Business Letters: Do You Really Know What They Are?

Copyright © Shaun R. Fawcett My two “writing help” Web sites receive well over two million visitors per year looking for information and templates to help them with their writing. With that many visitors I get a pretty accurate idea of exactly what people are looking for in the way of letter writing help. In fact, a significant number of people arrive at my site based on the search phrase “business letter”. Now, at first glance the term “business letter” makes sense. But, just wait a minute here! What exactly do they mean by “business letter”? Well, it turns out that they’re not sure. What it boils down to in many cases is that the person doing the search is involved in some kind of “business” (as owner or employee) and they need to write some kind of “letter” related to their business. Hence, their search phrase of “business letter”. I often get e-mails from people asking me if I have any business letter templates, or if I can write them a business letter. Invariably, I have to reply to them asking “what type of business letter, what is the specific purpose”? The fact is; “business letter” is a very general term that can mean one of many different specific letter types. Accordingly, the rest of this article is going to explain exactly what business letters are. Despite the widespread use of e-mail in commerce today, traditional business letters are still the main way that the majority of businesses officially communicate with their customers and other businesses. This is especially true when businesses want to formalize an agreement or an understanding. So far, emails are great for all of the preparatory work, but a formal business letter is still most often needed to "seal the deal". There are two overall categories of business letters: business-to-business, and business-to-customer. BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS LETTERS Most business-to-business letters are written to confirm things that have already been discussed among officials in meetings, on the telephone, or via e-mail. Can you imagine the letters that would have to go back and forth to cover all of the questions and possibilities that can be covered in a one-hour meeting, a half-hour phone call, or a few quick e-mails? The main purpose of a typical business letter is to formalize the details that were arrived at in those discussions, and to provide any additional information that was agreed upon. Over the years, certain general standards have evolved in the business world that the vast majority of businesses use in drafting their business to business correspondence. The Top 10 business-to-business letters that people search for at my writing help Web sites, in order of popularity, are as follows: 1. thank you letter 2. introduction letter 3. cover letter 4. financial letter 5. marketing letter 6. sales letter 7. project letter 8. invitation letter 9. employee letter 10. congratulations letter Even though the above terms are much more specific than the general term “business letter” there are multiple types of each of the above letters, depending on the purpose of the letter. For example, a business-to-business “financial letter” could be: collection letter, credit approval letter, credit refusal letter, invoice, price quotation, etc. BUSINESS TO CUSTOMER LETTERS There are many different types of business-to-customer letters. They include: sales and marketing letters, information letters, order acknowledgement letters, order status letters, collection letters, among others. As with business-to-business letters, over the years certain general standards have evolved in the business world that the vast majority of businesses use in drafting letters to existing and potential customers. Of course, going in the other direction are customer-to-business letters. These include: order letters, order status inquiry letters, complaint letters, and others. Since these are customer-generated letters, there is no particular expectation that they follow any particular letter- writing standard. Typically, they are handled just like any other piece of personal correspondence. The Top 10 business-to-customer letters that people search for at my writing help Web sites, in order of popularity, are as follows: 1. cover letter 2. customer relations letter 3. financial letter 4. credit letter 5. introduction letter 6. order-status letter 7. sales letter 8. marketing letter 9. announcement letter 10. apology letter Similar to the situation with business-to-business letters covered in the previous section; even though the above business-to-customer letter types are much more specific than the general term “business letter”, there are also multiple types of each of the above letters, depending on the purpose of the letter. For example, a business-to-customer “customer relations letter” could be any one of : response to a complaint, follow-up with a new customer, interrupted service notice, letter of acknowledgement, special invitation, welcome to new customers, etc. BOTTOM-LINE As you can see from the above, specifying that you are looking for a “business letter” is not very enlightening. You need to be specific and define the purpose of the letter; that is, exactly what is the letter meant to communicate? It’s important not to confuse non-business letters with business letters. For example: job application letters, cv and resume cover letters, employment and college related letters of recommendation, character references, resignation letters, etc. are NOT business letters. You might be surprised to learn that over 75% of all visitors to my main writing help Web site are searching for information on how to write just the Top 20 letters listed above. In fact, it turns out that a full 90% of the more than 1 million people that visit that site each year looking for letter writing help are looking for help with one of a list of 25 letters. That’s why all of my letter writing toolkits focus on multiple variations of about 40 specific letter types that cover over 95% of ALL letters ever written.

