This Is The One Word You Should Never Start An Email With

Unlike shooting off a quick PM to your friend on Facebook or dropping a message into your mates’ WhatsApp group, sending off an email to your boss, colleagues or a work contact can be one helluva tricky business.

Get your tone wrong and you could come across as sharp, unprofessional or rude. Get it really wrong and you could land yourself a disciplinary or lose a client.

But before you start planning those lengthy paragraphs or deciding how you should sign off, you should look at your opener, because according to Lowes Corportion co-chairman M. Tisch, it’s how you start your email that has the biggest impact.

Tisch explains that if there’s one thing that will put any email recipient off, it’s kicking off your email with the word ‘I’. Why so? It’s considered bad etiquette as it immediately makes the email all about you.

“My boss told me that whenever you’re writing a letter — and now it applies to emails today — never start a paragraph with the word ‘I,’” he explained to The New York Times. “[It] immediately sends a message that you are more important than the person that you’re communicating with.”

So what should you do?

Always start your email with a greeting (E.g. Dear Lillian) and address the recipient first, before you begin talking about yourself. A small ‘thank you for getting in touch’ or a ‘Hope you are well’ can go a long way. Once you’ve done this you can go ahead and state your purpose clearly.

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