Pain Letter Example and Comparison: Pain Letter versus Traditional Cover Letter

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1 Page 1 Crafting Compelling Pain Letters Series Pain Letter Example and Comparison: Pain Letter versus Traditional Cover Letter

2 Pain Letter Example Page 2 Here is a sample Pain Letter written by Declan McManus, a Production and Supply Chain professional who is writing to Martin Smith, the VP of Production at Angry Chocolates. October 6, 2014 Martin Smith VP, Production Angry Chocolates 123 Irritation Lane Fieldtown, Massachusetts Dear Martin, Congratulations on making New England Manufacturing s list of Up and Coming Manufacturers in its latest issue! That s a huge milestone for Angry Chocolates. Hats off to you and your team! I can only imagine that forty percent year-over-year growth is pushing your talented Production team to the limit. When I was at Exclusive Candies just before its acquisition by Nestle, we had a similar challenge to keep our loyal domestic customers happy while ramping production to deal with an international roll-out and distribution through Whole Foods. We narrowly pulled it off and hit 90% on-time deliveries throughout the 12 months leading up to the acquisition. Now that Exclusive is a Nestle subsidiary and manufacturing has moved offshore, I m looking for my next challenge. If keeping your production and supply chain operations up to speed as Angry continues to grow is high on your radar screen, I d love to chat when your schedule allows. All the best, Declan McManus

3 Page 3 What are your observations about Declan s Pain Letter to Martin Smith? Write your thoughts here. Comparison: Pain Letter versus Traditional Cover Letter What makes a Pain Letter different from a traditional cover letter? Here are ten of the biggest differences between a Pain Letter and a traditional cover letter. Differences Between Traditional Cover Letters and Pain Letters Element Traditional Cover Letter Pain Letter Target audience Tone Relevance A cover letter is written to no one in particular. It is written for anyone who might read your cover letter. A traditional cover letter is stiff and formal. It says in the Business Frame we all know. A cover letter can only be related to and/or relevant to the job ad that prompted it. Writing a cover letter, we don t know, guess or imagine anything about the employer apart from what we read in the job ad. A Pain Letter is written for an audience of one specific person. You know his or her name and business situation before you start writing. It is personal to that person. A Pain Letter is friendly and conversational. In our example, the job-seeker Declan uses the terms ramping, on your radar screen and hats off, all casual and vernacular terms. The Human Voice in your Pain Letter is one of its most important elements! A Pain Letter is written for maximum relevance. We want your hiring manager to read your Pain Letter and to respond to it! You ve done your research before you begin writing a Pain Letter. You will only write about things that are likely to be highly relevant to your hiring manager. Even the Dragon-Slaying Story you choose for your Pain Letter will be highly relevant to your (single) reader.

4 Page 4 Structure A cover letter generally tells the reader Here is my resume and then addresses the job-seeker s qualifications for the job, based on the job ad. Unfortunately, the job ad often bears little resemblance to the actual needs of the job. Most cover letters resemble one another so strongly that they tend to all look alike. The four-part Pain Letter format opens with a Hook that is intended to interest the reader enough to keep him or her reading the rest of your Pain Letter and your Human-Voiced Resume, which is attached to your Pain Letter. Following the Hook is a Pain Hypothesis, and after that comes one pithy Dragon-Slaying Story that shows how you ve solved a similar sort of Business Pain the type you imagine your hiring manager to be dealing with now. Branding There is little to no branding in a traditional cover letter. Most cover letters sound very much like one another. Your Pain Letter closes with a call to action in the form of an invitation to chat or start an correspondence; that final element of your Pain Letter is called the Closing. A Pain Letter is a branding document. It begins your job-search sales process by introducing the idea that your target hiring manager may be dealing with a type of Business Pain that you can solve. Delivery A traditional cover letter is delivered in the way that the job ad specifies, often electronically. Your branding comes through in your language, your Dragon-Slaying Story and your conversational tone. You are strongly differentiating yourself from other candidates for a job every time you send a Pain Letter to a hiring manager. Your Pain Letter is delivered through the postal service.

5 Page 5 Personality You can infuse some personality into your traditional cover letters. In our experience most jobseekers do not. Your Pain Letter shows your personality. You will address your hiring manager directly, using his or her first name. (For law, healthcare, government, the clergy and financial services, you will use your hiring manager s last name: Mr. Smith, Ms. Barnes, Dr. Peterson). Storytelling Call to action Presumed relationship A traditional cover letter does not use a story-telling approach. A traditional cover letter assumes that the job-seeker will follow the established recruiting process. A traditional cover letter sent through the standard recruiting process assumes that the employer is on a higher plane than the job seeker, and that the jobseeker must follow the established process and essentially beg for a job interview. Your personality comes through your identification of your hiring manager s most likely Business Pain and your Dragon-Slaying Story. Your choice of the Pain Letter approach as opposed to a traditional approach is a sign of your personality, too! Your Pain Letter uses a story-telling approach and one compelling Dragon-Slaying Story to make you come alive for your target hiring manager as s/he reads your letter. Your Pain Letter includes a call to action in its final section, the Closing. You ll say If the issues I m writing about are high on your radar screen or If this topic is a priority for you, let s talk! Your Pain Letter, Human-Voiced Resume and the overall STOP! Don t Send That Resume process assume that the relationship between the job-seeker and the employer is a level relationship. No one is on top and no one is at a lower level. You are simply a business person looking at the ecosystem around you and inquiring as to whether potential partners, clients or employers might be suffering from the sort of Business Pain you solve. What are your thoughts and ideas about the table above, showing the differences between a traditional cover letter and a Pain Letter?

6 Page 6 Try it! Can you compose your own Pain Letter to a real hiring manager on your list, using Declan s Pain Letter as an example?