Business Letters: Keep Them Short and To The Point

Copyright © Shaun R. Fawcett If you ever draft letters, or any other documents where brevity is important, you'll want to pay close attention to these little practical "tricks of the trade". The following is an abridged excerpt from a chapter I have included in a couple of my Writing Kits. --------------- Anyone who has read any of my articles on the subject of letter writing or resume writing will know how important I believe it is to minimize the number of pages, preferably limiting them to one page wherever possible. And we all know how tacky it looks when we put the finishing touches on a letter and it overflows onto the second page by one or two lines. Very unprofessional! So, there are a number of handy little tricks that I've used over the years that will help “squeeze” a letter or other document onto one page without it being noticed by the average reader. These tricks can be applied using any standard word processing software program. I’m not sure whether a purist at a secretarial school would approve of some of my methods since they may deviate from certain technical standards, but I have used them hundreds of times and nobody has ever been the wiser. The main point being that I was able to keep a letter on one page when the first version overflowed by a few lines onto a second page. Below are my “page compression tips”, listed in the order in which I suggest you apply them: 1. Move both the left and right margins out about 1/4 in. closer to the edge of the page. 2. Move the top and bottom margins out about 1/4 in. closer to the edge of the page. 3. Edit out the one or two word “overflows”. What I mean here is this: After the letter is drafted take a good look at each paragraph. See if there are any that have an ending sentence that “overflows” onto an additional line for the sake of one word. If so, make a minor edit or two in the paragraph that shortens it a little so that the last word or two will not overflow onto the following line. Using this method, you can often gain two or three extra lines in a one-page letter. 4. Adjust the line spacing on the page. You can gain considerable space on a page by adjusting the line spacing of the text. For example, if the default line spacing is set to “single” at 12 points try setting it to “exactly” at 12 points if your font size is 12. If that doesn’t do it, try “exactly” at “11 pts”. Often you have to experiment a bit with this one to get the look just right. 5. As a last resort, try reducing the size of the font by 1 point size, say from 12 to 11 points. 6. If it still doesn’t “fit”, there’s one final thing you can try if you’re the author of the letter. Go back and edit it one more time. Look for redundant thoughts and phrases, or those that can be combined into one sentence rather than two. Is every word and phrase absolutely essential to your message? You’ll be amazed at the space savings that this process can result in. As I said earlier, try the above methods in sequence, one-at-a-time, checking each time to see if your latest change has done the trick for you. What happens if it still won’t fit? Now, if you’ve used all of the above tricks and you still can’t get the letter to fit onto one page, it’s time to admit that you’ve got a real two-pager. In which case, you should then think about “reversing” some of the compression tricks that you applied when you tried to “squeeze” the letter, and then concentrate on making a balanced looking second page. There’s nothing worse looking than a letter with a one or two sentence second page! So in this case, you may want to actually “stretch” the letter out a bit. Often, at this stage I actually increase the line spacing and reduce the margins slightly so that there will be a decent sized overflow onto the second page. For example, try reversing steps 1, 2 and 4 above. So instead of decreasing the top, bottom and side margins on page one, try increasing them by 1/4 in. all around. Then increase the point size and see if that helps. Ideally, try to get the page to break cleanly at a paragraph break, for a nice tidy page-to-page transition. Again, I have used these little “compression” tricks thousands of times, and nobody has ever pulled out their ruler and chastised me for inaccuracy. The important thing is to end up with a professional "looking" letter. In fact, if you do a very detailed check of the real-life templates included in any one of my Writing Toolkits you would find that I have used one or more of the above tricks on many of them. But, I’m not telling which ones!

9 Tips For Writing Better Business Letters

Copyright © Shaun R. Fawcett

It’s quite amazing how often business people fail to follow basic guidelines when it comes to writing their business correspondence. That might explain why so many people come to my writing help Web sites looking for help with their business letter writing. Just as businesses need to be focused and efficient to thrive and succeed, so too does the primary tool of most businesses — the business letter.

Following are a number of tips and guidelines that I have compiled while reading and writing many hundreds of business letters over the past 25+ years.

1. Limit Them To One Page
By definition, business letters should be short and to the point, preferably one page in length. Studies have found that busy business people do not like to read beyond the first page, and will actually delay reading longer letters. So, if you don’t want your letter to gather dust in an in-basket, keep it as short as possible.

2. Be Reader-Friendly
Always try to focus on the needs of the reader and make an effort to see things from their perspective. Put yourself in their position and imagine what it would be like for you to be receiving your letter. Anyone can do this, since we are all “customers” of some other business in some part of our lives.

3. Keep The Tone Formal And Factual
Generally speaking, the tone and content of business letters should be formal and factual. Feelings and emotions do not have a place in business letters. So, avoid phrases like “we feel” and use “we believe” or “we think” instead. A cordial, friendly approach is fine. Just keep it businesslike, but avoid overly formal terms like “heretofor”, “as per”, “herewith”, etc.

4. Carefully Plan Your Letter
Before writing the letter, take a few minutes to list all of the specific points you need to cover. Sometimes it may even mean a phone call to the recipient or his/her company to confirm a specific point. Remember, the purpose of the letter is to tie up all of the details on the subject at hand, so that more letters won’t have to be written back and forth.

5. Make It Clear, Concise And Logical
Use a clear and direct writing style that uses simple words and straightforward phrases. Make sure that your flow follows a logical progression, first identifying the main subject, elaborating on it, and then drawing the logical conclusion.

6. Accuracy And Timeliness Are Key
By their very nature, business letters need to be accurate and timely. They almost always have financial implications and related impacts on other businesses and/or people. Double-check all of the facts stated in the letter, and make sure that any future dates specified give others enough time to realistically complete what is expected of them.

7. Relegate Technical Details To Attachments
Often it is necessary to include detailed technical information as part of a business letter package. In such cases, use the main letter as a cover letter that lists and briefly explains and references the attached (or enclosed) documents.

8. Use Non-Discriminatory Language
Make sure that you avoid language that is specific to gender, race, or religion in all business letters, either to other businesses, or to customers. For example, use “workforce” instead of “manpower”, or “chairperson” rather than “chairman”. Most style guides contain detailed lists of the offensive terms and some suggested substitutes.

9. Eliminate Redundant Words And Phrases
There are certain words and phrases that one often sees in business correspondence that tend to make the language more complicated and cumbersome than necessary. For example, instead of the phrase “in spite of the fact that” use “although”, or instead of “in the normal course of events” use “normally”. There are many such redundant phrases, so review your letter and eliminate them.

If you are running any type of business in which business letters are important communication tools, you would do well to take careful heed of the above tips and advice. Remember, the business correspondence that you issue is a direct reflection of the overall products and/or services offered by your business. Poorly-written, amateurish, and/or shoddy business letters will surely result in lost sales.