"Respect the addressee." More than one letter is unsuccessful because it contains a tone of disrespect. The "big" man in business is inclined to talk down to men with smaller business interests, altho in many cases the big man is really the servant of the many "little" men on whom he depends for business. Lack of appreciation of the true business relationship that exists between writer and reader often causes a letter to fail.
Keep the reader in the letter; cause him to get a realistic picture of the good his acceptance of your offer will bring to him. Thus principles of salesman ship which form the basis of successful correspond ence might be multiplied. A knowledge of these principles is essential in good salesmanship, and a lack of this knowledge is nearly always characteristic of the unsuccessful correspondent.
10./Know human practice of the principles that have been discussed is merely a ques tion of taking advantage of past experience. The principles are of especial value in stimulating an in vestigation into the causes of success and failure. Since they are based on a knowledge of the traits of human nature, this knowledge of human nature is really the fundam4tal requirement. If, for instance, the cor respondent realizes the fact that people are most eager to supply the need that is most preS4ng at the time, he will be less likely to make such mistakes as that of talking price too soon in his letters. Or if he knows that all men like to feel that they are acting on their own initia4ve, the writer will be more likely to avoid stating baldly his own opinions. The corre spondent must possess knowledge of human nature, especially the "human nature" of the individual ad dressee, before he can successfully adjust himself to the reader's point of view.
11. Why adjustment to the reader is often difficult. —The extent of the difference between the writer's own environment and experience and those of the reader determines the degree of difficulty that this adjustment will involve. Therefore, the greater this
difference the greater should be the correspondent's effort to visualize completely and accurately, from all the facts available, the environment that causes the reader's point of view to be what it is.
The most successful sales correspondent in an east ern wholesale house that sells principally to general merchants, was himself at one time in the same busi ness as the merchants to whom he writes. He there . fore finds it easy to take the point of view of his readers. Cases like this are by no means rare. But it is comparatively difficult for a sales correspondent who earns perhaps thirty or forty dollars a week, to appreciate the point of view of the man whose income is several times as large. Here is a case that will il lustrate this point : A sales correspondent for a phonograph company, whose salary is forty-five dollars a week, failed to sell a prospect who was later easily sold by a letter from the general manager. The main difference between the methods of these two men was the fact that the forty-five-dollar man was trying to sell a $100 ma chine, while the general manager talked about a $200 machine. But this general manager knew from ex perience that he could not do as well as his corre spondent in handling the average customer with an income of about $150 a month.
The best way to be able to understand the "human nature" of others is to know their environment by ac ' tual experience. If this is not possible, strong and sympathetic imagination is the best substitute for ex perience. When one realizes that not all correspond ents have the advantage possessed by the general merchant just mentioned, he will appreciate the spe cial importance of good imagination in written sales manship.