Business Correspondence | Page 2

several letters
from him and I feel as though I know him."

Sitting alone in his little office, this man was one of the first to foresee,
ten years ago, the real possibilities of the letter. He saw that if he could
write a man a thousand miles away the right kind of a letter he could do
business with him as well as he could with the man in the next block.
So he began talking by mail to men whom he thought might buy his
goods--talking to them in sane, human, you-and-me English. Through
those letters he sold goods. Nor did he stop there. In the same human
way he collected the money for them. He adjusted any complaints that
arose. He did everything that any business man could do with
customers. In five years he was talking not to a thousand men but to a
million. And today, though not fifty men in the million have ever met
him, this man's personality has swept like a tidal wave across the
country and left its impression in office, store and factory--through
letters--letters alone.
This instance is not cited because it marks the employment of a new
medium, but because it shows how the letter has become a universal
implement of trade; how a commonplace tool has been developed into
a living business-builder.
The letter is today the greatest potential creator and transactor of
business in the world. But wide as its use is, it still lies idle, an
undeveloped possibility, in many a business house where it might be
playing a powerful part.
The letter is a universal implement of business--that is what gives it
such great possibilities. It is the servant of every business, regardless of
its size or of its character. It matters not what department may
command its use--wherever there is a business in which men must
communicate with each other, the letter is found to be the first and most
efficient medium.
Analyze for a moment the departments of your own business. See how
many points there are at which you could use right letters to good
advantage. See if you have not been overlooking some opportunities
that the letter, at a small cost, will help develop.

Do you sell goods? The letter is the greatest salesman known to modern
business. It will carry the story you have to tell wherever the mail goes.
It will create business and bring back orders a thousand miles to the
very hand it left. If you are a retailer, the letter will enable you to talk
your goods, your store, your service, to every family in your town, or it
will go further and build a counter across the continent for you.
If you are a manufacturer or wholesaler selling to the trade, the letter
will find prospects and win customers for you in remote towns that
salesmen cannot profitably reach.
But the letter is not only a direct salesman, it is a supporter of every
personal sales force. Judiciously centered upon a given territory, letters
pave the way for the salesman's coming; they serve as his introduction.
After his call, they keep reminding the prospect or customer of the
house and its goods.
Or, trained by the sales manager upon his men, letters keep them in
touch with the house and key up their loyalty. With regular and special
letters, the sales manager is able to extend his own enthusiasm to the
farthest limits of his territory.
So in every phase of selling, the letter makes it possible for you to keep
your finger constantly upon the pulse of trade.
If you are a wholesaler or manufacturer, letters enable you to keep your
dealers in line. If you are a retailer, they offer you a medium through
which to keep your customers in the proper mental attitude toward your
store, the subtle factor upon which retail credit so largely depends. If
you sell on instalments, letters automatically follow up the accounts
and maintain the inward flow of payments at a fraction of what any
other system of collecting entails.
Do you have occasion to investigate the credit of your customers? The
letter will quietly and quickly secure the information. Knowing the
possible sources of the data you desire you can send forth half a dozen
letters and a few days later have upon your desk a comprehensive
report upon the worth and reliability of almost any concern or

individual asking credit favors. And the letter will get this information
where a representative would often fail because it comes full-fledged in
the frankness and dignity of your house.
Does your business involve in any way the collecting of money?
Letters today bring in ten dollars for every one that collectors receive
on their monotonous round of homes and cashiers' cages.