If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

To give you a little idea in advance of the diversity of such presentations, in this part we will offer ideas, information, and models falling into the following categories:

• Answering inquiries
• Offering services
• Explaining services
• Presenting credentials
• Responding to complaints
• Adjusting errors of billing or other slipups
• Explaining delays
• Making inquiries of various kinds
• Reporting results to clients
• Requesting payment
• Miscellaneous other matters, essentially routine.

Even with such segregation of correspondence, there is a great diversity in the correspondence. The diversity is not only in the general classes, purposes, and functions of correspondence: It is also introduced by the great variety of the business enterprises that have evolved over the years. So it is not a simple proposition, despite our focus here on the needs of the independent consultant: Many independent consultants engage in diverse business activities in addition to basic consulting services, and there will be no effort in these pages to offer a model for each and every possible need- it would be an entirely impracticable goal – but principles and exemplifying models will be offered to point the way, with guidance to help you adapt these principles and models to meet your own special needs.

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

Canadian Fleet Services

Quality Inn Winnipeg Extended Stay Hotel

Derrick Dodge

• Automated Forex Trading Systems Explained Would you like to be able to trade currencies on the autopilot? Would you like to use robots to trade for you? Well, in the computer and Internet age is relatively easy and almost every week we see a new...
• Features of Dozers Dozers have been used since the 1920s and are now an integral piece of earth-moving equipment. You'll find them at almost every job site and construction site, used with backhoes, cranes, excavators, rough-terrain forklifts and front loaders. Dozers are also...
• SkyGolf AC Wall Charger Wall Charger User Reviews Send this to a friend SkyGolf AC Wall Charger Wall Charger Manufacturer: SkyGolf Customer Rating: List Price: $24.95 Sale Price: $0.01 Availibility: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Now Product Description The SkyCaddie wall charger (110-240v AC)...

Earlier, I offered a list of types of letters, essentially routine. In fact, these designators or definitions specify or imply an objective or each of those types of letters. Before you can even begin to formulate a letter, you need to know just what you want the letter to do. If you want to placate a dissatisfied and complaining client, that requires a much different letter than the one you will send to a client who wants to be assured that you understand their problem and can solve it satisfactorily.

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

Eagle Ridge GM

Canadian  Fleet

Winnipeg High Efficiency Furnace Service

• Entrepreneur, Work Smart, with Murray Smith How to Work Smart as an Entrepreneur Serial entrepreneur Murray Smith co-author of "The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life" shares the secrets to his success in this Success U podcast. His book is...
• CNA Training Orlando – CNA Kwik Track CNA Kwik Track Orlando - CNA Kwik Track  Are you considering a career as a CNA? It’s no secret that America is aging.  Healthcare workers in Florida are in demand now more than ever! At CNA Kwik Track, you will...
• Overlooked Tax Dedutions [/caption] 1. State sales taxes. Although all taxpayers have a shot at this write-off, it makes sense primarily for those who live in states that do not impose an income tax. You must choose between deducting state and local income...

The planning process for any piece of writing, however long or short and formal or informal, involves the same steps, although the method for doing them may vary considerably from one case to another. For a lengthy document, it may be wise or even necessary to develop a formal “book plan,” a written plan detailing all the many steps preliminary to drafting the item. For a simple writing job, such as  a brief letter, all the planning may be in your mind, with nothing formal on paper, but that is a difference in degree, not in kind. Many journalists and other professional writers use a “lead” as the planning document for a short article (I confess to being one who does so), and we may write and rewrite that lead many times before going on, as our way of planning and outlining, but we don’t proceed, usually, until we are sure that we have that lead – plan – right.

I don’t know that the “lead” method works for everyone. As one writer expressed it to me once, for him it was “thinking on paper.” I happen to agree with that. I find that scratching out a lead “on paper” (actually on a computer screen now) helps me think things out. As I “see” what is wrong with my first attempt, I begin editing and revising my rough-draft lead until it seems right to me: It defines and sets the goal, as it should; the reader should get a firm clue from your first sentence or first paragraph of what you are about to tell him or her. But let’s look at the three major stages:

1. Setting a goal or objective: What is it you want to do with this letter or other writing? Provide information? Placate an unhappy client? Report progress? Sell an idea? Ask for the order? Ask for payment? Request an interview? Explain the problem? Reassure the client?
2. Choosing a strategy: How do you plan to achieve this goal or objective? Logical argument? Promise of something? Offer to trade? Reinforce your guarantee?
3. Outlining: What information will you present and how?

