The Robert Collier Letter Book

A business man is no different from any other kind.

You know that every man is constantly holding a mental conversation with himself, the burden of which is his own interests—his business, his loved ones, his advancement. And you have tried to chime in on that conversation with something that fits in with his thoughts.

Appeal to the reason, by all means. Give people a logical excuse for buying that they can tell to their friends and use to salve their own consciences. But if you want to sell goods, if you want action of any kind, base your real urge upon some primary emotion!

Why should you buy a coat from John Blair, whom you have never seen, when there is a perfectly good store a couple of blocks away, where you can look over the stock of coats, try on as many as you like, and if you fail to find one that fits you exactly, you can have one altered until it does. Why should you take the trouble and risk of sending for

the secret of painting such a picture in the reader's mind is to take some familiar figure his mind can readily grasp, add one point of interest here, another there, and so on until you have built a complete word picture of what you have to offer. It is like building a house.

TO SUM it up, every good letter contains these six essential elements: The opening, which gets the reader's attention by fitting in with his train of thought and establishes a point of contact with his interests, thus exciting his curiosity and prompting him to read further. The description or explanation, which pictures your proposition to the rea

Tell a man something new and you have his attention. Give it a personal twist or show its relation to his business and you have his interest.

"What is the bait that will tempt your reader? How can you tie up the thing you have to offer with that bait?"

There are only two reasons why your reader will do as you tell him to in your letter. The first is that you have made him want something so badly that of his own inertia he reaches out for your order card to get it. The other is that you have aroused in him the fear that he will lose something worthwhile if he does not