•  Review various types of business letters to sharpen your writing. •  Find out the must-have components for each type of letter.

As you learned in Part I of this series, building a powerful $100,000-plus portfolio of job-search materials is vital to your success. You learned how to market your personal brand with the use of an executive portfolio, starting with the executive resume. This time, we'll address the importance of letters to your $100,000-plus job search, including cover letters, networking letters, interview follow-up letters and venture capital letters. Let's look at the key components and messages for each:

Today's $100,000-plus cover letter is best characterized as a one-page marketing document designed to sell the qualifications, experience, knowledge and expertise you have that are closely related to a particular company, position and/or industry. Although your resume may give a solid overview of your entire career, your letter is most effective when customized to a particular opportunity.

A cover letter is a hard-hitting communication focused on success, value and achievement, and will often include specific numbers or percentages to quantify particular results. It is a quick and easy read with short paragraphs and/or bulleted listings of items. It is essential that a prospective employer or recruiter can quickly peruse your letter and clearly identify your key messages.

Consider this visual image of the letter-writing process: Take everything about your career and lay it out on the table. Then select the three to five items most relevant to a specific opportunity and use them as that cover letter's foundation.

Your cover letter is also the appropriate vehicle for responding to requests for salary history and requirements. You can answer those requests in one of three ways:

1. With Specific Numbers: My compensation requirements are $125,000.
2. With a Range: My salary requirements are in the $200,000 to $250,000 range.
3. By Ignoring Them: Research has repeatedly demonstrated that if you do not supply this information when requested but are a well-positioned candidate, you will be contacted nonetheless.

When writing your $100,000-plus networking letter, ask your network for help, not for a job. What you want are contacts, leads, referrals and open doors. If you ask your contacts for a job, they'll tend to shy away. If you ask for their help, most will be willing to do whatever they can.

Your networking letter's formality will depend on how well you know the person you are writing. If it's a close business colleague, your letter can be casual and friendly in tone, mentioning your overall career objectives and, perhaps, your two most notable achievements. If you're writing to a CEO that you briefly met, a more formal tone and more traditional cover letter (as outlined above) are appropriate.

Your $100,000-plus interview follow-up letter is best referred to as a second-tier marketing letter. It's your chance to sell yourself again. After the interview, you should have a wealth of information about the company, its principals, core operations and specific challenges it is facing. Use that information as the foundation on which to build your thank-you letter by highlighting skills, experiences, achievements and more from your background that are directly related to that organization's needs and expectations. You can also use the letter to offset any objections to your qualifications that may have arisen during the interview.

It is not unusual that interview follow-up letters will be longer than one page. It's fine. You already have a captive audience so use that to your advantage. Although you certainly do not want to ramble on, you do want to communicate all that you believe is vital to your candidacy.

This type of marketing-driven thank-you letter will give you a tremendous advantage over competitors who write the traditional "thanks for the interview; can't wait to hear from you" letter.

The audience for your $100,000-plus venture capital letter is unique. They're investors, looking for new ventures, turnaround opportunities and top-flight executives to manage them. These letters are straightforward and succinct. Clearly communicate your specific expertise and its value to the VC firm and/or its portfolio companies. Keep these letters as short as possible, but be sure to highlight the following:

• Experience with startup and emerging growth companies, reorganizations and high-growth ventures.
• Deal-making experience, such as IPOs, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, private placements, debt and equity loans, joint ventures, strategic alliances and more.
• P&L experience and specific achievements in revenue and profit growth (either dollars or percentages).
• International experience.
• Unique technical, scientific or engineering expertise.

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