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

FurnacemanOneHour – Heating and Cooling Products

Quality Inn Winnipeg Extended Stay Hotel

Furnasman One Hour Heating Winnipeg

• Stress Or Success - 3 Secret Ways You Can Have Success Without the Stress How does stress make you feel? Most people feel a lack of control of the situation. Success on the other hand makes you feel in control and accomplished. However, can you have success without feeling stressed? 1) How do you...
• Snag Backlinks With Website Directories If you don't know what a link directory looks like, check out the most famous example: DMOZ. According to DMOZ, they are the "most comprehensive human-reviewed directory of the web". When you think of a web directory, think dmoz. Directories...
• Do Online Diet Plans Work? As our lives become more focused around online activities, it was only natural that diets would make the move towards becoming more online based. There are literally thousands of different sites that purport to help you lose weight, but do...

In all things generally, but in all business writing especially, you must always sell. That means writing persuasively, no matter what the subject of the letter. Even a response to an inquiry can benefit or hurt your organization by presenting a favorable or unfavorable view of it. (Do not use those cold and stilted form letters of government  agencies and many corporations that create that adverse image so many of us have of government agencies and major corporations.)

Do not be any more formal than circumstances and good taste dictate. Obviously you must address strangers and those you know only slightly by such titles as Mister, Madam, Colonel, and so forth. In the real business world, executives often address business letters to “Dear Bill” and sign them “Harry,” when they happen to be friends or business associates of long standing. However, before leaving this introduction and going on to present a few specific examples, let us have a brief look at planning, which is principally a system of outlining your material, once you have set your goal, although the importance of that preliminary step ought not to be minimized either.

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

Eagle Ridge GM

Derrick Dodge

Canadian  Fleet

• Copenhagen and low-carbon investments A little quote from the BusinessGreen website "The potential impact on low-carbon investments of failing to deliver a meaningful deal at the forthcoming Copenhagen Summit was underlined last week with the news that analyst firm Point Carbon is downgrading its...
• Top-secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control [/caption] top-secret america: part 1 of a 3-part series from the Washington Post By Dana Priest and William Arkin The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so...
• Total Equity Fund Flows Negative vs. Total Bond Fund Flows Positive Not surprisingly, the plethora of negative economic news and pessimism has investors fearing a double dip recession and/or a second Great Depression. Few metrics exist that can express this bearish sentiment better than the money flow numbers (e.g. where the...

If there are three rules for writing well, this could easily be all three of them, for this identifies the most common problem: Far too many people write letters (and other things) without knowing exactly what they want to say. They simply doodle verbally, in fact, as though they were engaged in idle conversation over tea, in the hope that eventually they will stumble across the right thoughts and words. It rarely works, and even when it does the result is that much of it is rambling and pointless and most certainly not at all businesslike. (Have you ever gotten a letter that left you mumbling to yourself, “What are they trying to tell me?) In short, if you don’t know clearly and in advance what you want to say, how can you ever be sure that you have said it?

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

Capital Car Carriers

BC Lottery Winning Numbers

• The E-Entrepreneur Success Mindset Series, Part II How You Can Avoid Joining the Failing Masses? The thing about starting a business...any business.....is that there is no guarantee of success under any circumstances. Even big international businesses can fail at new business ventures. Failure is always an option...
• Increase your income by tithing This is a guest post by James Rouse who blogs at Capital Couples Finance where he writes about finances, relationships, and life in general. If you like what you read below, please head over and subscribe to his RSS feed....
• Affiliate Free Recommendations The How Headline PPC Affiliate This is pretty similar to the Question Headline—but only offers the solution. It makes for a shorter read than question headlines so you get your point across faster, but you lose the empathy. How To...

Suppose that the fradistat industry is a monopoly, in which Consolidated Fradistats is the only producer. Since Consolidated Fradistats is the entire industry, the entire market demand for fradistats is the demand for Consolidated Fradistat’s product. This demand is illustrated in Figure 10-1, in both schedule and graph form.

