The essentials which go to make up a good business letter may be
divided into two classes - mechanical make-up, and contents. Before a
letter can come into existence the mechanical side must be attended to.
The subject matter may be pertinent and well composed and yet the
letter itself be so arranged typo-graphically and so disposed on the
page that the unity of the whole is lost.
The display as a whole should balance. Before the stenographer starts
the address, calculation should be made as to how many lines the letter
will run and as to how it should be disposed on the page. The body of
the letter should neither be crowded near the top nor bottom of the
sheet, but should be so placed that, viewed in connection with the
letter head, it presents a well balanced and artistic effect.
This effect is often underrated, being in fact passed by without a
thought by the average stenographer, and the ordinary business man is
so busy seeing that his dictation is correctly transcribed that he
gives little thought to this essential. Harmony of color effect should
be observed. A yellow paper bearing the firm announcement in blue, the
letter in green and signed with purple ink is not to be recommended.
Letters blurred in copying and wet from the press or otherwise
violating the rule of neatness cannot help but produce an unfavorable
impression. Orthography and capitalization, particularly of proper
names, should be exact and uniform.
A misspelled word in the body of a letter, particularly if a mere
transposition of letters in typewriting, may occasionally slip in and
do no particular damage, but the misspelling of the name of the party
addressed may lose an order, and cannot help but militate against the
general effect of the letter. Neatness uncompromising neatness - that
should be the first effect of a letter, giving the idea that the firm
putting out the writing is thorough master of the minor (as well as the
major) details of its business.
Contents
In letter-writing, contents may be divided into subject matter and
expression. The subject matter is, broadly speaking, what the writer
says. This should coincide with two other things:
(1) what the writer wants to say, and
(2) what the one addressed wants to know.
Something which is the a b c of life and a mere matter of routine to
the writer in a certain line may be abstruse and complicated to a
non-technical reader. To avoid an offensive simplicity of language on
the one hand and excessive technicality on the other is one of the
tests of a good business correspondent. There is a tendency to slight
simple questions asked by different inquirers day after day, which must
be avoided by putting oneself in the place of the one asking the
question, and giving the knowledge for which he is looking.
One of the most, if not the most, important essentials of a good
business letter lies in correct expression. The one thing which causes
more failures in business correspondence than any other, is the
incorporation of personal peculiarities in a letter. There may be
called to mind, in fact, more than one established business backed by
ample capital, having a broad field and financed by capable and
conservative business men, that is at the mercy of a poor
correspondent. This is ably expressed by Forrest Crissy, who says:
"So apparent must be the importance of this branch (tact and tone in
business letters) of business systematization, that scarcely a word of
argument is needed to enforce its necessity. Very recently a large
whole-sale merchant said to me:
'I have recently been obliged to discharge the head of my credit
department - my confidential man. He is honest, conservative and
shrewd, but recently I have been awakened to the fact that his
incapacity to write a letter which does not leave a sting, a chill, or
at least a sense of lofty indifference, is hurting my business more
than would some downright reckless blunders. When he writes a letter
granting a good customer a larger line of credit he gives it a twist
that somehow makes that customer wish he hadn't asked for credit and
thus placed himself under added obligations. And if he refuses to meet
the request for such a favor the refusal is so put that it seems a
studied effort to conceal a strong unwillingness to give any credit at
all.
Yet this man has always considered him-self an adept in letter-writing
- and for a time he completely hypnotized me into that view. But at
last the steady withdrawal of patronage and the occasional out-spoken
retorts which his letters provoked forced upon me a recognition of the
real condition of affairs. Then I went out after a man who could write
a business letter that had just the right ring to it; that was neither
so sloppy that it sounded hypocritical or so stiff and stilted that
there was no tone of good hearty business friendliness in it.
