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

• 95 Finance Lectures Everyone Should Listen To Even if you know more than the average person about finance, there are undoubtedly a few areas where you could expand your knowledge. Luckily, education on finance is easier than ever to come by with a little help from the...
• Reducing Cost is It a Sin Recently, I did several post on appealing your property taxes assessment.  Well, today I found an informative podcast at http://www.pepperpodcasts.com/pepper_podcasts/2008/11/pursuing-realestate-tax-assessment-appeals-in-a-down-economy.html that recommend pursuing property tax re-assessment for businesses in this market.  This is along the lines of what I was recommending for your...
• Why You Should Choose A Debt Consolidation Service Carefully Many of the people that would like to find the debt consolidation option that can help them get out of debt quickly do not understand the importance of finding a good debt consolidation service.  There are thousands of debt consolidation...

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

• How to Increase Traffic to Blog There are a myriad of different ways that you can learn how to increase traffic to blog. Some of them are really straight forward and easy to implement, and others will take time and effort on your behalf. By implementing...
• Google Kit, or Treasure Chest, the Plot Thickens? Pre-Script Comments are now closed on this posting as Google Treasure Chest is dead. However, the problem has not gone away - the menace continues. For further information, all chat on this and subsequent scams is now here: Google Revolution,...
• Forex Robo-Trader Interestingly enough there's a company that will take your $10,000 and put it in their "robot forex trader" program. You don't need to know anything about forex trading, the software algorithm takes care of it for you!According to their data,...

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

• Our Early Retirement Plan: Introduction (Part 0) I thought I'd switch things up this week and write about our retirement plan for the future. It's going to be detailed, so I'll have an article one day each week. I need to get a few things out of...
• Three Simple Guidelines When Writing Article Marketing Content Article marketing is widely known as among the most powerful and effective Internet marketing techniques available for all businesses, big or small. There are many reasons why businesses resort to generating and producing article marketing outputs when promoting and advertising...
• The open plan home - space and design functions Open space plans were a revolution when they were introduced. They’ve now become the perfect environment for a demand created by a new revolution in human lifestyles, the New Economy lifestyle. The requirements of the home are changing as the...

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

• Making Money On The Web Since the computer and internet were discovered, most people have been attempting to earn big bucks from this venue. Although many have succeeded, still many are trying and wishing for their luck to change. One of the major problems with...
• 66% Of American Corporations Pay Zero Federal Income Tax. And that really irritates me. Here are the rest of us, from the the family of four having trouble paying for college education to your neighbor just trying to make ends meet, who have to pick up the slack. Is...
• Is it a Sales Letter or a Corporate Blog Post? One of the most common mistakes that corporate blog owners make is turning their blog into a glorified sales letter. While there is a place for sales copy on a blog, it should only be used when absolutely necessary, and...

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

• How to Choose a Financial Planner – 7 Tips by Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal Writer, Shelly Banjo offers, “Seven Questions to Ask When Picking a Financial Adviser.”  I am a huge fan of the article because Ms. Banjo is nonjudgmental of the financial advisor role but rather offers 7 sound questions...
• Give Place to Truth Trust isn’t foolishness. Trust isn’t being a martyr or a sucker. Those come about when you don’t trust. When you perceive and then rationalize; “Well, maybe I’m wrong“, “Well, maybe they have changed“. Oh, the list of rationalizations is endless....
• Pay-Per-Click Fraud Exposed Based on Andy Jones, a member of the Best Practices Search Engine Boards, fraudulent clicks are simply one other aspect of the business. "Any of us that use AdWords or some other PPC has to pay for a sure share...

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

• 5 Factors That Might Burst The Housing Bubble We are heading towards the end of 2009 and the Canadian real estate market is on fire. Record numbers of sold homes, record prices, bidding wars... All this is happening while we are coming out of the worst recession in...
• 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...
• How to Find a Reliable and Affordable Mechanic This week has been expensive for my car! I had a major repair and my state inspections completed I'm glad the car is paid off, so this wasn't a huge burden. It still is a big chunk of money.  We...

