October 11, 2010 · Filed under Tips of the Trade · Tagged advertise, advertising, all, article, ask, blog, blogging, book, books, business, call, career, college, confirm, confirm receipt, consequences, conversation, costs, cover letter, cruise, dates, decision, detail, dfw, discount, discount offer, discussion, doing, doing business, event, facebook, Falcon, follow, follow up letter, follow-up, follow-up notes, free, freelance, good sales cover letter, good sales letter, google, hallowed ground, halloween, home, home-based business, how to, how to write a follow up letter, information, interest, ladye, lax, letter, literature, mail, meeting, meeting or event, message, metallica, movie, movies, music, net, notes, Obama, offer, opportunity, oral, oral agreement, original, original message, pagan, penthouse, people involved, person, photo, pic, pics, plans, playboy, pleasure, plinky, porn, presentation, product, product information, product or service, products, quantities, query, read, receipt, religion, request, richbydesign.wordpress.com, ritual, sales, sales cover letter, sales letter, sales presentation, samhain, school, service, services, substance, telephone, telephone call, text, text message, texting, thank, time, times, tips, travel, unanswered request, vacation, verify, Wiccan, work, work-from-home, write, write a good letter, write a good sales cover letter, write a sales letter, writer, writing
In a general Follow-Up Letter, refer to the key idea (the meeting, your last letter, the unacknowledged gift) and mention the reason for writing the present letter (“as I hadn’t heard from you” or “I wanted to remind you”). If you are asking your reader to do something, say so clearly (“Please call me,” “Let me know if it arrived,” or “Send your payment now”).
When following up a telephone call or face-to face conversation, begin by referring to your meeting or telephone visit. Recap the conversation, repeating accurately the details of your talk: what decision was made, dates, times, quantities, plans, costs, people involved, and so forth. Ask the person to verify that this was the substance of your discussion. State what you expect next of the other person. Express appreciation for their interest or pleasure in the forthcoming meeting.
When you must write a Follow-Up Letter to an unanswered request, query, or letter, repeat your original message (or include a copy of it, even). You may want to go into a little more detail this time on the need or importance of the person’s response and what consequences for you or for the other person might arise from a failure to respond.
Click to Read More
When following up a Sales Presentation, your letter is primarily a good Sales Letter, but you also thank the person for the time and opportunity to explain your product or service and you emphasize the one or two features that the person seemed most taken with during your presentation. Express your appreciation of their business, office, plant as well as your pleasure in the possibility of doing business with them.
When a meeting or event has been scheduled many months in advance, it’s sometimes necessary to send Follow-Up Notes reminding people. Repeat all the information along with a pleasant remark about hoping to see the person.
What NOT to Say:
• Avoid implying that your reader is thoughtless, negligent, forgetful, or impolite when writing about an unanswered letter or unacknowledged gift. There is always the possibility of mail going astray. Even if they have been lax in responding, they won’t like you any better for pointing it out to them! Try to keep your irritation and frustration from showing through.
• A Follow-Up Letter should not be a simple repeat of an earlier communication (except in the case of confirming an oral agreement or discussion). It should have some specific (even if thin) excuse for being written – to confirm receipt of something, for example.
Punching It Up A Notch
Tips on Writing
When you receive no response to a Sales Letter and you send a Follow-Up, you begin by referring to your previous letter (“I wrote you several weeks ago to tell you about…” or “Did you receive the certificate we sent you, good for…?”). The rest of the letter is primarily a good Sales Letter but should emphasize a different benefit or aspect than your first letter did (tell them something new). This letter should also be shorter or perhaps, longer than the first and with all likelihood, a different tone, all together.
When a customer requests product information or literature, you fill the request and write a good sales cover letter to accompany the material. It is customary to write a Follow-Up Letter several weeks later. Refer to the earlier letter, thank them for their interest, offer further information, and then either mention a representative who will call on them, give them an order blank with a first-order discount offer, urge them to call a toll-free number to order, or make some other action-oriented proposal.
