The Book of Business Etiquette by Nella Braddy Henney (readict books .txt) 📖
- Author: Nella Braddy Henney
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It is said that Roosevelt used to write very angry letters to people who deserved them, drawing liberally upon his very expressive supply of abusive words for the occasion. Each time his secretary quietly stopped the letter. Each time the Colonel came in the day after and asked if the letter had been sent. Each time the secretary said, “No, that one did not get off.” And each time the Colonel exclaimed, “Good! We won't send it!” It came to be a regular part of the day's routine.
Inexperienced dictators will find it good practice to have their stenographers read back their letters so they can recast awkward sentences and make other improvements. It can usually be discontinued after a while, for dictating, like nearly everything else, becomes easier with habit.
A considerate man will show special forbearance in breaking in a new girl. Different voices are hard to grow accustomed to, and a girl who is perfectly capable of taking dictation from one man will find it very difficult to follow another until she has grown used to the sound of his voice. It is like learning a foreign language. The pupil understands his teacher, but he does not understand any one else until he has got “the hang of it.”
The training of a good stenographer does not end when she leaves school. She should be able not only to take down and transcribe notes neatly and correctly. She should be able to spell and punctuate correctly and to make the minor changes in phrasing and diction that so often can make a good letter of a poor one. The most fatal disease that can overtake a stenographer (or any one else) is the habit of slavishly following a routine.
“Many young fellows,” this is from Henry Ford, “especially those employed in offices, fall into a routine way of doing their work that eventually makes it become like a treadmill. They do not get a broad view of the entire business. Sometimes that is the fault of the employer, but that does not excuse the young man. Those who command attention are the ones who are actually pushing the boss.... It pays to be ahead of your immediate job, and to do more than that for which you are paid. A mere clock watcher never gets anywhere. Forget the clock and become absorbed in your job. Learn to love it.”
The position of secretary is a responsible one. Frequently she knows almost as much about his business as her employer himself (and sometimes even more). He depends upon her quite as much as she depends upon him, though in a somewhat different way. It takes personal effort together with native ability to raise any one to a position of importance, but personal effort often needs supplementing, and many business houses have taken special measures to help their employees to become good correspondents.
In some places there are supervisors who give talks and discuss the actual letters, good ones and bad, which have been written. They go over the carbons and hold conferences with the correspondents who need help. In other places courtesy campaigns for a higher standard of correspondence are held, while in others the matter is placed in the hands of the heads of the various departments, acting on the assumption that these heads are men of experience and ability or they would never have attained the position they hold.
The president of a bank which has branches in London and Paris and other big foreign cities used every now and then to stop the boy who was carrying a basket of carbons to the file clerk and look them over. If he found a letter he did not like, or one that he did like a great deal, he sent for the person who wrote it and talked with him. It was not necessary for him to go over the letters often. The fact that the people in the office knew that it was likely to happen kept them on the alert and nearly every letter that left the organization was better because the person who wrote it knew that the man at the head was interested in it and that there was a strong chance that he might see it.
What is effective in one place may not be so in another. Each house must work out its own system. But one thing must be understood in the beginning, and that is that the spirit of courtesy must first abide in the home office before the people who work there can hope to send it out through the mail.
Roughly speaking there are eight types of business letters which nearly every business man at one time or another has to write or to consider.
The first is the letter of application. The applicant should state simply his qualifications for the place he wants. He should not make an appeal to sympathy (sob stuff) nor should he beg or cringe. He should not demand a certain salary, though he may state what salary he would like, and he should not say “Salary no object.” It would probably not be true. There are comparatively few people with whom money is no object. If it is the first time the applicant has ever tried for a position he should say so; if not, he should give his reason for leaving his last place. It should not be a long letter. A direct statement of the essential facts (age, education, experiences, etc.) is all that is necessary.
Many times the letter of application is accompanied by, or calls for, a letter of recommendation.
