How to build trust in an email? Purpose first. Connection last.
So many of us write using the conventions that stem from face-to-face or in-person communication. When a person is standing in front of you, social conventions say that you ask about that person before proceeding to business. We walk up to a coworker and say “Hey, do you have a sec?” or “How’s your day going?” and after we’ve exchanged a little personal information, we move on to business.
This makes sense because the person is standing in front of us or is on the phone. Our convention of having a quick lead-in to work shows respect for the human person in their human body in front of us.
But writing doesn’t have a body. We read messages from other people while sitting at our computers. There isn’t a body in front of us that we need to acknowledge in the same way.
That doesn’t mean that we aren’t respectful of the human on the other end of our written communication.
But it does mean that we don’t have to start with the little exchanges that happen in person.
The person reading our email is looking at a full inbox, trying to assess what needs to happen when and how do they get rid of most of the messages while doing as little as possible.
That context changes how we communicate.
When we write to each other, we need to put the purpose of the message first–before any polite conversation. The polite conversation is kind and useful, but it is not essential to the message’s purpose.
As I wrote about in January, we need to design messages for how people read. And the very first thing people are reading for in their messages at work is “What is this and what do I need to do about it?”
Let’s answer that question first with an opening sentence that states the purpose of the message:
Here are the instructions for activating your account.
Please join us for our networking event.
Would you know the main compliance issues for 2026?
When would you be able to provide an update on the project?
What inventory do we have in the warehouse?
When we start with the purpose, we make it clear to the reader what the message is about and how much time they will need to spend on the subject, which helps them organize all their responsibilities.
So when do we say the nice thing? Many people have internalized the template to start a message with a phrase like “I hope this email finds you well.” I’m not sure where that got started, but it really isn’t a useful connection message. It’s general. It’s vague. It’s not a question that opens up a connection. It doesn’t serve a purpose other than providing a brief acknowledgement that the other person has a physical body that you hope is well.
I like to use personal connective tissue in my emails, especially with people that I work with regularly, but I like to make it unique:
Hope your daughter’s college search is going well!
Looking forward to seeing you next week!
Great job on that newsletter article!
Whatever you say to connect with the human, it should be as unique as possible, whether that’s specific to the relationship, as demonstrated above, or just saying something that changes each time you write:
Stay warm in all this snow!
Enjoying all this beautiful sunshine!
Hope we can figure this one out together!
And put this connection content at the *end* of the message. It is important, but it is less important than the purpose of the message. The end of the message is the 2nd most valuable real estate in your whole message because it’s the 2nd place that most people will look for important action items and next steps. Having the connection part here means that it will get read, but it will not interfere or prevent the reader from seeing the main content and reason for the message.
Since waiting until the end to say something nice may feel uncomfortable based on what we see so frequently in the workplace, I recommend that folks write the connecting part first, but then copy and paste it to the end before they send the message. That way, the writer feels good about starting the conversation and the reader feels good about how the information is presented with the purpose first and the connection second.