Too often, communication ceases once the customer has paid for the product or service. However, aggressive businesse s will keep in touch with such customers, sending Follow-Up Letters to see how things are working out, to inform customers of new product lines, to remind them that you appreciated their business in the past and hope to serve them, again.
Also See Article: Follow-up Letters
34.566542
-91.164551
October 4, 2010 · Filed under Tips of the Trade · Tagged advertise, advertising, adword, all, article, blog, blogging, book, books, business, career, college, cruise, Falcon, follow up letter, follow-up, free, free movies online, free music online, freelance, google, home, home-based business, how to, ladye, movie, movies, music, news, Obama, pagan, penthouse, photo, pic, pics, playboy, plinky, porn, read, religion, sales letter, school, tips, travel, vacation, Wiccan, work, work-from-home, write, writer, writing
“Don’t fill more than a page and a half with apologies for not having written sooner!”
(Lewis Carroll, Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter Writing)
A follow-up letter (postal or via email) refers to an earlier letter, conversation, or meeting and is a graceful way of tying up a loose end, reminding someone to carry through on a promised action, building on something that went before, or spreading goodwill. This little personal touch, which takes three minutes, makes an enormous impression. The ones who do it regularly in business are such standouts. They’re the ones who jump ahead.
Write a Follow-Up Letter When
· You have not had a response to a letter of yours and you need to remind someone that you are waiting for answers, information, confirmation, or merchandise.
· Your telephone messages have not been returned
· You wish to remind someone of an appointment, meeting, favor, request, inquiry, invitation, payment, or work deadline.
· A sales letter or product literature has not produced a response.
· Your initial sales letter brings a response (order, expression of interest, request for more information) and you want to amplify the material in your first letter, encourage the customer to order or to buy again, and to keep in touch with the customer for goodwill reasons.
· You want to follow-up on a sales call or demonstration.
· You want to verify with a customer that a shipping problem or missing order has been settled to their satisfaction.
· After business lunches, dinners, meetings, or other hospitality you want to express appreciation and acknowledge what was accomplished.
· You wish to sum up what was accomplished in a meeting or interview so that there is a record and so that your estimate of what went on can be verified by others.
· You need to confirm a meeting date, a telephone or other oral agreement, a message left with a third-party.
· A gift you sent has not been acknowledged and you want to know whether it arrived.
· You have visited a school, university, or college as a prospective student, or have attended a meeting as a guest and potential member, and wish to express your appreciation and impressions.
· Someone has visited your school, university, college, or organization as an applicant and you wish to express appreciation and the hopes that they are interested.
· You want to send omitted or supplemental material or to revise an earlier correspondence.
*****So, now we know when the right time is to send a follow-up letter but, how about HOW to write that letter? READ MORE HERE
34.566542
-91.164551
May 12, 2010 · Filed under Falcon, Tips of the Trade, Uncategorized · Tagged blog, blogging, essay, Falcon, freelance, grammar, ladye, music, networking, paper, read, report, social, student, write, writer, writing
Countable / Non-Countable Nouns
Countable Nouns
Countable nouns are things that we can count (i.e. pens, computers, bags etc’).
For example, ‘chair’. We can count chairs. We can have one, two, three or more chairs.
Countable nouns can be either singular or plural:
“I have one dog.”
“I have 3 dogs.”
We can use the indefinite article a/an with singular countable nouns.
“I want a cat.”
“He wants an orange.”
We can also use the definite article the/ my/ this with singular countable nouns.
For example:
“I want my book back.”
When a countable noun is plural we can use it alone.
For example,
“I love bananas.”
We can use some/ any with countable nouns:
“I need some dollars.”
“Do you have any cards?”
We can a few and many with countable nouns:
“I have a few dollars.”
“I have many friends.”
Some singular nouns change when they are turned into plural:
Singular Plural
man men
woman women
child children
person people
Uncountable Nouns
Uncountable nouns are things we cannot count (substances, concepts).
Examples of uncountable nouns:
music, love, money, furniture, information, water
Pay attention:
“I need money” –> money cannot be counted.
“I need some dollars” –> dollars can be counted.
