UC-NRLF $B Ell ITI Writing Business Letters ^? n? which get the business. A group of six special articles in each of which are contained very practical and helpful suggestions for making business letters more interesting and efficient w THE POCKET BOOK SERIES Published by THE OFFICE APPLIANCE CO. 417 South Dearborn Street CHICAGO. ILL. ^ s n30 xW\K t LOUIS VICTOR EYTINGE Louis Victor Eytinge, the writer of the excellent articles which compose this book, is a life-termer in the state peni- tentiary at Florence, Arizona. The achievements of Eytinge afford a striking illustration of the possibilities of a system of prison management designed to inspire self-mastery in the men witfy whom it has to do, to turn them from ifis. Me native'* to Ztte** positive trail toward the goal and to restore twem to* usefulness. The writer 'enee % lh&ugd,t\toi $om$)lpnient*. Eytinge with the remark ''You*hdv'e'*g'o%e**ftirth*er % 'thdn arty man of my ac- quaintance." And VICTOR replied: "Only because I went farther the other way than any man of your acquaintance. ,} The misdirected energies of Louis Victor Eytinge's youth landed him in the reform school at an early age. Behind him at twenty-eight was a five years' sentence in the Ohio state penitentiary for forgery. A few years later, broken in health and out of harmony with life, he tvas in the West and presently involved in troubles which culminated in the crowning disaster of his eventful career. Out of this disaster has come a new Louis Victor Eytinge useful citizen. Like many another, Eytinge found himself through work through work and usefulness made possible by a system of prison management that, strange as it may seem, has for its special object, the rebuilding of men. Under this system, Eytinge, within the prison walls, gained a touch with the activities of the business world, in which he now participates every day. Compelled to depend wholly upon the mail for the establish- ment of business relations, Eytinge became a student atnd analysist of business letters and business literature. Personal contact was denied him. His enthusiasm, sincerity, courtesy and desire for service must be expressed in the typed page. The postage stamp must be his means of transportation he must "GET INTO THE ENVELOPE AND SEAL THE FLAP." The more one reads the writings of Louis Victor Eytinge, the more one becomes impressed with the thought that there is no excuse for any average man to yield to discouragement. Eytinge, of course, is not an average man, but what he is making of himself is the result of a determination and a fighting spirit which the average man may achieve if he will. Ill almost unto death with tuberculosis, cast into prison charged with a capital crime and escaping death perhaps be- cause the evidence against him was circumstantial and incon- clusive, with a record as a bad man before he was charged with the offense which causes his detention now, Eytinge has grappled with the evil fate that has pursued him since boyhood, and not only has conquered the evil in himself, but has won back his physical health and vigor and justly earned the re- spect and esteem of thousands of Americans. From surroundings to the last extent depressing he has lifted himself to a degree of success seldom or never before achieved by anyone in like circumstances. Eytinge has looked death, disgrace and failure in the eyes and has defeated them all. In his valedictory to the readers of the magazine Mr. Eytinge said: "Three things have actuated me in the writing of this series: First, the fine fellowship that has been given me by the editors and their friends. Second, the love of good letters and my desire to see letters more efficient. And third the most important the desire to awaken you business men, you tax payers, to sober thought on one of the world's greatest problems the prison and the prisoner." The "Get" Series Get into the envelope and seal the flap. J> J J> J* J* J> Get under the prospect's hide. Get a persuasive perspective. Get a good grip on your prospect. Get the dotted line signed and get away. < d* J* Get good associates. This series of articles was written especially for Office Appliances, the magazine of office equipment, in which they were first published. Copyright 1914, by Office Appliance Company OFFICE APPLIANCE CO. 417 South Dearborn Street, Chicago, 111. I.-GET INTO THE ENVELOPE AND SEAL THE FLAP. Embodying some suggestions for putting more of yourself in your business letters, YOUR letters are running too much to brain and not enough to heart. The president of a Colorado jobbing house re- cently wrote me for a set of rules on successful sales-letter construction and said he had read and studied everything on commercial correspondence, but could not secure real results. This was my answer to him : "Get into the en- velope and seal the flap after you!" Your morning's mail, one writer says, engages your at- tention in this order: Checks, orders, correspondence re- lating to prospective orders and work in hand ; relating to minor business correspondence and lastly, advertising. But is this truef How often in running through a big batch of mail you have caught a passing phrase, a different note than usual and it left its imprint upon your mind, an imprint so forcible that you have worked backed through the sheaf until you found this letter? Have you not pulled such a letter from the tray and carefully studied its human interest, its appeal? Have you not felt a warming ad- miration for the writer and tried to visualize the man? Does not this human, man-to-man, spoken letter picture the personality of the correspondent ? Do you not usually call your associates to read such a letter ? Is it not picked up several times during the day even after you have dictated the reply? Words have just as much tone as the speaking voice just as much tint, as much color value as the painter's pigments. The weaver of words creates a cloth that is imperishable and the well-worded sales-letter has made an impression that sinks deeper and deeper as others of its kind follow. If all of us realized this, would not our let- ters be better for their purpose? We know that the personality of the salesman has much to do with the selling and I contend that the per- sonality in the sales-letter has more to do with the power of that letter than in the case of the salesman. The per- sonality of the traveler is, to a degree, of the visual type that of the letter is of the kind that appeals to the im- agination. It compels thought and thought impels to ac- tion. The salesman at your side has life. The sales-letter must have a greater degree of liveliness. Dead limbs grow no green leaves nor do lifeless letters bring back greenbacks. A certain Jap in San Francisco wrote the most effective sales-letter I ever read. It was written in that peculiar "pidgin" English, made famous by Irwin with his Togo, the schoolboy! It had personality plus the living human quality. One of my fellow inmates wanted to take a course in law from some correspondence school. I wrote his in- quiries and every one of these indicated that the man was a "warm" prospect. Eight replies and eight catalogs were placed before the man for his choice. The one that won appealed to his heart and not the head. It was a personal human letter that told the convict, with frankness, that his felony conviction would prevent ad- mission to the bar, unless he earned a full pardon but while saying that for this reason the school would not sell him a law course, suggested that he make use of his evident energy by studying some other line. How many friends do you think this human honesty won for that school ? A southwestern curio house wished to close out its line of Mexican drawn work. Two letters were sent out. One told about prices, so remarkably low, and of the daintiness and delicacy of the lace. It was purely a letter to the head. Three per cent of replies resulted. The other told of the pitiful plight of the inmates of the convents in Guadalajara, where most of the