Getting Personal or Staying Formal With an Address

You're writing to a top manager or company owner about how to solve a problem they have and which you or your company know you has a new, effective and lower cost solution than what is currently in use by your client. The person you're addressing is female and you want to make sure you use a type of address that is businesslike and appropriate.

Why should you bother? Until you know your client and she trusts what you're saying, you're effectively on trial. Any mistake is magnified. Therefore, this reality alone is sufficient reason to pay attention to the details and learn all you can to help make the best presentation.

You resolve that you don't want to hamper your efforts before you've even had a chance to present your proposal, so you're happy to put in the extra effort and consideration. Excellent! That's a good attitude to adopt.

Key tip: first contact between strangers can be fragile at the best of times. One or both parties may be suspicious of the other. Your job as key communicator is to break down this barrier first. You need to demonstrate that you have applied consideration and forethought.

Consider the following points:

• Given enough time, your first instinct is to try to find out more about this person, but you can't risk any possible misunderstanding getting back to the client. However, let's imagine you don't have the luxury of time. You must make a move now. You decide that you'll simply evaluate what you know and get the job done.
• People naturally like to be addressed in the way they prefer, so when writing or speaking to a specific person, when possible, do the background research to make sure you know the details.
• For example, we may use "Miss" to address an unmarried woman; "Mrs." to refer to a married woman, and perhaps"Ms." when communicating to a woman taking no account of her marital status.
• Although, perhaps many women may prefer to be addressed using the neutral label "Ms.", some may see that as slightly offensive and equally prefer "Miss" or "Mrs."
• For the purposes of this article, your job is to simply know the right form of address. If you already know which preference your female addressee prefers, you have your answer which to use. However, if you don't already know, or you are addressing a wider general audience, I suggest using "Ms." until or unless you're corrected.

Key tip: when you know what form of address is correct, make sure you update your customer record database to ensure future communications can be maintained without any such little annoyances entering the negotiation arena.

Another option is to avoid the issue altogether and use a first- and last-name combination such as:

• "Dear Jane Smith..." once on your first salutation line.
• Then use the personal identifiers "you" and "your", etc., throughout the body of your message.