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Elements of a Good Business Letter

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 0.00, 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.

Choosing A Good Sports Gambling Book

For several enthusiastic sports fanatics around the globe who are looking to get started in sports gambling, it can be frustrating to familiarize oneself with all that will help them become successful bettors. There are tons of online sports gambling books on the web today that claim to advise aspirational sports bettors be the greatest bettors online. Unfortunately, not all of these books are made equal and it’s best to know which ones will work best and offer the most valuable strategies and information.

Sports Gambling System Basics

You should be searching for a highly reputable and extremely thorough sports gambling system. The best ones will teach and show you how to make sense of the odds and stats of your sports events. An ideal sports gambling book will concentrate on how to perform educated gambles to help you keep from losing your bets. Of course, if any guide does not base its strategies on statistical analysis, it won’t work.

Sports Gambling Guide Flexibility

The best sports betting systems should take note of all sports betting components and should make an effort to illustrate what a beginner can expect when you start betting. The best ones will show you how you can start making bets pretty quickly and earn a bit of cash in the process, however, it should not be understood as an extremely fast way to become rich. Most good sports betting systems will show you a fast strategy that you can use and then go on to illustrate long-term strategies that you can acquire as you learn over time.

Sports Betting Systems And Mistakes

Mistakes always happen. A good sports betting system will help the better realize that they could make mistakes, how to escape from falling victim to them, and what you can do to winning decisions. If you are just beginning, it can be pretty ordinary for new gamblers to feel frustrated and not be familiar with the best methods for adopting good winning streaks.

Sports Betting Systems And Money Management

Above all, excellent sports gambling books will show gamblers how to properly manage their betting money. Even if you are are cashing in on a few bets, you can still be losing money. You need a system that knows how to circulate your money and create profits. Also, the most ideal strategies use methods beginning slowly and then expanding your winning bets as you go so that you can keep adding to your gambling funds as you continue to collect winings, rather than making bets with your own money.

For a complete review of some of the best sports betting book systems, visit www.BettingUnderground.info.

identify the key to good customer service is the secret ingredient for a successful enterprise. Here’s why.
Let’s say

there are two shops on both ends of the street. Both carry the same products or directories. Both stores are clean. Nevertheless, it appears a business to enjoy more patronage. More satisfied customers go through the door of the other store.

What does the other company thrive?

other store knows the key to good customer service, their profits directly from single to double digits. If you enter this business, you will be greeted with warm smiles and friendly greetings from the shop owner and his employees. If they see you up on products for the top shelf, they rush to help. If you are wondering, where an item is, they accompany you to the specific course. These little things make a business venture thrive.

For a business owner, the application of the keys to good customer service to more “Ka-Ching Ka-Ching” for his business! lead

with an economic downturn can see, most companies looking for ways to attract more customers and higher profits. They develop lucrative advertising and PR strategies, but this only lead to loss of income and a higher deficit.

customers are the biggest variables in the equation. The companies earn profit by regular customers, thus providing excellent customer service should be a priority.

When customers are satisfied, there is no need for fancy advertising, because the number of satisfied customers who are guaranteed to come back for more will increase.

Here are some keys to make good customer service to your customers happy:

1 Be polite. This is something that is largely rejected today. A small act of courtesy will feel customers are valuable and important. Make them feel that you are sincere in extending a helping hand. A frown can drive the people, while a smile can draw more people in. Address your customer with “ma’am” or “Sir”. Deal with one customer at a time so that he feels that he has your full attention.

2 Be creative. Customers get angry when you tell them that you do not grant their request from, because “it’s the standard company policy.” Customers do not want to hear as an excuse.

If you want more happy customers to think creatively. There are legal ways to take your business to go ironclad policy. Make it a policy to extend service beyond the standard procedures to satisfy a customer.

3 Prompt. Never place to keep any of your customer’s requests, especially when it is absolutely obvious. Prompt and accurate service can lead referrals. In order to strengthen your employee so that they can make quick decisions and go immediately to the needs of your customers.