work is done, of the stress of the country because of the revolu- tions and all of which made it impossible to preserve a full line. There was little talk to the head in the second letter, but much for the heart. Over thirty per cent of replies closed out the stock. If a salesman handed his card to you with one hand and leveled his index finger at your brow with a "look-me- square-in-the-eye" what would happen to him? "Where's the bouncer ?" Funny then, that so many correspondents think they can hypnotize one into signing "the enclosed order blank" with a long-distance leveled-finger style. The strident hit-from-the-shoulder letter becomes a nuisance. The so-called "snappy business tone" has been overdone. The pendulum is swinging to the more natural human way of talking one's letters. You would not tolerate the salesman who thumped his fist on your desk with every breath. Why, then, expect your prospect to permit you to punctuate every sentence in your sales-letter with a mental sledge-hammer blow? Waste basket, please! Business Built on Service. Business today is built on service and the strongest sales-letter is the one that offers to serve the prospect. Strong characters are modest, yet impress you with their power. The strong sales-letter impresses the prospect with its resolute ring and compels his confidence. Con- fidence begets action and orders. The prospect knows that you are working for your own interest it takes the human letter to prove that his interests are yours. Whatever you give the prospect he returns to you. It is the law of compensation. The other day a letter was handed me and its opening paragraph ran thus: "The unquestionable enthusiasm displayed in your letter of the 13th is certainly contagious/' and then went on with two pages of earnest enthuiastic discussion of a matter not re- lated to his profit, but one interesting both of us even to the dropping of his work on his inventory. All be- cause of a human enthuiasm that demanded a kindred feeling and expression. A lifer, like myself, wanted to buy a certain typewriter on the partial-payment plan. He wrote a number of houses telling exactly what he wanted, the frank truth as to his situation, and that the vendor would have to de- pend for payment on the convicts mere word of honor. A few houses utterly ignored the inquiry; others sent a bald blank to be filled out with this and that information. One firm (may there be more such!) packed a machine, paid the express and offered it to the convict, writing him that his entire frankness had commanded their admira- tion that because of his situation the terms usually de- manded might prove too severe and if this were so, they were willing to make such agreement as the honor of the convict might suggest and his little earnings make possible. How many machines do you think this firm will eventually sell because of the humanliness of this action ? What is the advertising value of a staunch friend ? That, after all, is the value of the human sales-letter the building up of a friendly clientele. The human in- terest transmutes leaden letter thoughts into check col- lecting conversations. Every one may do this, from the humblest mail-order experimenter to the elevated execu- tive. The crow of the bantam rooster carries just as far as that of the big brahma. Of course, there's the other extreme to be avoided, for the most noisy stink-wagon frequently limps home loser. The letter that osculates the Blarney Stone leaves a bad taste in the mouth. It is simply a question of being YOURSELF. 6 Enthusiasm, faith, confidence, courtesy, truthfulness, and all qualities needed in business building may be con- veyed through sales-letters as easily as in person. The letter will represent in every way the product, the firm, the personality of its directing force. It is the voice of your character as applied to your business. The letter that harvests the heaviest, baits with human heartiness its hid- den hook. The human letter in business is the hand-grip that propitiates your prospect toward your proposal that puts a pleasing prosperity in your progress that paves the path to permanent profit production. II. GET UNDER THE PROS- PECT'S HIDE. Wherein are suggested the uses of the kindlier sentiments in business correspondence. GET under your prospect's hide by getting out from your own shell! Down South there's a little fellow who loves the warm sands where we humans walk about in our bare feet. You may strut along as unconcerned as can be and then a couple of days later you begin to feel a painful swelling between the toes. It will take a sharp knife's cutting to prove that the sand-jiggei has got in his work. He gets under the hide by finding the tenderest spot the point of least resistance. Emulate the sand-flea. Find the point of contact by which you can most easily win your prospect and build your letter so that it gets through gently. The other day I was in the market for desks and wrote a number of makers for catalogs and information. One desk I had almost determined to buy I was ninety per cent sold. Here is the first part of what the manufacturer wrote me: "In reply to your recent inquiry, we are send- ing under separate cover our catalog, which will show you what a marvel of mechanical ingenuity and cabinet work the Blank desk is. We have been furniture mak- ers for blank years and we " We this and we that ! Did I care what kind of a mechanical marvel the blamed desk was? Did it matter to me how long they had been in the business? What I wanted was service, a desk that would help me in my work, and I wanted to know how it could do this, how handy it may have been for this or that, the time or labor it would save. I asked for cake and was given a crust. The district agent of another maker sent me an en- velope full of slips and folders but no letter. Among the more than half dozen pieces of printed matter crammed into a small envelope was a little folder about the desk for which I had inquired. Everything went into the discard. Not one had found the point of contact, and in despair, I asked a Chicago friend to get me something that would serve my purposes. The firm from which he ordered sent me a warmly human letter that breathed a spirit of ser- vice, a willingness to help me devise a filing system for such clippings as every ad-writer collects, to build up a desk that would help me to make my work easier and better. They had found the line of least resistance, had burrowed under my hide and the feeling is so pleasant that they can stay there. That house made a friend, and friendship is the greatest building force. There's a tendency, in these days of efficiency, to elim- inate the "Dear Sir" and "Dear Madam." That is as it should be, for what do these mean ? But courtesy de- mands something some kind of honest greeting must be put in their places. Your letterhead is nothing more than your visiting card, your business card, and, as your first words to any possible client as you enter his office, are those of greeting, why should not the opening of your letters carry some similar courtesy? It is decidedly bet- ter if your letters reach your prospect in the morning, and you don't like the "Dear Sir," to have them open with a cordial "Good morning, Mr. Blank"; or if the mail be delivered in the afternoon, to use the "Good afternoon, Mr. Blank." Don't you feel the difference between the two openings? One is natural, honest and human the other an empty formality a sop to custom and the dead past. The character of the opening paragraph makes or breaks your letter campaign. It is the letter. It invites either further study or a sentence to the oblivion of the 9 waste basket. Do you remember how, five or six years ago, we used to open our letters with a hurrah flash? We used to think we had to hit 'era between the eyes to jolt 'em into reading what we wrote. Nothing of that these busy days. We have reduced letter writing to a scientific art or an artful science, any way you want it. Your whoop-'er-up and smash-'em-out