the rut of...

_After attention has been secured, you must lead quickly to your description and explanation; visualize your product and introduce your proof, following this up with arguments....

_ONE-HALF of the form letters sent out to men are thrown away unread. A bare_ ONE-THIRD _are partly read before discarded, while only_ ONE-SIXTH _of them--approximately 15 per c...

_The farmer is a producer of necessities, hence he is a shrewd judge of what necessities are. More, he has always in mind a list of necessities that he intends to purchase--when...

_From its saluation to its signature a business letter must hold the interest of the reader or fail in its purpose. The most important sentence in it is obviously the_ FIRST _on...

SPECIFIC STATEMENTS _and_ CONCRETE FACTS _are the substance of a business letter. But whether that letter is read or not, or whether those statements and facts are_ FORCEFUL _an...

GETTING ATTENTION, _explaining a proposition and presenting arguments and proofs are essentials in every letter, but they merely lead up to the vital part_--GETTING ACTION. _The...

_Sales have been made--and lost--by the printed matter enclosed with business correspondence. A mere mass of folders, cards and bric-a-brac is in itself not impressive to the "p...

_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 messag...

_The letter writer looks to words, phrases and sentences to make the little impressions on the reader as he goes along. The letter as a whole also has to make a_ SINGLE IMPRESSI...

_Every correspondent naturally reflects his own personality in his letters. His distinguishing characteristics, good, bad and indifferent, inevitably tend to find expression in...

_Last year [1910] fifteen billion letters were handled by the post office--one hundred and fifty for every person. Just as a thousand years ago practically all trade was cash, a...

_The weakness of most letters is not due to ungrammatical sentences or to a poor style, but to a wrong viewpoint: the writer presents a proposition from his own viewpoint instea...

_All business houses recognize the necessity for having printed letterheads and envelopes, but the variety of designs and styles are infinite. Nothing, not even the paper, affor...

_Business stationery should reflect the house that sends it out but unless specific rules are adopted there will be a lack of uniformity in arrangement, in style, in spelling, i...

_The dress of a business letter reflects the character and the standing of a house no less than the dress of its personal representative. The quality of the paper, the kind of p...

_Letters have their limitations and their advantages. The correspondent who is anxious to secure the best results should recognize the inherent weakness of a letter due to its l...

HOW TO WRITE THE BUSINESS LETTER: _24 chapters on preparing to write the letter and finding the proper viewpoint; how to open the letter, present the proposition convincingly, m...

_Writing the Sales Letter_ 16: How to Write the Letter That Will "Land" the Order 17: The Letter That Will Bring An Inquiry 18: How to Close Sales by Letter 19: What to Enclose...

_The Appeal to Different Classes_ 22: How to Write Letters That Appeal to Women 23: How to Write Letters That Appeal to Men 24: How to Write Letters That Appeal to Farmers

_Preparing to Write the Letter_ CHAPTER 1: What You Can Do With a Postage Stamp 2: The Advantages of Doing Business by Letter 3: Gathering Material and Picking Out Talking Point...

_The Dress of a Business Letter_ 12: Making Letterheads and Envelopes Distinctive 13: The Typographical Make-up of Business Letters 14: Getting a Uniform Policy and Quality in L...

_Style--Making the Letter Readable_ 8: "Style" in Letter Writing--And How to Acquire It 9: Making the Letter Hang Together 10: How to Make Letters Original 11: Making the Form L...