4 Under promise and over deliver. , in the false promises. Never promise what you can not keep. It is still best on the promise and over deliver. This is the best way to wow your customers!

5 Expand your service. Even if it is not part of your standard service procedures, do something for the customer that shows genuine interest to their needs.
For example, you can

a customer to their seat, or run to open doors for older customers. People who like the idea of more value for their money.

For companies to successfully lead, and these keys to good customer service should be in the forefront of your mission and vision are.

This must be made clear to all you people. Setting up the message loud and clear through it a point to measure their performance in terms of number of happy and satisfied customers.

By providing quality customer service, create a desirable reputation for your company to allow more people to take advantage of to lure your service. Apply these simple keys to good customer service … and a successful business you will be for the duration.

A good business is not only a business plan, but a checklist and operations. The same applies to a restaurant. You must be sure that you have a restaurant operations checklist, and that it encompasses all the different aspects of your restaurant, and the various situations that could occur.

There could be various types of restaurant operations checklist, want to use. First, you may want a general check-list, the things you need on a daily basis have lists. This can be an important part of the opening, the daily operation, and closure of your restaurant. You should also think about with a checklist, general business details all the things that should be done constantly in your restaurant. Finally, you are on several different operations with checklists that you can use during different or unusual situations to think.

Daily Run Checklist

One of the things that your restaurant should have is a daily execution checklist. This should be a list of things that are needed in your restaurant, and this should be done every day. You should break this list into three parts. The first section should be the opening sequence. This should be the things you want in your restaurant no matter what do employees are responsible for the opening of your restaurant during opening times. This includes all cleaning, stocking and all that you need as much done to prepare the restaurant for the service. All in all, this should be a checklist that an employee exactly how you want to be your restaurant, when the first customers in.

be told
The second part of the daily running checklist should be a shift checklist for each of the layers, or any of the duty for you. You need a list of things that should be carried out during the day of surgery. This means all the activities that must be done and when it should be done, this should be the preparation, cooking and cleaning includes, etc. during the day.
The third part of this checklist should be fine for people who are responsible for the closure of your restaurant. You want to ensure that these activities and do all other things you need to be shut down your restaurant for the night, as well as prepare for the next day.

Always check list

want to tell there are some things that your employees that they should do it forever. This includes permanent settings for lighting and temperature, permanent rules may, in relation to operations of the restaurant, and various strategies that every employee should know. You can view this as a list of rules for your employees to think. What will you always remember and always busy, whether open or closed, or work during the day?

Specific checklists

Something you must remember is that not every day as the other. There are situations in your restaurant that are not from day to day events. You should have a checklist for special events that could happen in your restaurant. You should have a checklist for each of them. This can include a checklist of what happens when a large party in your restaurant, or if someone rented a part of it for a special event.

You also need about events, think you do not plan to. You should have a checklist for any emergency that might come your restaurant, and what to do if this happens.

All your checklist should be written so that a new employee, on her first day at work, they could understand. This is especially important for those who deal with day to day activities and emergencies. If you set the right kind of checklist for your staff, you will notice that your Restaurant more running around, and much more by your own standards, even if you are not there.

Of all possible investments that are within the reach of the average investor, none ofter the combination of outstanding benefits that are available to real estate investors. And, do you want to know something, banks and life insurance companies recognise this fact!

So they invest your money in real estate. While they pay you 1 to 3 percent for the use of your money, they are making 10 to 20 percent on it.

Why is real estate such a good investment? It offers the investor at least five different returns or ways of making money, on his investment.

Gross spendable income – cash flow

Investors also refer to this as “cash flow” or how much money that you can spend at the end of the month or year after all the operating expenses and mortgage payments have been made. We also call this as “gross” spendable because we have not taken income tax consequences into consideration at this point.

We always purchase properties that cash-flow. It takes time to find them, but it is well worth the effort. The simplest definition of positive cash flow is that you collect more revenue, usually in the form of rent, than it takes to pay for and operate the property.

