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
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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.