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

• Wilson SpongeBob 21-InchYouth Tennis Racket User Reviews Send this to a friend Wilson SpongeBob 21-InchYouth Tennis Racket Manufacturer: Wilson Customer Rating: List Price: $29.99 Sale Price: $19.95 Availibility: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Now Product Description WILSON SpongeBob 21" Racket, C-BEAM construction for...
• Supplement to Weakon 231: What Went Wrong You'll probably want to read Weakon 231: How the Mortgage Industry Works (or Worked!) first. We stand here over a year after the sub-prime crises began.  The sub-prime crises lead to the credit crunch, the credit crunch lead to slowed...
• Are inflated shipping charges on eBay bad? A friend at work has a bone to pick with some eBay sellers who charge excessive amounts for shipping. It really ticks him off when he gets charged $14.99 shipping for a $9.99 item, and finds out that the shipping...

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

• Google's Foray Into Mobile Phones Is Risky [/caption] By Jeffry Bartash Wall Street Journal The apparent plan of Google Inc. (GOOG) to produce a mobile phone under its own brand has unsettled the wireless industry, but the Web giant won't find it easy to replicate the same...
• 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...
• Weakonomics Tour of the Country:  Georgia AKA the "We Started As A Prison" State Originally set up as a place for Britain to dump it's people that couldn't pay off their debts (now there's a plan!), the colony never really materialized in this fashion.  4th to...

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

• Strategies To Profit From Resell Rights Products Resell Rights are distinctive rights or permissions which are granted to you by way of a legal transaction between you and the owner of the product. Resell rights are very popular today because a lot of people simply do not...
• Store Brand Vs Name Brand The battle between store brand and name brand products has been waging for years.  On one side are the proponents of name brand who profess name brand products are superior in quality to store brand versions (i.e. Starbucks coffee is...
• Cecilio CVN-100 1/2 Size Rosewood Violin with Case and Accessories User Reviews Send this to a friend Cecilio CVN-100 1/2 Size Rosewood Violin with Case and Accessories Manufacturer: Cecilio Musical Instruments Customer Rating: List Price: $249.95 Sale Price: $89.99 Availibility: Usually ships in 24 hours Free Shipping Available Buy Now...

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

• The Forex Robot World Cup Shocks The Forex Industry Get these Forex Scalping Cheatsheets FREE. Read the story of Richard Samuels, a post office mailman with a head injury and how he made a fortune with these Forex Signals. Discover the top Forex Robot World Cup Robots, the formula...
• Monavie is Embarrassed by Their Income Disclosure Statement? (Part 2) [The following is a guest post from Anonymous Aussie, a frequent commenter on this website. I think it was intended to be a regular comment to the original article, but I think the mathematics that she points out is something...
• Top 5 Industries For a Down Market Not many jobs out there are recession proof.  Some are more at risk than others.  If you work in the industry that started the recession like I do then your job security can be in even more danger.  My list...

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

• Forex Black Box Trading System Discover a Forex Robot Portfolio that can give you $1M in 2010. First practice on your Forex Demo Account. Read about a Forex Trading System that made an ROI of 2956.16% in one month. If you're not sitting down, I...
• Even More Hunting Terms Buck - This is the name for a male deer. The way that you can tell a male apart from female deer is by the antlers that are atop its head for a period of seven months. Other than this,...
• DVD-Easy Steps to Acoustic Blues Guitar #1- Starting From Scratch User Reviews Send this to a friend DVD-Easy Steps to Acoustic Blues Guitar #1- Starting From Scratch Manufacturer: Homespun Tapes Customer Rating: List Price: $29.95 Sale Price: $17.23 Availibility: Usually ships in 24 hours Free Shipping Available Buy Now Product...

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...
• Investing 101: Futures (It's another Tuesday here at the Amateur Financier, and that means one thing: Yep, it's another thrilling round of Investing 101.  Today, following our recent trend into considering more complex investments, we're going to look at the futures market, and...
• Cap And Trade: Global Warming Solution Or Wall Street Profiteering? The world is getting warmer! Humans are polluting and their pollution is making the world warmer faster! Unfortunately even I agree with this claim. The debate is how much humans really impact the rising temperatures. But that debate is not...