letters go into the janitor's paper bin. Five years ago a certain vendor of couches for physician's offices opened his letters like this: "Doctor, your office is a disgrace! "It don't represent your ability as a medico. Get a Blank couch and make it decent." Today, the same writer starts out his letters on the same subject with a gentle, thoughtful, earnest approach, thus: "You know, doctor, how helpful a proper mental at- titude, on the part of your patient is toward your own helpfulness and you surely realize that a tufted, sooth- ing Blank couch would rest your patient until you were ready in the consultation room." Notice the clever appeal to his intelligence with the "You know"; then the introduction of the element of comfort for the patient, making it better for the physi- cian. There is an opening that shows brain .work and heart interest, and, in all earnestness I urge that both are essential. One wants to guard against generalities because these lack appeal. It doesn't pay to open a letter with, "We have sold five hundred of these comfortable Blank chairs in this city." Does that produce thought, attract attention or inspire interest? Suppose you had started with "You will increase your own efficiency and make more pleasur- able the day's duties, if you use a back-resting Blank chair"? Would not that be better? Is there not an ap- peal that penetrates, produces reading of the entire letter ? One thing the business man wants these days is ef- 10 ficiency and not only do you have a talking point in that, but in making "more pleasurable" the work to be done, besides the strong, selfish appeal in the comfort of a "back- resting" chair. Words in the opening do not count for so much as ideas. Words are merely clothes we wrap about ideas to make them humanly appealing. The opening of the letter must not merely attract at- tention. Making a man open his eyes for the purpose of looking at you amounts to nothing; you've got to attract his buying attention and, the best way to do that is to create in his mind a feeling of confidence in you and your wares. Do you recall how, in the June, 1913, issue of Office Appliances, Ralph Bauer told of enclosing cer- tified 25c checks with his circular letters? This was to pay for the prospect's time in reading ; to play fair for the study ; to create confidence in the fairness of Bauer's offers more than all, to get under the hide. Down in Tennessee a firm selling office forms, en- closed a clean, crisp, dollar bill with their circular let- ters! Of course, only a high class mailing list was used. Paying a dollar to get their matter read read thor- oughly was a profit-producing proposition. Most pros- pects would be inclined to buy if for no other reason than that they felt under obligations to the sender of the bills they felt as if they owed a dollar. One of my clients goes further and you are welcome to use the plan for he sends out checks, good in every way, except that the amount is not named! Risky busi- ness sending out blank checks, you say? No for there is a string tied to the thing. On the back of the check is printed a line stating that the paper is negotiable only upon presentation at Blank's store. The check accom- panies a letter praising and selling one kind of office de- vice, which can be fully guaranteed. The prospect is invited to come to the store, inspect the device and to bring the check with him that it may be 11 filled out and exchanged as may then be agreed. All this acts as a teaser. It stimulates study of the printed matter about the device and brings in a steady stream of busy men who want to know more about the check and the de- vice. Its merits are fully explained and if he buys, the binding money-back guarantee is written for the amount of the purchase and the same amount is filled in the BLANK SPACES OF THE CHECK AND THE CHECK THEN EXCHANGED FOR THE GUARANTEE!!! That's all -but the plan brings the prospect to your store, where you have an opportunity of selling him not merely this one device about which you center the campaign, but beget in his brain the desire to buy many other things you may demonstrate. He is your friend, for you have shown him something new you have shown him you possess ideas and that you have faith in the goods you sell. The stridently clamorous letter knocks your prospect's eye out he raises his guard against it. You come at him with too much impact. The way to batter down a guard is to snuggle up inside of it. Contact accomplishes MORE THAN IMPACT. GET UNDER THE HIDE AND GET RESULTS ! ! ! 12 III. GET A PERSUASIVE PER- SPECTIVE FOR YOUR PROSPECT. Being some suggestions to prove that there must be some- thing beyond attractive opening phrases. ONE of my fellow-inmates was painting the scenery, representing the Bay of Naples, for our next en- tertainment. His brush sketched in swiftly and lightly the foreground of water and boats and lingered lovingly on the colors of sky and Vesuvius in the dis- tance. I asked him why he merely sketched in the fore- ground and his answer taught me a letter lesson. This is what he said : "That I may persuade the eye to grasp the perspective." Too many of us think when we have made a strong opening in our sales-letters, painted a good foreground, that there is little need for a perspective for persuasive leading up to the main argument. The opening gets the attention and that is all the part it is to play in the sale. You have to lead up to the main points and take care that you lead gently. The best leading agency is a question. Any man who can frame a question that will compel thought along the lines of the argument that follows that man will suc- ceed in his letter-sales. Have you ever thought of the force, value, the psychological result of a question? The one you have just read is a sample. A question is often worth a dozen argumentative paragraphs. A particularly knotty problem may be left to the prospect to solve left to his imagination to picture a perspective if you plan a pungent question; and, often with results that are better than could otherwise be achieved. 13 Suppose you are selling steel filing fixtures and open your letter with: "Are your letters, your papers, as safe as they deserve to be? "The Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company had fifty thousand inquiries burned in their re- cent fire and the trials, annoyances and lost business entailed have led them to order Blank steel equipment. "What would you do, if you were to lose all your papers, all your records this night?" This last question is one that is bound to cause con- siderable thought in the mind of the prospect. He actu- ally is compelled to study what he would do, were he to suffer a loss. Right then at the psychological moment when you've "got him going" is the right time to drive home your best arguments. Notice how the opening attracts attention how it gets under the hide. The next paragraph a simple statement of fact is greatly strengthened by the mention of the number of inquiries destroyed and the use of a nationally known firm name a firm which advertised its loss. These two sentences are but the sketching-in of a foreground. The third sentence the hard-hitting, home-bringing question is the thing that leads the prospect to size up the perspec- tive. He sees the picture in his own mind and it is up to you to argue shortly and quickly and close the sale. Every word, every punctuation mark in the letter extract shows the result of a carefully created plan. How do you ex- pect to have a perspective unless you have a plan upon which to build? Before you write one word, plan every- thing from greeting to get-away! Plan the perspective so that it makes prominent the ooints the prospect ought to perceive. You must educate /our prospect. People did not want the typewriter, the 14 adding machine, process-letter devices they didn't want a thing until they were educated into desire. They had done business for years without office appliances could do business now without them but who the deuce