In this connection, it should be remembered that a holiday, when no letters are written from the home of fice will cause the salesman to be without his daily let ter on a later working day. To take care of this, it may be well to get out a double amount of letters on the day preceding and delegate some member of the office force to mail them on the holiday. In lieu of this, the sales manager may get out a post card con taining some timely message in multigraphed form or send to each man in the organization an ordinary picture post card on which le has written some per sonal message. The latter course can profitably be followed also when the sales manager or his assistant is out on the road. In the latter case, the salesman will receive the personal card in addition to his usual daily letter from the office.
5. Contents of daily letten—In these letters the salesmen should be thanked sincerely for the orders re ceived from them that day or for contributions to the house organ. They should be complimented upon any good work they may have been doing and should receive sound advice from the sales manager on any deals that may be before them. The message will, in general, be based upon the letter received that morn ing from the salesman.
As far as it is possible, criticisms should be kept out of these letters. When it is absolutely necessary, it should be given in a manner which will increase rather than decrease the salesman's efficiency. A salesman who has been doing his best, but who for some reason has not been producing normal results, needs friendly encouragement and sound suggestions rather than criticism. Nothing will so effectively destroy the pro ducing power of a loyal salesman as a sharp, fault finding letter from the sales manager. If the sales man has been derelict and it is necessary for the sake of discipline that he be reprimanded, the language in which the reprimand is couched should be given care ful consideration. There is no phase of the sales man
ager's duty in which he is called upon to exercise more tact and real executive ability than in his letters to his men. His one purpose is to increase sales, and he should have in mind the effect which each letter is likely to have upon the productiveness of the salesman.
6. 'S pecial paragraphs.—There should be included in this daily letter some one inspiring thought, helpful suggestion or piece of news. This part of the letter will be applicable to all men in the organization and will therefore be written each morning in the form of special paragraphs, to be typed either preceding or following the purely personal dictation. 1\To attempt is made to hide from the salesman the fact that such paragraphs are included in the letters to the other men in the organization. They are, however, worded so that it is sometimes difficult for the salesman to deter mine just where the personal dictation leaves off and the special paragraphs begin. If no letter has been received from the salesman or if there is nothing of importance to communicate to him that day, the spe cial paragraphs may be sent to him unaccompanied by personal dictation.
This form paragraph may convey some information regarding changes of' house policies or prices, some piece of good news concerning the house or some wifely inspirational thought or suggestion as to a new method of selling which the salesman may carry into the field with him that day. Much depends upon the nature of the business ; much depends also upon the type of sales manager and salesmen. The following represent the more inspirational type of paragraph: 7. Special paragraphs illustrated.—