Moving Along: The Rest of Your First Paragraph

Another must for your first paragraph is an action statement in the third or fourth line that gives your readers the nugget of your information. Then, even if they only skim the rest of your document or read a line or two of the body and throw the rest away, you’ll up your chances of eliciting the response you want. Look at this example:

Thank you for contacting us about the difficulty you had collecting your baggage at the Oakland airport. We are very sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. As you know, traveling can create problems of this sort regardless of how careful the airline personnel might be.

To receive compensation, please send us a detailed list of the items that you lost and complete the gray areas of the enclosed form.

Although apologizing for the organization’s mistakes is essential, customers want results. By the second paragraph, the reader is already frustrated and may even have picked up the phone to call the customer relations department. Or, the reader may have merely skimmed the second paragraph and sent back an incomplete form. By relocating information, the company is more likely to get the results it wants:

We are very sorry for the inconvenience you experienced regarding your lost luggage. So that you can receive compensation as quickly as possible, please send us a detailed list of the items that you lost and complete the gray areas of the enclosed form.

Sometimes you simply want to give your readers important information. Again, get that important information into the second or third line of your introductory paragraph:

Thank you for contacting us with your concerns about our recent merger with Kell Company. Please be assured, we are combining forces and do not intend to lay off any of the customer representatives you know and trust. In addition, we will keep the branch on Holmes Street open for the usual hours.

In other cases, the point of your opening, particularly for an instructional piece or proposal, is to entice your readers to keep reading. Give them an immediate reason:

As you will see in the following proposal, Thomson and Hart can save you up to $500,000 a year while providing significantly better service than what you currently receive.

When writing instructions, mention advantages first, actions second. This gives your readers a reason for taking the appropriate steps — completely and in the order you provided:

Congratulations on purchasing the Bouncy Bouncer — a fun way for infants from four to fourteen months to build their muscles while improving their coordination. To quickly and easily assemble your Bouncy Bouncer, please follow these instructions carefully.

Finally — Don’t stumble on these unsettling openings

Make sure you don’t stumble over otherwise smooth openings by falling into these tired traps.

Oldies but not goodies. Sometimes you need to write about an event — an important meeting, a precedent-setting legal decision, or a new product announcement — that occurred several weeks ago. Several weeks isn’t long . . . in a person’s lifetime. But it’s eons in the business world. That’s why you should never begin a newsletter article, brochure, sales letter, or almost any other document with a date that’s more than one day old. Look at this example from a memo to employees at a computer software company that was dated September 15: On September 10, President Ron Foreman announced that he would be resigning after a decade with the company. He made this announcement at the Board of Trustees’ annual retreat.

The opening — September 10 — is hardly interesting. This alternative is certainly an improvement:

President Ron Foreman will resign after a decade with the company. He announced his decision at the annual Board of Trustees’ retreat on September 10.

If you’re telling the reader about today’s event or a procedure that will begin immediately, start with the date. This is especially important for memos, call-for-action letters, press releases, and newsletter articles for weekly publications. Here are examples from a press release and a memo:

Today, Mission, Inc., announced that it has launched the third in its series of software products.

On June 14, the company will move to the Walnut Building.

Old dates are boring, but really old dates — from 25 to 250 years old — become interesting again. For example, notice how the date intrigues the reader in this paragraph from a citizen committee’s action letter:

In 1930, Subsquant County was in trouble. The depression had just become a reality and the citizens were scared. In 1997, Subsquant County is in trouble again. The city council wants to implement new tax laws that will throw our county back to the bleak economic climate of 60 years past.

No-name openings. Everyone loves gossip. The newspaper and television news is loaded with whos rather than whats, telling us more about military leaders than the causes they fight for, more about the personalities in the Senate than the policies they expound. For this reason, try to start your document with a who, such as the company president, a controversial or much-loved local political figure, or a celebrity:

Colin Powell will deliver the keynote address.

But beware of starting your piece with an unknown’s name. For example, if you’re writing an announcement for a special training session, don’t say:

Dr. Gilbert Milton, psychologist and stress specialist, will speak about stress-relieving techniques this Friday in Conference Room B.

After all, why should your readers care about some stranger? On the other hand, his position is interesting. Look at the difference in this line:

Psychologist and stress specialist Dr. Gilbert Milton will speak about stress-relieving techniques this Friday in Conference Room B from 1:00 to 2:00.

Of course, you could jazz up your message in these ways:

Stressed? Then relax and learn how to stay relaxed with psychologist and stress specialist Dr. Gilbert Milton this Friday in Conference Room B from 1:00 to 2:00.

If you want to relax in Bermuda but don’t have a plane ticket, do the next best thing and attend psychologist and stress specialist Dr. Gilbert Milton’s seminar on stress-relieving techniques this Friday in Conference Room B from 1:00 to 2:00.