What price will the monopoly charge for fradistats? While our initial reaction may be that the monopoly will select the highest price, Figure 10-1 shows that this is incorrect, since the highest price may not be the most profitable price. From Figure 10-1 it can be seen that, by charging a price of $5 and producing 700 units, the monopoly can maximize its total revenue. Note that we are only looking at the revenue side of the picture, and are ignoring the costs. In effect, we are assuming that if the monopoly maximizes total revenue, it is maximizing profits also. Under these assumptions, the monopoly will raise its price as long as the demand is inelastic – it is because the demand becomes elastic above a price of $5 that higher prices will not be charged.

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

One Hour Canada

Furnasman New Homes

Furnasman Winnipeg

• Determining Rare Coin Values in Your Collection When you are deciding whether or not you would like to add a specific coin to your collection, one of the things that you are going to want to take into account is rare coin values. The rare coin values...
• Gouge me 'til it hurts As of right now we're looking at about 30 hours before Hurricane Earl blows past our latitude.  It reminds me of something that happened during the aftermath of previous hurricanes:  price gouging.  Price gouging is a disparaging term given to...
• Why Are Oil And Gas Going Up Again?  Ahh Memorial Day was fun huh?  We can always tell it's here without looking at the calendar by simply driving by the nearest gas station.  Is it 25% higher than it was a month ago?  If the answer is yes...

By making prices higher and output lower than they would otherwise be, monopoly imposes a twofold burden on society economically. As an example, suppose that the minimum price for which widgets could be sold profitably were $3. If there were strong competition in the widget industry, the price would fall to $3 (instead of $5) and production would be 1000 units (instead of 700). But with a monopoly in the industry, the public is burdened with both higher prices and lower output than would exist under competition.

In a competitive industry, it is the consumer who is most powerful in the marketplace. If consumer demand for a product increases, higher prices and profits will attract producers into the production of that product. Furthermore, they will offer it for sale to the consumer at the lowest possible price, due to the intense competition among themselves. In a monopolistic situation, on the other hand, the shoe is on the other foot. The monopolist is in the dominant position: since the consumer must deal with the monopolist, the monopolist can restrict the supply of the product, forcing its price to higher levels. The higher price and profits will not call forth increased supply, because new firms cannot enter the field. Obviously, the key to the monopolist’s position lies in the control of the supply of the product.

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

Boonstraonehour

Air Quality’s One Hour

Auto Transport Montreal  and Car Carrier GTA Ontario

• The Secrets Of Pricing, Making It Your Advantage An often-neglected part of home business is the pricing of your services. You know what you can do, you know there's a market for it, but do you know how much you can get away with charging, without putting the...
• Counter Argument to China's Threat To Dumping US Dollars/Treasuries/ A few days ago,China threatened to offload its Billions of US Treasuries in retaliation to any US imposed trade tariffs.One of the newsletters I read regularly is from John Mauldin who doesn't think its likely that China will follow through...
• Blogging For Money {Sponsored Post} I've been talking about people who blog for money. Well I've been making some money off advertising at the bottom of my blog. Well I've been paid to post this article on Responsibility In Pay Day Loans. What do you...

1. “Perfect competition” is the most competitive situation possible, in which the individual firm has no control over the price of its product since it faces a perfectly elastic demand curve.
2. The incentives for a firm in perfect competition are to minimize production costs per unit (maximize efficiency), produce as much output as it can afford to, and sell its output for whatever price the market determines.
3. Generally, profits in perfectly competitive industries will be very low, with only those firms that have below-average production costs able to earn above-average profits.
4. Monopolistically competitive industries are also very competitive, but differ from perfect competition in that firms have an opportunity to practice product differentiation, thereby making demand somewhat less elastic, and (possibly) to increase prices a little.
5. Competitive industries, consisting mainly of the small business sector of the economy, constitute an important part of the economy, probably producing about two-fifths of its output.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Can you think of additional examples of perfectly competitive industries or monopolistically competitive industries? Would you like to go into business for yourself in any of these industries? If so, what strategy would you follow in order to be successful?