A big advantage of real estate over other investments is that it can produce cash flow on a monthly basis. The cash generated by a real estate investment will always be a much larger percentage cash-on-cash return than any other investment.

The beauty of a cash-flowing real estate property is that it can help you become financially free. We discussed two real life examples of such real estate property in “How to know if a property investment is worth investing?”

Equity income

This is also referred to as equity buildup or principal reduction. Anyone who has had a mortgage on a home or car recognises that each time a payment is made, a certain portion of that payment is for the interest charged by the lender and the balance goes toward reducing the balance on the loan.

In a real estate investment, this equity income can be a sizeable amount. Although you cannot spend it each month, when the time comes to sell your property, you owe less on the mortgage, so you will receive more money at closing. It’s like putting money in the bank each month.

Making inflation work for you instead of against you – appreciation

Like inflation, you do not see it but it’s there. Only now, it’s working for you instead of against you. How does it work? Each year, because of inflation, your real estate is appreciating in value. Those of you who own a home, for example, would you sell it today at the same price you paid for it five or ten years ago?

We keep on having babies but God quit making land a long time ago. The supply is limited.

What does this mean in terms of existing land values? It means that existing land is becoming more and more valuable each year. It explains why investment real estate, whether in single family homes, apartment buildings, office buildings, shopping centres, ware houses and even vacant land, has become the most secure and profitable way to beat inflation. Existing land in most parts of the country, is appreciating at a rate greater than that of inflation.

How real estate stacks up against other investments – leverage

Leverage is an interesting thing about investing in real estate. It’s more than likely you have heard the term Other People’s Money, or OPM. The concept is simple and powerful.

The OPM concept is using money generated from someone or something other you in order to start a business or acquire an asset. While it is true that you can do this to an extent with stocks through buying on margin, the fact is that there is no investment where the application of this tool is more powerful than in real estate.

In real estate the leverage is based on the asset itself and you can get a bank to loan you the money up to 90 percent, and sometimes even 95 to 100 percent, of the total asset value. Why do banks do this?

Because they can repossess the physical asset itself should you default. Buying stocks on margin, however, allows you to borrow no more than 50 percent of the stock portfolio value. Just try to get bank to loan you the money for buying stocks – let alone your margin! Instead, you have to buy through a brokerage – at a high interest rate. In other words, when you buy stocks on margin, you are taking the risk. But when you take out a loan to buy real estate, the bank is assuming the risk.        – Ken McElroy in “The Advance Guide to Real Estate Investing”

You can see the power of leveraging demonstrated by real life cases in our article “Why you want to take up a loan for your real estate investment?” No other form of investing allows an investor the opportunity to control so much with a small amount of his own cash.

We further discussed in “How to finance your real estate investment for maximum return?” the ways to structure a mortgage loan in order to get the maximum return from your cash investment in real estate.

An investment that allows you to control

A unique advantage to real estate is that you can control it. In other types of investments, you give your money to a financial advisor and they place it for you in a company’s stock, a bond, or a mutual fund. What happens after that is completely out of your control. You have no ability to make operating decision for the company you have invested in; you are at the mercy of its managers.

Similarly, you have no control over financial markets when you purchase bonds or futures. You make a calculated guess, and then you sit back and watch. With these types of investments, the only control you have is choosing whether to buy or to sell.

Real estate is different. You purchase a tangible asset and you manage it. While there are still external market conditions that affect your investment, the difference is that you have the ability to manipulate the operations of your investment to respond to those conditions. Instead of being reactive (buying or selling), you are being proactive.

For example, if you are a landlord, you have the ability to manipulate rents based on changing market conditions in order to maximise income. This doesn’t always mean raising rents. The goal is to maximise income. Since it is a dynamic process, that might mean lowering rent or offering an incentive. A property’s occupancy comes into place here.

If you have the highest rents in a market, chances are potential tenants will rent from a direct competitor. Then all your high rents become lost potential income. The dynamic of real estate require you to keep occupancy, as well as rents, high.

You have the power in real estate to control the operational performance of your asset more than any other investment.