Career Ramblings

Some of our readers are new professionals that have been working in their careers for about 1 to 5 years. Other readers are college students soon to begin their careers. One of the more important things to know, and know early in your career, is how to develop a business letter. You might ask, what the heck is a business letter? Or, I’m not in business, why do I need this? Well, my response is that it’s important to know how to write a professional letter regardless of your career or occupation. Teachers, chefs, accountants, entrepreneurs, you name it and in this day and age the more tools you have to make yourself more marketable, the better off you will be.

When To Write A Business Letter

• When corresponding with someone outside of your organization or company

• When a paper trail or record is needed (often times you don’t realize that emails are records that people will keep for those “just in case” reasons)

• When formality is important

• When organization and presentation are important (proposal to a supervisor)

Business Letters

All good business letters have some common characteristics. These are the type of letters that when you read them, they make you think, “wow, this is good.” Content, tone and form are the 3 common components that good business letters have.

• Clear Content- Putting ideas into paragraphs is one of the most difficult things to do. Use short sentences and paragraphs to guide the reader through your ideas.

• Goodwill Tone- Goodwill is a positive feeling that the reader gets about you or the organization.

• Correct Form- The appearance and format of your letter will reflect your carefulness and experience. Make sure it’s clean and justified.

You want to make sure you keep these 3 things in mind before you begin the writing process.

1. Determine your purpose

2. Visualize the audience

3. Anticipate the reaction to your message

Writing a good business letter takes practice. Many times people have to learn it by trial and error. It takes a lot longer to learn that way. Keep these steps in mind and you’ll be on your way to writing great business letters. Just make sure not to forget where you got this great info:)

Some of this information I read in Guffey.

Also, if you would like to view and download a sample business letter, Job Search Tech has a good one to use.

[ratings]

A popular business tool is coldfusion hosting which just became available. Use this along with the new oulook exchange to handle business email. Condense company files and documents with new email hosting. Learn what exchange hosting can do for your company, by reading the positive impact from email hosting. Learn what exchange hosting can do for your company, by reading exchange server hosting guides and tutorials.