wants to? Plan an educative, permanently-persuasive per- spective. Here's an instance: Every office man uses carbon paper may have tried dozens of brands and grades but does he know that there is a paper particularly suited to his business needs ? When you size up the needs of your pros- pect in carbon papers and talk of a paper designed to meet his special requirements when your letter educates him into desiring that particular paper then you've landed not only his trade in carbons but in many other lines. YouVe shown your interest in his interests. You have visualized your prospect, the class of business he does and you have addressed yourself to his condition, his progress. An addressing-machine maker plans the letters that go to houses having difficulty with the pay-rolls so that the perspective shows hours and days saved in the matter of making out time-cards and addressing pay-envelopes. Where speed in getting out the circular letters is needed, as in a broker's office, the letters carry the question before their strongest arguments: "Do you want to find out how the Blank will get your market-letters to your clients two hours earlier?" A maker of special keys for the typewriter does not, at first, talk to the employer of relieving the drudgery of the typist (though this subject is carried in the later arguments), but rather of reducing the number of errors he has to correct in the letters before they go out. He writes his letters so that they build a perspective suited to the eyes of the prospect and not to the latter's employes. A seller of flat-top desks, in a western city, had a hard time of it during the early part of the summer, because of the competition between two larger office fixture men one a steel desk salesman and the other an agent for a 15 specially designed and mechanically ingenious wood roll- top. The steel desk man would send out letters in which he pictured the wood desk, with its many drawers pulling hard and sticking some in muggy weather. The special desk man would, in turn, paint perspectives that pictured how steel gathered heat in summer and held its chill in winter. The rivalry between the two became so pro- nounced that the business men of the city were amused. The first week of August, the flat-top desk man, who had taken no active part in the fight, entered the arena with trump cards in his hand. Here is the first part of the letter he sent out: "I'm not going to talk of the merits of either wood or steel in desk construction. You've read enough of that kind of argument to make you tired. Besides, it is too hot to argue and I wont knock. "But what is the use o, buying electric fans or installing expensive ventilating devices, if you are going to sit all day behind a roll top that in- terferes with the air movements? Why not TRY THE COOLING COMFORT of a free-air, free-from- dust- cupboards free-for-arm-movement, flat-top Blank desk?" The success of this letter is clearly the result of a defi- nite plan. Look at the timeliness, frankness and square- ness shown in his good opening. Study the appeal the psychological appeal, if you please in his question the gradual strength developing perspective the mind picture of summer comfort that it paints. A dealer in a certain type of office chair persuades with : "How would you like to have a comfortable desk chair, the kind that will let you draw out the center drawer without pushing the chair back, arising, pulling out the 16 drawer, pushing it back and rolling the chair into its place again ?" Another puts a pertinent appeal with his: "The many interviews you grant every day make the ordinary desk chair unsuitable to a better performance of your duties. Why not get greater comfort, greater efficiency, with a chair designed especially for your work?" A dealer, circularizing his prospects about a patent inkwell, opens his letters by telling how much ink is evaporated from the average inkwell in a year and then goes direct to the painting of the perspective with, "If good ink costs you a dollar the quart and you have but four inkwells in your office and these vaporize four quarts of ink during the year, how much money will you save in two, three, in five years, if you buy Blank non-evaporating inkwells at a dollar each? Figure this out yourself?" A printer and stationer prefaces his strongest talk with, "If I can show you how three mills less than one-third of a cent added to the improvement of every letter you send out will bring back ten per cent greater returns, would you use Blank brains-in-printing ?" A filing cabinet dealer asks in his second paragraph, "Is your filing system really a time saver ? Does it respond quickly and accurately or do you have to stop and think and look in several places before you find what you want?" These are but samples of painting the perspective getting ready the scenery for the real acting that comes with your vital argument the first act to the development of your letter-sales-drama. Play well your part! 17 IV- GET A GOOD GRIP ON YOUR PROSPECT. Wherein are presented some thoughts on keeping up a strong argument to a logical conclusion. IN the other days when out in the world, Fve ridden on cable cars going up some hill, and often wondered what would happen if the grip-man lost control. Then, as if to satisfy my curiosity, I saw this happen saw the car drop down the hill despite the brake saw the wreck that resulted and never do I want to witness such a thing again ! Some letters are like cable cars in that they start out from the office with a clean cut swing, strong and virile as they move onward but when they get to the hill, when they come to the climb to the argumentative climax they lose their grip and slide down to an empty end in the wastebasket ! A manufacturer, starting a dealer campaign on a paper- fastening device, wondered why his form-letters failed. The letter copy started out bravely and blithely it got under the hide. It led up beautifully to a persuasive per- spective by telling of the success of three different dealers in as many towns. His argument the crux of the at- tack opened with: "Of course, I fully realize that what other dealers in other cities did or did not do with this punch, is of no especial interest to you" Etc., etc. Right there was the weak spot in the campaign right there was all earned effect killed right there was the letter thrown aside. If what other dealers had done had no interest for the prospect, what was the use of telling 18 about them in the opening? What was the use of gently leading to the critical point, if one had to negative all the previous positive thought? He lost the grip on his argu- ment his effort was ruined. Had the writer gone ahead with the natural appeal he had builded for with some- thing like : "Cannot you, with your splendid situation, your friend- ly clientele, your wide influence and your volume of trade cannot you do as well or BETTERf Surely you in- tend trying!" had there been used some such line of language it would have been productive of results. It would have been an incentive, inspiring each dealer to at- tempt beating the other's record the campaign would have been a $ucce$$. Another dealer sent out a small booklet describing a certain filing cabinet and with it a letter that opened strongly and led nicely up to his argument. He too, lost his grip on this hill, when he wrote: "If, after studying the roller-bearing device as shown on page six the interlocking system described on page nine the patent follow-block arrangement told of on page twelve if after doing all this, you say the Blank sys- tem is not the best why throw this catalog and letter into the wastebasket." Certainly. Anything to oblige, for that's just where it went into the wastebasket ! Went there as soon as the prospects read the last line. It is a fact that the fatal wastebasket suggestion was responsible for ninety-five per cent of the wastage in this incident. Suggestion is a pow- erful influence, more so when a man is hurriedly reading a letter for the first