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

One Hour Canada

Furnasman New Homes

Furnasman Winnipeg

• Whisper it! Confidence within the UK business community is returning Like a phoenix slowly rising from the ashes of the worst recession in close to seventy years, recent reports have it that the U.K. business community is beginning to regain some of its confidence for the future. According to a...
• Odyssey Black Series #1 Putter User Reviews Send this to a friend Odyssey Black Series #1 Putter Manufacturer: Odyssey Customer Rating: List Price: Varies based on product options Sale Price: View Sale Price Availibility: View Product Availability Buy Now Product Description Designed for elite performance,...
• Low-fat latte factor? Starbucks is beginning to test $1 "short" cups of drip coffee with free refills in Seattle.  Other chains are offering good alternatives at lower prices, so Starbucks might be feeling out the market to avoid getting beaned by the competition.Pricey...

Perfectly Elastic Demand - a situation in which any price increase above the market price will cause a firm’s sales to fall to zero; represented by a horizontal demand curve.

Monopolistic Competition - a term describing industries that consist of many small firms, where entry to the industry by new firms is easy, and where the products or services or individual firms, while basically similar, are differentiated from each other to a degree.

Product Differentiation – attempts by individual firms to distinguish their product(s) or service(s) from those of their competitors.

Laissez-Faire - the doctrine, or philosophy, that it is neither necessary nor beneficial from the viewpoint of the public interest for governments to intervene in the operation of the economy.

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

Boonstraonehour

Air Quality’s One Hour

Auto Transport Montreal  and Car Carrier GTA Ontario

• Issuer of 79.9% Interest Rate Credit Card Defends Its Product [/caption] by Connie Prater APR Shocks Many, but Issuer Says They Are Pricing for the Risk If you have bad credit in the new era of credit card regulation, be prepared to pay -- dearly -- for the privilege of...
• Weaky Award #5: Or What your $4 Gas Buys At indeterminate times The Weakonomist will award people, companies, or groups with a Weaky.  Its our version of the Darwin Awards for those that make bad moves with money.  Sadly, most of these people will live to make more mistakes...
• Oil & Currency Markets Learn forex Nitty Gritty. Discover Forex Magic Machine. Wall Street analysts watch oil prices like hawks. During the early part of 2008, oil prices skyrocketed from near $75 to almost $140 within a few short months. This was more than...

In the previous topic we examined competitive industries, in which there are many firms in the industry and it is easy for new firms to enter the industry. As a result, competition in such industries is particularly strong, and is constantly pushing downwards on profits. Such a situation benefits the consumer, but certainly not the producers, who probably wish that they were fewer in number and could somehow prevent (or at least regulate) the entry of new firms into the industry. Then they would be in a position to restrict the supply of the product and (if demand were inelastic) increase their revenues. However, the difficulties in organizing such numerous producers to act collectively, plus the impossibility of preventing new firms from entering the industry, make it impossible for producers in competitive industries to achieve this. In short, then, the major problem facing producers in competitive industries is that they are unable to control the supply and therefore the price of their products. Such industries are divided into two categories – monopolistic industries, in which there is only one producer, and oligopolistic industries, which are dominated by a few large producers.

Note that we say “revenues,” not “profits.” At this point, we are not including in our discussion how the production costs of business firms interact with their sales revenues to determine their profits – this will be done in Chapter 11.

From Greek words meaning “one seller” for monopoly, and “few seller” for oligopoly. Quite possibly the single most misspelled word in the entire field of economics is “oligopolistic.”

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

One Hour Canada

Furnasman New Homes

Furnasman Winnipeg

• Discover All about PCGS Coins The Professional Coin Grading Service, or PCGS, is one the three professional coin grading companies, or “slabbers”, recognized by serious coin collectors and dealers across the United States. PCGS uses the American coin grading system to give coins a grade...
• Insurance Companies May Not Be The Healthcare Cost Enemy Farm and construction machinery, Hershey sweets, Yahoo!, railroads, and Tupperware.  What do these things all have in common?  They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.  That's right, the industry that is making "immoral profits" (Nancy Pelosi) can't even...
• Earn Money Online With Affiliate Marketing Lots of people are beginning to realize that getting into online businesses and online marketing is an excellent way to earn money online to supplement their “real world” income or for many internet marketers it has become their principal source...