We usually treat uncountable nouns as singular. We use a singular verb:
“The water is cold.”
“The rice tastes good.”
We can use some/ any with uncountable nouns:
“I need some money.”
“Do you have any rice?”
We can use a little or much with uncountable nouns:
“I have little money.”
“I have much money.”
Whether you are a student, professional writer or simply spend time posting on forums, blogs and social networking sites, grammar is important. Especially on the internet where our written words are all that other people have to get to know and understand us, grammar usage sends a message across to the reader about ourselves. Make the most out of your writings and take care to utilize proper grammar- your readers will, surely, appreciate the effort!
~E
34.566542
-91.164551
May 6, 2010 · Filed under Religion/Spirituality, Uncategorized · Tagged craft, evil, Evil Eye, eye, Falcon, hex, hexes, ladye, pagan, poem, read, Wicca, withcraft, write, writting
The Evil Eye
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunnèd it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
– William Blake, “A Poison Tree,” 1794
The Evil Eye is one of the more unsettling concepts of traditional witchcraft. The idea that someone can cause you psychic and physical harm with a dirty look is bad enough. Someone who has this gift doesn’t have to burn a candle, sprinkle powder on your doorstep or sacrifice the neighbor’s cat to the Prince of Darkness: a good (or bad) gaze is all they need. But to make matters worse, they don’t even have to hex you deliberately. They might see you as a dear friend and be outraged at the idea they would wish you harm. Like most magic, the Evil eye is fueled by the subconscious: it operates not on the lies we tell ourselves but on the truths we wish to keep hidden.
Many Chaos Magic workings attempt to tap into the subconscious. Anyone who has ever worked with sigils knows they are to be charged with intense emotional and/or sexual energy, then left to ferment in the deepest parts of the magician’s mind. In time the forgotten sigil will blossom forth to work changes in the magician’s consciousness and in the surrounding world. It is a way to tap into the immense power of the hidden mind and to reorder Chaos in a shape more suitable to our needs.
Austin Osman Spare and disciples like Kenneth Grant and Peter Carroll have explored techniques by which we may introduce specific symbols into our subconscious. Another great scholar of the psychosphere, Sigmund Freud, explored the non-consensual ways in which our subconscious can be reprogrammed. His name for one major impetus for this involuntary sigilization – repression – bears careful consideration. The process of adjusting ourselves to our culture and becoming a functioning member of society involves repressing many of our natural drives and instincts. Freud concentrated most of his efforts on exploring the suppression of lust and the sexual drive. He might have done well to explore the ways we try to distance ourselves from anger, avarice, envy or other states which were once classed as “deadly sins” and are today scorned as “unevolved emotions.”
I’ve run into many New Agers and spiritually-inclined folks who work desperately to avoid any kind of “negativity.” They rule over their psyches like a Victorian schoolmaster trying to save his charges from the evils of masturbation. Any hint of anger is greeted with a cold shower of mantras and a bland diet of affirmations and channeled transmissions. Expressing honest objections and setting boundaries is replaced by passive-aggression and the condescending smug superiority that masks itself as “tolerance and acceptance.” After reading Sophie’s report, I’m not surprised to see that some of these people are also manifesting the ability to cast malocchio. If you don’t own your shit, it gets backed up and sooner or later it explodes in a fecal volcano. And those who are trying to tamp down anger and jealousy with sparkly crystals and soothing music are most certainly, not owning it.
Many cultures have come up with traditional amulets, incantations and spells designed to ward off the Evil Eye. If you are spending a lot of time dealing with Highly Evolved Passive-Aggressive types, you may want to invest in some of these. At the very least you may want to pick up a holy symbol or other means of protection and wear it as a shield. If you have been zapped by someone who has been letting their jealousy and rage cook in a cauldron of benevolence, some of the remedies Sophie mentioned in her post may prove efficacious. Do not underestimate the power of the Evil Eye. If you can empower a sigil with a couple minutes of auto-erotic asphyxia, imagine what kind of a charge you can get out of locking your shadow away for a decade or a lifetime.
Author: Kenaz Filan
LadyE's Blog 