time. Every word that is seen will pro- duce an impression on the mind and just as positive thoughts produce affirmative actions, so will negative words produce negative actions. The main value of street 19 car advertising lies in its suggestive influence not in any argumentative force that is why most car cards are of a positive type. Study them when you go home today and see for yourself. Forget the word "wastebasket." Forget that there is letters and framing your arguments. Suppose that the last quoted writer had made his letter read : "If, after studying the roller bearing device as shown on page six the patent interlocking system described on page nine the fine follow-block arrangement told of on page twelve if, after doing all this, you are not yet convinced that the Blank system is the best, I'll play my best trump card. This is it: I'll put a cabinet in your office use it thirty days test it out in any way you think fit. At the end of that time I'll come after it unless you say that it is too valuable to be without. Do you want to find out what it will do for you?" Now suppose that such a revision of the objectionable paragraph had been made, what a difference do you think would have been shown in the results? When you build an argument give it the enthusiasm and earnestness that fill your own mind. Never have a doubt. Be positive, and you will impress your prospect forcibly and favorably. Yes you w-i-l-l. All this may sound like new thought I hope so and it would be better if correspondents were to assimilate some of that new thought before writing their letters. All great business executives are studying the psychology of business. They are beginning to find out that their divi- dend dollars are earned by increasing their own efficiency not by taking advantage of the inabilities of others. They are beginning to ask the why for every word, sen- tence, act and as they delve deeper into this study of the action of the mind, they are finding out for them- 20 selves how positive thought and affirmative actions are making for success. Whatever I may accomplish with my own letters, much may be attributed to a growing faculty for putting positive personality into my letter work. It is easy. Try for yourself and see. Your argument must be built on the putting-yourself- into-the-other-fellow's-office-chair principle. The letter must see things from his viewpoint, the you angle. Get off the spot so you can see your own shadow from the other man's eyes. You may have a dozen arguments that seem mighty strong to you but they are worthless if they do not fit the needs of the other fellow. The only theme that amounts to a snap is you. Dotting your letters with a plentitude of WE and / is not sprinkling an appetizer before the prospect's checkbook. If a printer offered me a ton of miscellaneous printed paper, odds and ends, for a dollar or so, he'd be laughed at but if he offered me a pound of printed matter that would produce profits on my wares something that would sell my services then, I'd buy, no matter what the cost. Smartness, freshness, flippancy, mere cleverness have no place in the argumentative part of a letter. Make this paragraph pungent, pointed, pithy, plausible, pertinent, ' penetrating make it real and impressive and above all make it pleasing. Just to show how a few words re-ar- ranged may affect a campaign, let us take the opening to the argument in a letter recently handed me. It was sent out by a printing stationer in an effort to sell high-grade, white writing papers to society men. Here's the sentence "that got my goat": "You may know that colored shirt- ings are not used for evening wear by men of good taste and so it is with writing papers only white should be used." Here is a positive insult ! Do not club men know what linens are worn with evening dress? Might as well 21 write any intelligent man, "you may know that London is a city," or "you may know that Wilson is President/' Suppose that the same thought had been dressed in some fashion like this: "You know, as do other men of good taste, that colored shirtings are never used for eve- ning dress so with writing linens. Tinted papers are considered tawdry" can't you feel the difference your- self ? Here you have the positive influence of "you know," rather than the questioning "you may know" and the pe- culiar effect of the "you know" is that if the recipient does not then know, he absorbs the information you are giving and believes he has arrived at the truth for him- self!!! Straight goods! Then, next comes the associa- tion with the element of subtle flattery in "as do other men of good taste/' You have not merely pleased the prospect with the soft stroke, but have impressed your statements upon his mind as facts, through your own positiveness. Don't put all your own arguments into one letter save something for follow-ups. A manufacturer of a type- writer attachment designed to lessen shock, noise and wear, selects just one of his dozen of talking points upon which to make this coin-collecting argument: "Let's get right down to brass tacks cutting down your expense costs. Typewriter ribbons cost you 75 cents each you change at least every month, making your yearly ribbon cost on each machine $9.00. Now then, Til guarantee the Blank to save you twenty-five per cent on all ribbons will guarantee the typewriter feet for five years. This twenty- five per cent saving on five years' rib- bon cost of $45.00 is $11.25. Deduct from this gross sav- ing the cost of the Blank device, a paltry two dollars and you have a net earning of $9.25 ! ! ! In all frank- ness, would you not willingly spend two dollars to get back ninef" 22 Here's where the colloquial style of presenting the ar- gument carries you along with a swing, brings you sharp up against the facts, makes you analyze his figures and clinches it all with an appeal to your instincts for gain. Appeal to the desire for gain cannot be used in all cases. Change your appeals as vaudevillians change their acts. Make them fit your audience. Here is the way another printer advances his arguments to professional men and women : "You know that your services are equal or superior to others in your profession. Why not then, make your let* ters like your ability? Why not make them stand out of the mass? Clothe your letters with a paper that repre- sents your individuality as much as your raiment does. I can print letter-paper for you that will breathe of your character your professional standing. Think how that would affect your possible clients!'* It is a strong argument, strongly put, with its questions and its delving down into the hidden nature of the reader. It pulled better than all the rest of the series of six letters. There's a reason, too. Forget the machine, the device, the article you are selling and talk of the results it will accomplish for the other fellow. That's the secret of letter-selling, just as it is the secret of the successful cash register, Burroughs adding machine, Multigraph, Addressograph the secret behind all specialty selling. Talk results, now and ever- lastingly. Subordinate everything else to your argument and make that for one man only the other fellow. Sometimes a horrible example can teach better than anything else. Here's one sent me from a Denver whole- sale house soliciting my business: "We understand from Mr. J. P. Blank, your Denver distributor, that you use more or less German silver in your novelty work. 23 "We are headquarters on German silver and are sup- plying some of the biggest firms in the West with this material. If you are interested in this line and will let us know how much you may use in the course of a year, we will name you a price, having in view the closing of a years contract for your needs. "We are also sending one of our complete catalogs and we await your early reply. Yours truly" A prize will be awarded any reader who will find a single microscopic vestige of salesmanship argument reason why in that wonderful effusion. It is a splen- did specimen