No man should allow himself to recommend another for qualities which he knows he does not possess. If he is asked for a recommendation he should speak as favorably of the person under consideration as he honestly can, and if his opinion of him is disapproving he should give it with reservations.
At one time during the cleaning up of Panama there was considerable talk about displacing General Gorgas and a committee waited on Roosevelt to suggest another man for the job. He listened and then asked them to get a letter about him from Dr. William H. Welsh of Johns Hopkins. Dr. Welsh wrote a letter praising the man very highly, but ended by saying that while it was true that he would be a good man for the place, he did not think he would be as good as the one they already had—General Gorgas. The Colonel acted upon the letter confident (because he had great faith in Dr. Welsh) that he was taking the wise course, which subsequent events proved it to be. “Would to heaven,” he said, “that every one would write such honest letters of recommendation!”
The general letter of recommendation beginning “To whom it may concern” is rarely given now. It has little weight. Usually a man waits until he has applied for a position and then gives the name of his reference, the person to whom he is applying writes to the one to whom he has been referred, and the entire correspondence is carried on between these two. In this way the letter of recommendation can be sincere, something almost impossible in the open letter. It is needless to add that all such correspondence should be confidential.
The letter of introduction is, in a measure, a letter of recommendation. The one who writes it stands sponsor for the one who bears it. It should make no extravagant claims for the one who is introduced. He should simply be given a chance to make good on his own responsibility. But it should give the reason for the presentation and suggest a way of following it up that will result in mutual pleasure or benefit. It should be in an unsealed envelope and the envelope should bear, in addition to the address, the words, “Introducing Mr. Blank” on the lower left-hand corner. This does away with an embarrassing moment when the letter is presented in person and enables the host to greet his guest by name and ask him to be seated while he reads it.
Letters of introduction should not be given promiscuously. Some men permit themselves to be persuaded into giving letters of introduction to people who are absolute nuisances (it is hard to refuse any one who asks for this sort of letter, but often kindest for all concerned) and then they send in secret another letter explaining how the first one came about. This really throws the burden on the person who least of all ought to bear it, the innocent man whom the first one wanted to meet. No letter of presentation is justified unless there is good reason behind it, such, as for instance, in the following:
This is Mr. Franklin B. Nesbitt. He has been in Texas for several months studying economic conditions, and I believe can give you some valuable information which has resulted from his research there. He is a man upon whom you can rely. I have known him for years, and I am sure that whatever he tells you will be trustworthy.
It is a common practice for a business man to give his personal card with “Introducing Mr. Mills” or “Introducing Mr. Mills of Howard and Powell Motor Co.” written across it to a man whom he wishes to introduce to another. This enables him to get an interview. What he does with it rests entirely with him.
Sales letters are a highly specialized group given over, for the most part, to experts. Their most common fault is overstatement or patronizing. The advertisements inserted in trade papers and the letters sent out to the “trade” are often so condescendingly written that they infuriate the men to whom they are addressed. It is safer to assume that the man you are writing to is an intelligent human being. It is better to overestimate his mentality than to underestimate it, and it is better to “talk” to him in the letter than to “write” to him.
Sales letters are, as a rule, general, not personal, and yet the best ones have the personal touch. The letter is a silent salesman whose function is to anticipate the needs of its customers and offer to supply them. In this as in any other kind of salesmanship it is the spirit which counts for most, and the spirit of genuine helpfulness (mutual helpfulness) gives pulling power to almost any letter. The one which presents a special offer on special terms specially arranged for the benefit of the customer wins out almost every time, provided, of course, that the offer is worth presenting. There is no use in declaring that all of the benefit is to the subscriber. It would be very foolish if it were actually true. Once a man went into a haberdashery to buy a coat. The shop owner unctuously declared that he was not making a cent of profit, was selling it for less than it cost him, and so on and on. The man walked out. “I'll go somewhere where they have sense enough to make a profit,” he said.
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