8. Body.—In the body of the report there should be as little detail as possible. The amount will depend upon how necessary it is to substantiate any informa tion on which conclusions or generalizations are based, or to demonstrate the feasibility or practicability of constructive recommendations. If the writer is will ing to take full responsibility for his recommenda tions, all he needs to include in his report are these recommendations, provided he knows that they will be accepted and acted upon favorably. But even then, it is usually best to include at least a summary of the writer's reasons for his recommendations. It is good salesmanship for even a superior officer to in clUde in his report to the men under him the reasons for his "instructions," as the report would be called in this case, altho there is not much difference funda mentally between instructions to inferiors and a re port to superiors.
Inasmuch as nearly all reports that include recom mendations are written by men who must convince the receiver that the recommendations ought to he adopted, there is considerable chance for exercising good salesmanship in the body of a business report, not salesmanship of the emotional or argumentative type, perhaps, but the kind of salesmanship involved in placing the right facts in the right arrangement and display, and with the right kind of expression, before the "buyer," so that he will at once be strongly inclined to accept the recommendations. As a rule the greater the degree of good salesmanship exercised in getting out a report—in other words, the more ac curately the writer takes the reader's point of view and anticipates what kind of report will best serve the interests of the receiver—the better will be the re port, at least from the standpoint of effectiveness if not from the standpoint of correctness.
To say that the body of such a report ought to be so constructed that it gives only such information as is necessary to make the report complete for its pur pose, and so presented that the reader's time will be economized as much as possible, is about as far as it is safe to go in laying down any general principles. A report is a service. The advisability of individual adaptation to the needs of its receiver, which vary with each case, makes it unwise to recommend a model form of report.
9. Conclusions and recommendations.—It has been said that a satisfactory report is a good piece of sales manship. Careful consideration of the reader's in terests is the foundation of the kind of workmanship that produces a good report. Salesmanship, there fore, has as much to do with success in making a business report, as it has with success in any other kind of business activity. "Salesmanship," as used
here, means the art of causing another person to think or feel or act as we desire. It is well for the maker of a report to bear this in mind. Whether or not he makes any definite recommendations, he has the op portunity to put himself actually in the place of the receiver of his report and, taking his point of view, so analyze and arrange and present the desired informa tion that his report will yield maximum satisfaction.
Good salesmanship on the part of the maker of a report will first prevent him from making recom mendations that really ought not to go thru, and sec ond, will enable him to get thru recommendations that really ought to be adopted. He will not, for instance, make the mistake of appearing to be over-eager that any of his recommendations be approved, because the expression of over-eagerness suggests possible haste and doubt, and unwillingness to let the reader make a voluntary decision in regard to the action recom mended.
Thus do many of the same ideas which apply to the writing of effective letters apply also to the writing of effective business reports. In fact, a business report is essentially a business letter, and often takes that form. A business report that begins with a state ment like this, "I hope the board will see fit to ap prove the recommendations made in this report," and ends with a similar expression of hope, has about the same unfavorable effect on the receiver of the report as have such requests at the beginning and end of letters. It is best to inject the kind of stuff into the body of the report that makes such requests unneces sary. The suggestion of the report-maker's confi dence that his recommendations will be approved is better gained by a complete, yet terse, definite, and fearless statement of his recommendations.
Many recommendations are not approved because the maker of them failed to anticipate resistances that were sure to be offered to their adoption. Resist ance often takes the form of doubt concerning the results of the action recommended, or concerning some difficulty that would be involved in carrying out the recommendations. Such resistances are usually met in the body of the report, but it is often advisable either to meet them again when the recommenda tion is made at the end of the report; or to make the recommendation at the place in the report where it will be least likely to meet with resistance, or else to refer back to the sections in the report where the re sistance is met.