Chapter 11

_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 instead of that of the reader. The correspondent has gone far towards success when he can_ VISUALIZE _his prospect, see his environments, his needs, his ambitions, and_ APPROACH _the_ PROSPECT _from_ THIS ANGLE. _This chapter tells how to get the class idea; how to see the man to whom you are writing and that equally important qualification, how to get into the mood for writing--actual methods used by effective correspondents_

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When you call on another person or meet him in a business transaction you naturally have in mind a definite idea of what you want to accomplish. That is, if you expect to carry your point. You know that this end cannot be reached except by a presentation which will put your proposition in such a favorable light, or offer such an inducement, or so mould the minds of others to your way of thinking that they will agree with you. And so before you meet the other person you proceed to plan your campaign, your talk, your attitude to fit his personality and the conditions under which you expect to meet.

An advertising man in an eastern mining town was commissioned to write a series of letters to miners, urging upon them the value of training in a night school about to be opened. Now he knew all about the courses the school would offer and he was strong on generalities as to the value of education. But try as he would, the letters refused to take shape. Then suddenly he asked himself, "What type of man am I really trying to reach?"

And there lay the trouble. He had never met a miner face to face in his life. As soon as he realized this he reached for his hat and struck out for the nearest coal breaker. He put in two solid days talking with miners, getting a line on the average of intelligence, their needs--the point of contact. Then he came back and with a vivid picture of his man in mind, he produced a series of letters that glowed with enthusiasm and sold the course.

A number of years ago a printer owning a small shop in an Ohio city set out to find a dryer that would enable him to handle his work faster and without the costly process of "smut-sheeting." He interested a local druggist who was something of a chemist and together they perfected a dryer that was quite satisfactory and the printer decided to market his product. He wrote fifteen letters to acquaintances and sold eleven of them. Encouraged, he got out one hundred letters and sold sixty-four orders. On the strength of this showing, his banker backed him for the cost of a hundred thousand letters and fifty-eight thousand orders were the result.

The banker was interested in a large land company and believing the printer must be a veritable wizard in writing letters, made him an attractive offer to take charge of the advertising for the company's Minnesota and Canada lands.

The man sold his business, accepted the position--and made a signal failure. He appealed to the printers because he knew their problems--the things that lost them money, the troubles that caused them sleepless nights--and in a letter that bristled with shop talk he went straight to the point, told how he could help them out of at least one difficulty--and sold his product.

But when it came to selling western land he was out of his element. He had never been a hundred miles away from his home town; he had never owned a foot of real estate; "land hunger" was to him nothing but a phrase; the opportunities of a "new country" were to him academic arguments--they were not realities.

He lost his job. Discouraged but determined, he moved to Kansas where he started a small paper--and began to study the real estate business. One question was forever on his lips: "Why did you move out here?" And to prospective purchasers, "Why do you want to buy Kansas land? What attracts you?"

Month after month he asked these questions of pioneers and immigrants. He wanted their viewpoint, the real motive that drove them westward. Then he took in a partner, turned the paper over to him and devoted his time to the real estate business. Today he is at the head of a great land company and through his letters and his advertising matter he has sold hundreds of thousands of acres to people who have never seen the land. But he tells them the things they want to know; he uses the arguments that "get under the skin."

He spent years in preparing to write his letters and bought and sold land with prospects "face to face" long before he attempted to deal with them by letter. He talked and thought and studied for months before he dipped his pen into ink.

Now before he starts a letter, he calls to mind someone to whom he has sold a similar tract in the past; he remembers how each argument was received; what appeals struck home and then, in his letter, he talks to that man just as earnestly as if his future happiness depended upon making the one sale.

The preparation to write the letter should be two-fold: knowing your product or proposition and knowing the man you want to reach. You have got to see the proposition through the eyes of your prospect. The printer sold his ink dryer because he looked at it from the angle of the buyer and later he sold real estate, but not until he covered up his own interest and presented the proposition from the viewpoint of the prospect.

Probably most successful letter writers, when they sit down to write, consciously or unconsciously run back over faces and characteristics of friends and acquaintances until they find someone who typifies the class they desire to reach. When writing to women, one man always directs his appeal to his mother or sister; if trying to interest young men he turns his mind back to his own early desires and ambitions.

Visualize your prospect. Fix firmly in your mind some one who represents the class you are trying to reach; forget that there is any other prospect in the whole world; concentrate your attention and selling talk on this one individual.

"If you are going to write letters that pull," says one successful correspondent, "you have got to be a regular spiritualist in order to materialize the person to whom you are writing; bring him into your office and talk to him face to face."

"The first firm I ever worked for," he relates, "was Andrew Campbell & Son. The senior Campbell was a conservative old Scotchman who had made a success in business by going cautiously and thoroughly into everything he took up. The only thing that would appeal to him would be a proposition that could be presented logically and with the strongest kind of arguments to back it up. The son, on the other hand, was thoroughly American; ready to take a chance, inclined to plunge and try out a new proposition because it was new or unique; the novelty of a thing appealed to him and he was interested because it was out of the ordinary.

