Many correspondents keep within easy reach a folder or scrapbook of particularly inspiring letters, advertisements and other matter gathered from many sources. One man declares that no matter how dull he may feel when he reaches the office in the morning he can read over a few pages in his scrapbook and gradually feel his mind clear; his enthusiasm begins to rise and within a half hour he is keyed up to the writing mood.
A correspondent in a large mail-order house keeps a scrapbook of pictures—a portfolio of views of rural life and life in small towns. He subscribes to the best farm papers and clips out pictures that are typical of rural life, especially those that represent types and show activities of the farm, the furnishings of the average farm house—anything that will make clearer the environment of the men and women who buy his goods. When he sits down to write a letter he looks through this book until he finds some picture that typifies the man who needs the particular article he wants to sell and then he writes to that man, keeping the picture before him, trying to shape every sentence to impress such a person. Other correspondents are at a loss to understand the pulling power of his letters.
A sales manager in a typewriter house keeps the managers of a score of branch offices and several hundred salesmen gingered up by his weekly letters. He prepares to write these letters by walking through the factory, where he finds inspiration in the roar of machinery, the activity of production, the atmosphere of actual creative work.
There are many sources of inspiration. Study your temperament, your work and your customers to find out under what conditions your production is the easiest and greatest. It is neither necessary nor wise to write letters when energies and interest are at a low ebb, when it is comparatively easy to stimulate the lagging enthusiasm and increase your power to write letters that bring results.
How To Begin A BUSINESS
Letter
PART II—HOW TO WRITE THE LETTER—CHAPTER 5
From its saluation to its signature a business letter must hold the interest of the reader or fail in its purpose. The most important sentence in it is obviously the FIRST one, for upon it depends whether the reader will dip further into the letter or discard it into the waste basket. IN THAT FIRST SENTENCE THE WRITER HAS HIS CHANCE. If he is really capable, he will not only attract the reader's interest in that first sentence, but put him into a receptive mood for the message that follows. Here are some sample ways of "opening" a business letter
* * * * *
No matter how large your tomorrow morning's mail, it is probable that you will glance through the first paragraph of every letter you open. If it catches your attention by reference to something in which you are interested, or by a clever allusion or a striking head line or some original style, it is probable you will read at least the next paragraph or two. But if these paragraphs do not keep up your interest the letter will be passed by unfinished. If you fail to give the letter a full reading the writer has only himself to blame. He has not taken advantage of his opportunity to carry your interest along and develop it until he has driven his message home, point by point.
In opening the letter the importance of the salutation must not be ignored. If a form letter from some one who does not know Mr. Brown, personally, starts out "Dear Mr. Brown," he is annoyed. A man with self-respect resents familiarity from a total stranger—someone who has no interest in him except as a possible customer for his commodity.