I have found him. He comes high, but the difference in results is
remarkable. Of course, there are other things required than this form
of literary ability - that's what you'd call it. He must have business
experience, business judgment and all the other cardinal business
virtues; but the addition of this peculiar capacity to write business
letters that hit the mark is a rare gift and makes him a star man.' "
Simplicity and clearness as an element of expression cannot be rated
too highly. The saying of a thing in the plain language of the common
people, not only adds to the style and dignity of a letter, but has the
most vital element of being understandable. As Chas. R. Weirs says,
"Eloquence, either real or imaginary, has no place in a business
letter."
Whatever else may be neglected in writing, courtesy should not be
slighted. A man may be told nearly anything face to face - it is
qualified by the bearing, tone of voice, manner and earnestness of the
speaker. A sentence may be given an entirely different meaning by a
tone or gesture - it may even be diplomatically changed after partly
spoken, to make it conform to the unconscious demand of the listener,
and most of all spoken speech is transient. What is written, on the
other hand, is put down in black and white to stay. The record is
permanent. It can be offered in evidence, can be dug up years
afterwards from a musty file, and discourteously written can queer, not
only an immediate sale, but the sales of a decade.
Length
Letters often tend to verbosity from the fact that they are dictated
instead of written. Were a man to write his letters himself with pen
and ink he would study brevity and conciseness of expression, but
having letters written for him, he will dictate more than he would
write. Brevity is not always desirable. Some people - particularly
those receiving few letters - like to receive lengthy correspondence.
Getting few letters, they wish those long and newsy.
A letter is an event to some patrons and cannot be too long for a
careful perusal. In this class of letters the party ad-dressed may be
often appealed to in conversational style; as, "Judge of the goods
yourself, Mr. Brown," "We ask you, Mr. Smith, if we have not treated
you fairly?" etc. At the other extreme is the business man,
particularly the city business man. To him, brevity to the point of
curtness is always welcome. As someone has alliteratively said, the
formula for a business letter to a busy man is: Sir: Say it. Stop!
Judging the Other Man's Letter.
One of the pre-requisites of a good correspondent is the ability,
inherent or acquired to judge the general character and status of the
writer by means of his letters. Until the last few years the
letter-head of a firm was a considerable guide to the standing of the
company putting It out, but good printing is now much more common and
many one-horse concerns put out conservative, well-gotten-up
stationery.
Ability to recognize the efforts of an amateur or schoolboy inquiring
for a catalog with no intention of buying and to treat the writer
accordingly, call for almost occult powers. The president of one of the
large machinery companies putting out a cement mixer selling at
$850.00, relates that one of the company travelers visited Detroit in
response to an apparently good lead and found a twelve-year-old boy
wanted a dozen cement mixers "to go into the mail-order business with."
Some companies putting out expensive catalogs write a letter asking a
doubtful inquirer to fill out an information blank before sending a
catalog. The correct interpretation of the personality of a writer
means the saving of dollars of expenditure as well as the ability to
write him correctly. In a fire insurance concern employing hundreds of
agents it would be easy for a manager to inform himself through his
special agents as to each agent's nationality, education, experience in
the business, etc., and vary his correspondence accordingly, while a
mail order house might have no means of judging a man but by his bare
letter.
Form Letters
A form letter is one of a series of letters, to be sent on similar
occasions. Such letters are usually in imitation typewriting with
blanks left for the name of the party addressed, and when carefully
executed are a close imitation of a typewritten letter. Form letters
vary from those not to be distinguished from actual typewriting, to the
stock letters of collection agencies, in which no attempt is made to
imitate the machine. Some writers use a number of short forms or
inserts which they use in dictating to avoid a repetition of dictation.
Letters of Recommendation
The promiscuous writing of letters of recommendation has done much to
cheapen the effect of recommends. Many firms refuse such letters
entirely. Perhaps the best plan is to have an employee, when leaving,
use his former employer's name as a reference.
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Article added to SearchWarp.com on Thursday, May 17, 2007 View other articles written by Adrian Kennelly(104)
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