How to Present Your Proposition

After attention has been secured, you must lead quickly to your description and explanation; visualize your product and introduce your proof, following this up with arguments. The art of the letter writer is found in his ability to lead the reader along, paragraph by paragraph, without a break in the POINT of CONTACT that has been established. Then the proposition must be presented so clearly that there is no possibility of its being misunderstood, and the product or the service must be coupled up with the READER'S NEEDS

How this can be done is described in this chapter

After you have attracted attention and stimulated the interest of the reader, you have made a good beginning, but only a beginning; you then have the hard task of holding that interest, explaining your proposition, pointing out the superiority of the goods or the service that you are trying to sell and making an inducement that will bring in the orders. Your case is in court, the jury has been drawn, the judge is attentive and the opposing counsel is alert--it is up to you to prove your case.

Good business letter, consciously or unconsciously usually contains four elements: description, explanation, argument and persuasion. These factors may pass under different names, but they are present and most correspondents will include two other elements--inducement and clincher.

In this chapter we will consider description, explanation and argument as the vehicles one may use in carrying his message to the reader.

An essential part of all sales letters is a clear description of the article or goods--give the prospect a graphic idea of how the thing you are trying to sell him looks, and this description should follow closely after the interest-getting introduction. To describe an article graphically one has got to know it thoroughly: the material of which it is made; the processes of manufacture; how it is sold and shipped--every detail about it.

There are two extremes to which correspondents frequently go. One makes the description too technical, using language and terms that are only partially understood by the reader. He does not appreciate that the man to whom he is writing may not understand the technical or colloquial language that is so familiar to everyone in the house.

For instance, if a man wants to install an electric fan in his office, it would be the height of folly to write him a letter filled with technical descriptions about the quality of the fan, the magnetic density of the iron that is used, the quality of the insulation, the kilowatts consumed--"talking points" that would be lost on the average business man. The letter that would sell him would give specific, but not technical information, about how the speed of the fan is easily regulated, that it needs to be oiled but once a year, and costs so much a month to operate. These are the things in which the prospective customer is interested.

Then there is the correspondent whose descriptions are too vague; too general--little more than bald assertions. A letter from a vacuum cleaner manufacturing company trying to interest agents is filled with such statements as: "This is the best hand power machine ever manufactured," "It is the greatest seller ever produced," "It sells instantly upon demonstration." No one believes such exaggerations as these. Near the end of the letter--where the writer should be putting in his clincher, there is a little specific information stating that the device weighs only five pounds, is made of good material and can be operated by a child. If this paragraph had followed quickly after the introduction and had gone into further details, the prospect might have been interested, but it is probable that the majority of those who received the letter never read as far as the bottom of the second page.

If a man is sufficiently interested in a product to write for catalogue and information, or if you have succeeded in getting his attention in the opening paragraph of a sales letter, he is certain to read a description that is specific and definite.

The average man thinks of a work bench as a work bench and would be at a loss to describe one, but he has a different conception after reading these paragraphs from a manufacturer's letter:

"Just a word so you will understand the superiority of our goods.

"Our benches are built principally of maple, the very best Michigan hard maple, and we carry this timber in our yards in upwards of a million feet at a time. It is piled up and allowed to air dry for at least two years before being used; then the stock is kiln dried to make sure that the lumber is absolutely without moisture or sap, and we know there can be no warping or opening of glue joints in the finished product.

"Our machinery is electrically driven, securing an even drive to the belt, thus getting the best work from all equipment--absolutely true cuts that give perfect joints to all work.

"Then, as to glue: Some manufacturers contend that any glue that sticks will do. We insist there should be no question about glue joints; no 'perhaps' in our argument. That's why we use only the best by test; not merely sticking two pieces of wood together to try the joint quality, but glue that is scientifically tested for tenacity, viscosity, absorption, and for acid or coloring matter--in short, every test that can be applied."

This description is neither too technical nor too general; it carries conviction, it is specific enough to appeal to a master carpenter, and it is clear enough to be understood by the layman who never handled a saw or planer.

It may be laid down as a principle that long description should ordinarily be made in circulars, folders or catalogues that are enclosed with the letter or sent in a separate envelope, but sometimes it is desirable to emphasize certain points in the letter. Happy is the man who can eject enough originality into this description to make it easy reading. The majority of correspondents, in describing the parts of an automobile, would say:

"The celebrated Imperial Wheel Bearings are used, These do not need to be oiled oftener than once in six months."

A correspondent who knew how to throw light into dark places said:

"Imperial Wheel Bearings: grease twice a year and forget."

This "and forget" is such a clever stroke that you are carried on through the rest of the letter, and you are not bored with the figures and detailed description.

In a similar way a sales manager, in writing the advertising matter for a motor cycle, leads up to his description of the motor and its capacity by the brief statement: "No limit to speed but the law." This is a friction clutch on the imagination that carries the reader's interest to the end.

One writer avoids bringing technical descriptions into his letters, at the same time carrying conviction as to the quality of his goods:

"This metal has been subjected to severe accelerated corrosion tests held in accordance with rigid specifications laid down by the American Society for Testing Material, and has proven to corrode much less than either charcoal iron, wrought iron, or steel sheet.

"A complete record of these tests and results will be found on the enclosed sheet."