for a correspondence Chamber of Horrors. Their catalog competent judges estimated to have cost not less than 60c postage on all matter was 26c cost of wrappers, stationery, stenographic and dictating ser- vice would have brought the cost of their effort to more than a dollar. That firm may tell you that letters won't bring results that advertising doesn't pay and similar pessimistic stuff. But let me tell you the sequel. Some half dozen good lettersmiths co-operated in re- building that letter to the best of their abilities. I pre- sented the resultant copy to the firm paid return postage on their expensive catalog courteously suggested that a certain named set of books on commercial correspondence would reduce their selling expense. What do you think was the gist of their reply? Yes, you called the turn they said they would not be interested in the books because they had been taught the business by their ancestors that they did not think any outside writer could tell them anything about how to get up letters about their business! They had lost not merely their grip on business argument but on business progress, as well. You may know all about your bodies, but you call in a doctor when some- 24 thing is wrong inside. By all means call in the outside help just as big business calls in efficiency engineers as fine accountants call in expert auditors as great surgeons call in consultants. The outsider is the one man who brings the unbiased, critical capacity that the producer and seller rarely possess. Get your letters experted if you can't get results that should remedy their ills. Put plenty of the resin of "reason why" on your hands and get a good grip ! *5 V- GET THE DOTTED LINE SIGNED AND GET AWAY. Being some observations upon the effective closing of a business-getting letter. THE bee may buzz around every flower gathering honey but he gets there in the end with his end. All letters that aim to bring in business ought to be built on the bee plan with the stinger where the bee's is! E. St. Elmo Lewis, perhaps the greatest trainer of efficient sales and advertising managers, wrote one of the soundest rules for letter writing when he advised salesmen: "Never open something you can't close." The sales letter that lacks the clinching climax is like the drunken man with one foot in a hole, who walked around it all night and wondered why he never reached his home ! All the fine openings, all the persuasive perspectives, all the gripping arguments will have been wasted unless they are aimed to get the dotted line signed to bring home the bacon. The ship captain may stand on the bridge at sea, taking his sights and making his calcula- tions, giving due allowance to winds and waves and waters but the ship has one aim the port toward which she is pointed. The commercial correspondent builds his letters for but one thing that its last act is to make port to build business. Here is the last paragraph of a letter sent me by a large house: "If there are any points in our offer you do not under- stand, we will be pleased to give further explanation. The courtesy of a reply will be expected, whether we make any sales or not, and we trust that we may have *6 the enclosed card signed and returned to us by early mail. Yours very truly /' Honestly, what would you say what would you feel like saying to that firm? Why not make the offer so plain that further explanation would be an impossibility? Never permit anything to be misunderstood when it is so easy to be clear. Yes, they expect a reply, even after they have insulted our intelligence and perhaps the only paper permitting such a reply would be made of asbestos! They "trust" that the order card will be signed and re- turned by early mail and yet have given no inducement toward producing such action. A dealer in office filing systems said in the final para- graph of his third letter: "There can be but one reason you have not accepted our special offer and that, the inconvenience of making a remittance at this time. Because this may be so and be- cause of our desire to see a Blank installed in your office, we will extend our special offer ten days and en- close another order card. Very truly yours." Fine indeed, isn't it? But one reason, eh, and that because you are broke? Honest, do you like to have that kind of thing said? This form of insult is more or less common is one of the frequent causes for the black eyes form letters are getting. The thing to do, when you get such a letter, is to write such a reply as your feelings in- dicate if the postal laws will stand for it! If immediate orders are not expected of the letter, as in an educative follow-up system, then the letter must be so built as to permit of paving the way for the letters that come after. One correspondent uses a testimonial letter, in a most unique manner, thus: "I am enclosing the letter written by the manager of the Blank Company. Read what his tests showed him just as they 11 show you then return the letter in the en- 27 closed stamped return envelope and tell us what style and size of Blank you would prefer to try out in your bust' ness. Yours for service" Even though the testimonial letter was made up in one of the faosimile processes and was more or less de- tectable, it is a fact that over forty per cent of the letters were returned as requested and that fourteen per cent of direct orders resulted from this very letter. One of the secrets of its success is that much of the arguing is done by the other fellow in the testimonial letter and not by you. The thing that was needed to make the letter win was an adequate close that would not merely ensure reading of the enclosure, but cause the prospect to write a letter in reply and this reply was the opening wedge for other letters. Despite the great growth in direct ad- vertising in letter sales in an understanding of the psy- chology of letter construction, it is a lamentable fact that over fifty per cent of the form letters passing over your desk will close with something like this : "Thanking you for your inquiry and hoping to be fa- vored with your order and assuring you it will be fully appreciated and receive our careful attention, we are, Yours truly," Look at the difference feel it in a close that tingles with ginger that galvanizes you into immediate action: "No need to write a letter. Simply make the order blank tell us the styles you want to stand in your dis- play rooms and we will ship them carefully timed to reach you before the rush of inquiring customers begins. We'll start the customers coming by our forceful circula- tion, if you 11 furnish us the names of the prospects con- sidered likely to use our Blank. We are ready to start things for you it is up to you to say WHEN. Why not tell us to get going today? Yours for mutual profits," In the office outfitting field, two men manufacture a similar product. One closes his letter with: "I have told you of the good points of the Blank. / have given you my guarantee and I hope that I may hear from you and number you among my customers. Yours respectfully" My client clinches his letter with this close: "The only strings on this offer are those around the package. You have read my offer can anything be fairer? Since you are protected against any form of loss, why not get that trial package right away? You 11 have the goods on your shelves the day after you send the order card in your hand the profits commence right then. Why not sign the order while the matter is fresh in mind? Yours for mutual $$$$" Which letter would get your order and why? Well, then, why don't you write the same kind of a letter? Look at that untechnical, straight-from-the-heart form of guarantee doesn't it get under the hide ? Read it again : " The only strings on this offer are those around the pack- age" Look at the appeal to the prospect's sense of fair- ness in his "Can anything be fairer?" Can you get away from ordering that trial package when he proves to you that you are protected from any kind of loss? See how he focuses the