"Whenever I have an important letter to write, I keep these two men in mind and I center all my efforts to convince them; using practical, commonsense arguments to convince the father, and enough snappy 'try-it-for-yourself' talk to win the young man."

According to this correspondent, every firm in a measure represents these two forces, conservative and radical, and the strongest letter is the one that makes an appeal to both elements.

A young man who had made a success in selling books by mail was offered double the salary to take charge of the publicity department of a mail-order clothing house. He agreed to accept--two months later. Reluctantly the firm consented.

The firm saw or heard nothing from him until he reported for work. He had been shrewd enough not to make the mistake of the printer who tried to sell land and so he went to a small town in northern Iowa where a relative owned a clothing store and started in as a clerk. After a month he jumped to another store in southern Minnesota. At each place--typical country towns--he studied the trade and when not waiting on customers busied himself near some other clerk so he could hear the conversation, find out the things the farmers and small town men looked for in clothes and learn the talking points that actually sell the goods.

This man who had a position paying $6,000 a year waiting for him spent two months at $9 a week preparing to write. A more conceited chap would have called it a waste of time, but this man thought that he could well afford to spend eight weeks and sacrifice nearly a thousand dollars learning to write letters and advertisements that would sell clothes by mail.

At the end of the year he was given a raise that more than made up his loss. Nor is he content, for every year he spends a few weeks behind the counter in some small town, getting the viewpoint of the people with whom he deals, finding a point of contact, getting local color and becoming familiar with the manner of speech and the arguments that will get orders.

When he sits down to write a letter or an advertisement he has a vivid mental picture of the man he wants to interest; he knows that man's process of thinking, the thing that appeals to him, the arguments that will reach right down to his pocket-book.

A man who sells automatic scales to grocers keeps before him the image of a small dealer in his home town. The merchant had fallen into the rut, the dust was getting thicker on his dingy counters and trade was slipping away to more modern stores.

"Mother used to send me on errands to that store when I was a boy," relates the correspondent, "and I had been in touch with it for twenty years. I knew the local conditions; the growth of competition that was grinding out the dealer's life.

"I determined to sell him and every week he received a letter from the house--he did not know of my connection with it--and each letter dealt with some particular problem that I knew he had to face. I kept this up for six months without calling forth a response of any kind; but after the twenty-sixth letter had gone out, the manager came in one day with an order--and the cash accompanied it. The dealer admitted that it was the first time he had ever bought anything of the kind by mail. But I knew _his_ problems, and I connected them up with our scales in such a way that he _had_ to buy.

"Those twenty-six letters form the basis for all my selling arguments, for in every town in the country there are merchants in this same rut, facing the same competition, and they can be reached only by connecting their problems with our scales."

No matter what your line may be, you have got to use some such method if you are going to make your letters pull the orders. Materialize your prospect; overcome every objection and connect _their_ problems with _your_ products.

When you sit down to your desk to write a letter, how do you get into the right mood? Some, like mediums, actually work themselves into a sort of trance before starting to write. One man insists that he writes good letters only when he gets mad--which is his way of generating nervous energy.

Others go about it very methodically and chart out the letter, point by point. They analyze the proposition and out of all the possible arguments and appeals, carefully select those that their experience and judgment indicate will appeal strongest to the individual whom they are addressing. On a sheet of paper one man jots down the arguments that may be used and by a process of elimination, scratches off one after another until he has left only the ones most likely to reach his prospect.

Many correspondents keep within easy reach a folder or scrapbook of particularly inspiring letters, advertisements and other matter gathered from many sources. One man declares that no matter how dull he may feel when he reaches the office in the morning he can read over a few pages in his scrapbook and gradually feel his mind clear; his enthusiasm begins to rise and within a half hour he is keyed up to the writing mood.

A correspondent in a large mail-order house keeps a scrapbook of pictures--a portfolio of views of rural life and life in small towns. He subscribes to the best farm papers and clips out pictures that are typical of rural life, especially those that represent types and show activities of the farm, the furnishings of the average farm house--anything that will make clearer the environment of the men and women who buy his goods. When he sits down to write a letter he looks through this book until he finds some picture that typifies the man who needs the particular article he wants to sell and then he writes to that man, keeping the picture before him, trying to shape every sentence to impress such a person. Other correspondents are at a loss to understand the pulling power of his letters.

A sales manager in a typewriter house keeps the managers of a score of branch offices and several hundred salesmen gingered up by his weekly letters. He prepares to write these letters by walking through the factory, where he finds inspiration in the roar of machinery, the activity of production, the atmosphere of actual creative work.

There are many sources of inspiration. Study your temperament, your work and your customers to find out under what conditions your production is the easiest and greatest. It is neither necessary nor wise to write letters when energies and interest are at a low ebb, when it is comparatively easy to stimulate the lagging enthusiasm and increase your power to write letters that bring results.

How To _Begin_ A BUSINESS Letter