Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries, and Book Proposals: Samples with Templates , by Anne
Hart, ASJA Press Imprint, iUniverse, Inc., Apr. 2004, 294 pages, ISBN: 0-595-31663-8, trains the reader to
position goals or projects first. Browse the book at the publisher’s site at: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-31663-8.
Your cover
letter shouldn’t look like a sales letter. Instead, it should detail with concrete facts how well you fit into a company or family. Create an action verbs resource sheet in alphabetical order and draw on those verbs to show what you can do or what you did that brought profit into the company or harmony into a relationship.
Use words in a cover letter for a resume or a book proposal such as “detailed, activated, accomplished, adapted, advised, demonstrated, designed, detailed, encouraged, entertained, established, edited, enhanced, fixed, generated, identified, inspired, maintained, motivated, operated, persuaded, orchestrated, organized, produced, protected, provided, streamlined, succeeded, supervised, systematized, tested, troubleshot, upgraded, used, validated, visualized, won, or wrote.
A list of active verbs appears in one of the appendices at the back of the book. Select the active verbs that apply to your situation. The point is the active verb needs to show results—the bottom line of how you will bring profit to the company or relationship. Be very concrete and detailed in explaining how you will do this.
A cover letter, a book proposal, or a marriage proposal all use active verbs to show how you will bring in something the other part is seeking—either profit for a company, harmony for a relationship, love for a marriage, and solid explanations of how you will bring in what you promise. Think of your cover letter as a springboard or letter of introduction that brings people together. Without a cover letter on a resume, an employer will have to wade through your entire resume to find out how you will fit into the company.
Your one-page cover letter introduces your resume and communicates a specific message about your value to a company. A great one-page cover letter begins by pitching (in the first sentence) exactly what position you want in a company. Define yourself as a specialist; today's job market belongs to the specialist rather than a generalist. A cover letter also serves as a powerful introduction to (or umbrella for) anything else included in the envelope and is a sample of your communication skills.
Magnet Questions in Your Cover Letter The first paragraph of your cover letter determines whether the reader will finish the letter. For your springboard, don’t let it sound like a spam-filled sales pitch. In the first brief sentence you need a positive magnet. Introduce who you are, your skills, or services. Describe specifically how your skills will be used in the company. Draw the employer toward you by stating how timely your services or skills are to the company. Or use a magnet question such as, "What's the most profitable and powerful resource you have?" You are going to have to position yourself first as the company’s most powerful and profitable resource.
Figure out how you can do it on the scale you are able to do. Then detail this kind of magnet question because it acts as a hook to capture your audience. Use this kind of catalyst magnet for employers, publishers, or clients.
It goes beyond the sales pitch letter even if what you are selling are your skills. The other side sees your skills or services as potential
gauges or measures of profit, results, troubleshooting, problem-solving, or production-increases . That’s what a cover letter is about: making your proposal irresistible .
Your proposal can be your resume or an actual proposal. You have a cover letter as your springboard. Your proposal or resume is your treatment. The offer made by the other side for you to negotiate is your contract. So what’s your pitch? It’s your first sentence and it should summarize everything you want to say in one sentence.
For example, “Star Trek is Wagon Train in space.” Your pitch is not to be viewed as a sales pitch. It’s explaining what you are offering in your first sentence. Define and compare what you are offering to something familiar and universal. If the employer, client, or relative can recognize what you mean, you’ve explained yourself.
That’s what a cover letter pitches in the first sentence: summarizing and explaining what you’re there to do for the person who reads your first sentence. That first few seconds seals the first impression. So pitch in the first sentence of your cover letter without letting the words hint of a sales letter. Try using exclamatory magnets like ‘Velcro’ in the second paragraph of your cover letter.
There are three types:
1. a fear magnet—where you list a series of corporate or business fears and then tell how you'll solve the problems.
2. a story magnet—where you briefly explain how you will provide benefits to the company, using professional expertise or media contacts.
3. an exclamatory magnet or surprising statistics —where you mention surprising numbers or statistics associated with your career that startle the employer in a positive way. Use statistics to grab attention and motivate the reader to think about you.