Services (such as dry cleaning) emphasize the speed of service, others stress quality, others offer extended hours. To the extent that a firm is successful in these efforts at product differentiation, it can alter its demand curve by making it more inelastic. For instance, Harry’s competitive position would be enhanced strongly if his were the only hamburger stand in a prime location, or if he developed a unique and highly popular product line. On the other hand, a monopolistically, competitive market is a very dynamic situation, and Harry must face the risk that his competitors – or a brand new firm starting up – may successfully imitate his advantages, reducing the degree to which Harry’s firm is differentiated, and making the demand for his hamburgers more elastic again. Worse yet (from Harry’s viewpoint), some of them may come up with even better ideas to differentiate their products, placing Harry at a disadvantage. People who have operated small businesses successfully in this kind of environment for years tend to discount flashy promotional “stunts” as short-term strategies, and stress instead the importance of establishing (or earning) a reputation as an honest, reliable firm, if long-term success is to be achieved. They claim that this is the most valuable type of product differentiation that a firm can achieve.

In conclusion, product differentiation, however achieved, can benefit the firm in two ways. First, it can build consumer loyalty to the firm and its products, and thus protect the firm against competition, and second, it can provide an opportunity for the firm to charge higher prices for its products, to the extent that consumers believe the product differentiation to be worth a higher price. All firms welcome the advantages of consumer loyalty; some will also charge a higher price while others will not. Thus, product differentiation introduces into a situation that is basically very competitive a slight degree of monopoly power, due to the fact that each firm’s product or service can be different from those of its competitors. Obviously, the degree to which this occurs varies: it is one thing to be the only one of eight hamburger stands in town with a particular location, and quite another to be the only Chinese restaurant in town and the only restaurant with a liquor license. Nonetheless, new restaurants can easily open, emphasizing the fact that, while monopolistic competition is less extremely competitive that perfect competition, it still represents a highly competitive situation. As a result, profits in monopolistically competitive industries generally tend to be low, with many firms earning only marginal profits. However, firms that enjoy cost advantages, or that have succeeded in practicing product differentiation to their advantage, will earn above-average profits.

Substantial Incomes

http://www.substantialincomes.com/blog/

Boonstraonehour

Air Quality’s One Hour

Auto Transport Montreal  and Car Carrier GTA Ontario

• Cartoon Capitalism I'm often extremely pessimistic on the state of the US economy. In public settings my doom and gloom predictions seem to depress people so I tend to restrict my rants solely to my blog. So it makes me happy when...
• SEO In A BOX Are profitable, top search ranks possible without the help of an experienced search engine optimization company? Can a software package or online miracle site touting testimonials and grandeur guarantees of success elevate your online presence enough to really increase sales?...
• Signs of a Short Layoff Someone I know, who was unexpectedly laid off in April, landed a job in about a month, in the same field and for the same pay. Based on what I heard about the job search, I expected him to be...

Perfect Competition

1. many firms
2. easy to enter
3. identical products

Prices and profits are held down, and producers have no control over the price of their product.

Economic incentive for each producer is to

(a) maximize efficiency (minimize production costs per unit),

(b) produce as much output as is economical, and

(c) sell it for whatever price the market establishes.

Monopolistic Competition

1. many firms
2. easy to enter
3. differentiated products

Prices and profits are held down, but producers have a small degree of control over the price of their product.

Economic incentive for each producer is to

(a) maximize efficiency (minimize production costs per unit),

(b) practice product differentiation, and

(c) (possibly) increase price by a small amount only.

Non-Competitive Industries

1. few firms
2. difficult to enter

Prices and profits tend to be higher than in the competitive situation.

Economic incentive for all producers is to act together so as to restrict competition and raise prices significantly.

Substantial Incomes

One Hour Canada

Furnasman New Homes

Furnasman Winnipeg

• Top 5 Industries That Were Ruined by Capitalism If Capitalism were a religion I'd be its clergy.  What would I wear?  A white collar of course.  In a nutshell capitalism is the belief that private industry can drive progress and the economy much better than public entities (I'm...
• Free Trading Signals Forex Aid For The Traders Each trader who really wants to earn in market Forex, should "digest" information mass constantly: the latest news, forecasts of analysts of the currency market, train diagrames of currencies etc. The beginner cannot orient, develop own tactics of successful trade...
• Making money with an eBay Store, Part 4: Obtaining product at the right price (This post is part of a series on Making Money with an eBay Store. The Introduction and table of contents to the series is here.) Part 3 of this series on making money with an eBay store elaborated on telling...