attention on the order card when he writes "the order card in your hand." And the complimentary close is a decided compliment to your intelligence, for he says frankly that he is in business for the same thing that you are the making of $$$. He makes you believe that two working together, you and he, can make more of those same $$$$. You too, will make more dollars, if you adopt this close at times and mean it. Catch the crimson-corpuscle-clinching-close the close that takes hold the fair tackle that leads to a touchdown 29 on the dotted line where it reads "Sign here." Make your letter like your courtship. Your girl, you know likes the lovey-dovey talk she enjoys the waist-warming but when it comes to marriage, if she is at all the sensible sort of girl I'd expect you to have, she'll want to know how you can support a wife she will want to know things before she says "yes." And, in just the same manner, your business prospect will want to know how you can help him what you can do for him before he sends that order. Make your close a "show you" kind and you'll "be shown." The manufacturer who closes his letters with a phrase full of meaning leaves a lasting impression. One maker used to send out letters that ended with: "Our usual guarantee is given with every Blank and we trust to be favored with a share of your patronage. Very truly yours!' I was called on to rebuild his form letters and changed this to: "You must wear the smile of satisfaction or no sale. That's our guarantee on every Blank. Can you ask moref What prevents you sending that order today f Yours for more business." Read these two again read them slowly, giving full value to every word and then it will be apparent why the second letter pulled treble the replies produced by the former version. The "smile of satisfaction" is an absolute insurance policy producing just such a smile. The blunt question asking why the order cannot be signed that day is very hard to evade. It puts the thing squarely up to you why not? Then there is the get-away; the "Yours for more business" and it has a depth of mean- ing. It says in effect, that the writer has not the slightest intention of wasting either time or energy, for both are busy people, you and he strict business is what he writes, 30 not hot-air or foolishness. He stands for action and gets it. Contrast this with the usual, over-worked, deadly- dull "Yours truly." If you are knuckling down in sober, steadfast earnest- ness about some proposition, why in the name of truth can't you relegate the expressionless "Yours truly" to the scrap heap and use the warmly intense "Earnestly yours?" If you are bubbling over with the fervor of a zealot on the thing you are selling why can't you say so why don't you use an "Enthusiastically yours?" Don't you feel the effect of this very question? Then let out some of your own feelings in your close. Honestly now, wouldn't you rather have some one who is building up a friendly business with you a manufacturer or a dealer, say would you not vastly prefer to have him close his letters with a frank "Yours for future relations?" Would you not prefer that to the lame "Yours truly?" J. A. Underwood, one of the successful sales and ad- vertising managers of the country, compiled a set of let- ters by successful dealers in his line of stoves and the com- plimentary close was an inspiration with its "Yours for success/' The letters were a sheer success in firing other dealers and much of the effect was secured in the close. The most inspirational letter would have been ham-strung if a crippling close had been used the effect would have been ludicrous had a patched tail been tagged on, say an old-fogy "Yours truly." If your business relations with a man are cordial, is there any reason you cannot say "Cordially yours"? If you are absolutely sincere in all your statements, why not use the beautiful "Sincerely yours"? This phrase has been greatly abused and must be used only when every line rings true with the heartiness you feel yourself. Listen to the story of the origin of "sincere" and then give your best judgment to its use. 31 In the old Roman days, sundry contractors were in the habit of waxing rich by filling parts of the villa walls with cheap wax rather than the more expensive marble cements. They were safe for a while since the buildings were mostly erected in the cooler days. But when the heat of summer melted the wax, the deception was ap- parent and all honest contractors put in their agree- ments the words "sine cera," which meant "without wax" their houses were guaranteed without wax substitution. So then, if you build your letters and use wax in the con- struction if you exaggerate and then lyingly, smugly, say "Yours sincerely/ ' be sure that the heat of close inspection and time's passing will destroy all such efforts. Build cleanly without wax and sign your contracts; when you sign your letters use a phrase that means some- thing that bespeaks yourself. Use appeal persuasion power carry conviction make your close get somewhere. Make it get the dotted line signed and then make its get-away. 32 VI.-GET GOOD ASSOCIATES. A little argument to show the importance of neatness and quality in correspondence. DON'T be alarmed this is not a preachment. Still, that old adage about one's companions indicating one's character, holds good in commercial corre- spondence as well as it does in conduct. In fact, more so for the recipient of your letters judges you by them, un- less he has an intimate acquaintance with your business methods. Your stationery the printing of the letterhead, the weight and finish of your paper stock, the shape and bal- ance of your letter, the cleanliness of the type, the style of the language used all these indicate to the reader of your letter just what you are. Just as you try to size up your prospect before you write, so will the reader visualize you through the letter instruments you use. A central states firm paid a copy-writer $25 for two letters. Their cheap correspondence clerk so set up the forms on the duplicating machine that when the letters were mailed there were but three-eighths inch margins on either side. You think a little thing like that didn't matter? It did for not only were the results barren not only was several hundred dollars wasted in postage but on one of these letters, sent me by an interested party, I find this penciled memorandum, from the president of a factory to his purchasing agent : "Buy no more goods of these people. They insult our self-esteem. Some folks have so little regard for their brain-children that they wont give them decent dress and expect them to please strangers. 3 ' You know you despise the salesman who comes into your office wearing horsey, circus-style clothing. You 33 know you feel a strong repugnance against the goods he offers you. A Chicago man told me this same thing and yet when he sent me his letters to examine and find why he couldn't get his message across, his own letterhead was a lurid litho, taking up over forty per cent of the white space on the sheet. It detracted from the strength of the letter instead of helping to serve it. Most people's eyes were occupied with his inked matter, rather than their minds with his message. This must not be interpreted as meaning that I am op- posed to advertising letterheads. Per contra, I am a strong supporter of the letterhead that is unusual, yet not freaky one that tells a story, paints a picture advertises and sells. I prefer these to the ultra-conservative, stiff, meaningless forms. But I would have every piece of matter you put into the mails representative and produc- tive. It is a liberal education to study the letterheads used by advertising men and the higher class commercial sta- tioners. And, since so many of my readers are stationers, let me appeal to them to use their best influence with their patrons for whom they print, that they may prevail on these last to permit a greater latitude, that the printers may produce more profitable papers. There