The purpose of this letter is to suggest business opportunities between Jim Smith, a Senior Contracting Specialist at ACME Widgets, Inc., and Terry Williams of ABC Enterprise. Smith is telling Williams that his company has a large production of widgets, and the letter is simply asking Williams for the opportunity to meet and discuss possible business ventures. Unfortunately, there are several problems with the letter, including incorrect assumptions about the company, grammar issues and a lack of information needed in order to provide a comprehensive and convincing letter. If the whole purpose of the letter is to ask a potential business partner to join a meeting that may bring both people large business profits, then the letter at least needs to be presentable.
The audience for this letter is specifically Terry Williams, who must be part of executive corporate staff since he would have to have the power to even discuss business ventures. Smith wants the opportunity to prove that his widgets are the best on the market, but he does not even supply the letter with a simple explanation of how his widgets would be the best. It is likely that Terry Williams receives letters like this all the time, and Jim Smith needs his own letter to stand out. Without any mentions of how the widgets work or why Williams would even want the widgets for his own company, then there is no convincing factor to the letter that would make Williams want to take the time to meet with Smith. Moreover, Smith mentions that he sells widgets to other companies, but does not mention which companies he sells them to. This would be information that Williams would need in order to make his own decisions.
But the issues do not stop with just a lack of information. A sentence in the letter, “Our process includes sources the best possible raw materials, producing custom and standard widgets, and distribution them to various companies around the world,” has glaring grammatical problems. This makes the letter hard to read. He also writes to Williams to contact the number provided, but does not actually provide the number. It makes no sense to force Williams to use his own time to look up the number of ACME Widgets. Furthermore, Smith mentions Boeing, saying that it can provide for ABC Enterprise. Boeing is based on airplane models and technological advancements in commercial air flights. If he is trying to sell ACME’s products to Williams, then Boeing should not have been mentioned.
One of the best aspects to keep in mind when writing business letters (or other documents) is to assume “that your audience has limited time in which to read it,” (“Business Letters”). Basically, it needs to be focused and provide enough, but not too much information. In this way, Smith’s letter provides no proper information to persuade Williams to meet with him and his letter is too vague and too grammatically incorrect to read. Also, assuming that Williams will look up his number or look up other companies that ACME Widgets, Inc. sells to is incorrect. It would actually be a waste of Williams’ time.
Essentially, Smith needs to proofread his letter and make sure all of his information is correct. He also needs to make a better impression about his products, and add just a sentence or two about how his widgets would be beneficial to ABC Enterprise. He should probably look into reasons why ABC Enterprise would even need his widgets and mention that in just a sentence in his letter. The point of the letter is to convince Williams that it’s worth meeting with Smith. Smith’s biggest problem with the letter is just that it does not make a good impression.
References
The writing center: Business letters. (n.d.). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill College of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved from http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/business-letters/
