Business Correspondence | Page 6

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

CHAPTER 3
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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