is more or less discussion these days as to whether our form letters should be filled in with the name, ad- dress and salutation. Some houses claim it is cheaper to omit these points entirely others have experimented with them omitted and have then returned to the sane system of filling-in everything. The whole question, to my mind, is one of using common-sense, and that is what efficiency amounts to after all. Do you like to have a form letter handed you without the courtesy openings? Do you give as much attention to that kind of circular as to the one that is scrupulous in its desire to respect your dignity? I believe it is the veriest nonsense to apologize for a form letter. We recognize that it is one of the agencies of 34 modern merchandizing and all the elements that go to give it a better reception should be used especially a fill- in. But when you make this fill-in, see that it is ex- pertly done. Most men agree with what one large firm wrote S. Roland Hall, the "Little Schoolmaster" of Printer's Ink: "YOU CAN'T INSULT US WITH A GOOD FORM LETTER, BUT YOU HURT OUR OPINION OF YOU WHEN YOU SEND US A LETTER WITH A SLOPPY FILL-IN." Fill in well or not at all. Break up your letter into eye-pleasing, easy-reading, paragraphs. Did you ever notice in reading some work of fiction, how the eye almost automatically skips the descriptive matter and searches for those paragraph breaks that indicate the conversation? It is the same way in letterwork you can make your paragraphs so long that the reading eye skips to the first break, with the result that part of your story is lost. On a letter that used a single-spaced full page to tell its story, with but one para- graph break, is this penciled comment: "This chap thinks he's running a race he is out of the race so far as our trade is concerned" Of course, there is the other extreme to be avoided too many, too short paragraphs may make a letter look as if it came out of a cabbage chopper. Judge the hysteria in this: "My Dear Sir: I don't know whether you will believe me. I hope you will. Of course, if you wont, you wont. It's just a little question of FAITH. // concerns a book. And it concerns $3.00. You've the $3.00. I've the book." 35 And so on for two pages, almost every line a paragraph. The associations in both these letters failed to impress the prospect. Clean type in a letter is as vital as clean teeth in your salesman. In the office equipment field especially, should great care be taken to see that the letters are free from erasures and mistakes that the alignment is even and the type not clogged. These are little things but here's a story. One of my friends had inherited a large sum of money and intended entering the mail-selling field. For upward of two years he had studied with me the science of business and sales-thru-mails. A few weeks be- fore he was to leave for his California home to open his office he determined to make the purchases of his office equipment. He wanted two typewriters and a multiple letter machine. I too was in the market for a new type- writer. We preferred certain machines and writing di- rect to the manufacturers our letters were referred back to the Arizona agent, who happened to handle both ma- chines. The agent had a man on the road to whom he sent instructions to call and see us and in the meantime, sent us catalogs and printed matter. The letter he sent us well, least said sooner mended, were I not desirous of pointing a moral was written on an old, worn-out ma- chine of another make and the alignment was ragged and the type dirty. The first impression caused by the mechanics of his letter his associates by which we judged his goods spoiled an almost sure sale of upwards of $500! Nor is that all, for although some half dozen machines are represented here, and all of us have kindly feeling for that house, it has not yet been able to get more than an entering wedge of our business. Be simple in your language. Avoid technalities. Henry James was a great writer Robert Louis Stevenson was a greater and his work will live in the heart of the world when the former is forgotten. James could spin out in 36 masterly fashion, some single sentence to the length of a book's page, while Stevenson and 'Gene Field and Riley and all our loved writers would paint a picture in a short sentence of the plainest short words. Advertising is not written with Latinized polysyllables but with short, stout Saxon phrases. Don't maculate your merchandising mouthfuls with marvelous, multigenous, mucilaginous and mellifluous synonyms and magniloquent mannerisms, for this malversation is but mephitic mediocrity with maxi- mum mansuetude. That is a sample of the sentence at which one jeers. Keep in mind the little line of Asplet's in the Addressograph-er : "Hades may be the polite word but the busy man uses the shorter and more expressive'' Be yourself in your letters. Don't imitate. There are a lot of brash chaps who try to take off the Elbert Hub- bard style. The gink or gazabo is feeding dope pills to his brain-box when he tries to imitate the shear-artist and word-wizard who lives at East Aurora, and philosofarms new words into being. No one else can get away with his stuff unless it be myself (smile at the joke, please), and make it pay. No other man could make the Elbert Hubbard brand bring back spondulics. Create your own style and it will win just as willingly as would you in person. But while preserving every bit of your person- ality and injecting it into the vitals of your letters, take care that these letters are on the level of the men or class to whom you write. I am a great believer in the "colloquial" letter one that reads as if you were talking but it would be a grave mistake to send a slangy letter to some staid con- servative whose backbone is the ramrod of his dignity. And, it would be just as much an error to send a Profes- sor High Brow letter to some 'Chuck* Connors of the Bowery. But don't forget that all classes are easiest moved by the simplest things the truest the purest. Caruso and others, members of an opera company, visited 37 the Atlanta penitentiary W; autumn and sang for the inmates. The singers were accorded much courtesy and applause for their arias from the operas of Wagner and Massenet but nine hundred men sat silent with drip- ping eyes after "Annie Laurie" and "Home, Sweet Home." Caruso himself was in tears because of the solace he had given these men so will you be happy when you see the results rendered when you give the sin- cerity of a soul to your letters. That is the only rule I give be sincere. There is not a thing that has been advanced in these papers but has been worked out to my satisfaction and that of clients. The very things I have tried to give you in these articles are the things that guide me in my work, and, just to show you the results, let me quote what a Western manufacturer and wholesaler wrote me last week: "We have used most of the letters you built for us to the best of advantage and find them so far superior to the business(f) college style of correspondence that we give these letters credit for having doubled our mail order returns!' We are entering upon a great era of changing commercial ideals the world is moving along toward idealism. Business men are demanding that the guiding law for commercial conduct shall be the Golden Rule. The letters that win most are feeling this influence and because of this my parting suggestion is: If You Want Your Letters to Pay Better, Put Into Them the Qualities and Associates You Demand for Your Daily Life Especially the Good Associations. L. V. Eytinge. 38 A LOT-O'-CHAPS WHO WOULDN'T EXPECT TO HARVEST CORN IF THEY PLANTED POTATOES SEEM TO HAVE THE IDEA THAT THEY CAN SOW THE SEED OF IDLENESS AND REAP THE FRUIT OF INDUSTRY. e* ^ & Ike Millikan says every man owes the world a good living. A. HOOSIER. 39 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. 29 1936 M ^ - A - _^ _^~ ' '. -A- -=r- _0_ H u 394447 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY