getedgehq Top-down client communication
Tone skills tell you how it sounds. This one tells you what goes first, and why. A perfectly-voiced document with an inverted argument still fails.
The failure this exists to stop
A reviewer, on a proposal page that had already passed three visual rounds: "This is better now, but fix the storyline. Why should we start with this? Think about this from the perspective of a McKinsey consultant, a BCG consultant, and top-down communication."
The page opened with "No automated analysis of the source imagery" — a scope exclusion. It was there for a good reason: the recipient's own experts had beaten a machine benchmark, and liability was their live objection. But a reader's first impression was a disclaimer about something the document was not, and they had to reach section three before learning what was actually being proposed.
Defensive openings feel responsible and read as weak. The instinct to front-load the caveat is exactly the instinct to override.
Rule 1: the governing thought goes first
Minto's pyramid. The first substantive sentence is the answer, not the background, not the topic, not the caveat. Everything below supports it.
| Opening | Verdict |
|---|---|
| "No automated analysis of the source imagery." | Exclusion. What it is not. |
| "Ranking incoming orders by contribution margin" | Topic label. Names a subject, asserts nothing. |
| "At full capacity the question is not how many orders you accept but which ones. The proposal: score every incoming request automatically by expected contribution margin." | The answer. Recommendation + reason, first thing on the page. |
Test: if the reader stops after sentence one, do they know what you want them to do? If not, rewrite sentence one.
Rule 2: action titles, not topic labels
Every section heading states its conclusion. A reader who reads only the headings must get the whole argument. This is the single highest-leverage move and the one most often skipped.
| Topic label (weak) | Action title (right) |
|---|---|
| Background | The bottleneck is capacity, not demand |
| Scoring logic | Five criteria decide what an order is actually worth |
| Example | Two requests the same morning, same effort, different margin |
| The test | Checkable in an hour, before anything is built |
| Effort | A few days to running |
The headline-only test. Strip the body. Read the titles in sequence. If they do not form a coherent argument, the structure is wrong and no amount of body copy will save it.
Rule 3: SCR, and the complication is the whole job
Situation (what both sides agree is true) → Complication (why it cannot stay that way) → Resolution (your recommendation). Most weak documents have a situation and a resolution and no complication, so the recommendation arrives unmotivated.
The complication should be arithmetic where possible: "If you work orders in arrival order rather than by margin, every thin-margin order you accept costs you a fat-margin one." That is a mechanism the reader can check, not an assertion they must accept.
Rule 4: exclusions and caveats are metadata
They belong in a scan strip near the top or a numbered section at the end. Never in the opening position, never as a heading before the recommendation.
The "at a glance" strip solves this: a four-cell row directly under the governing thought.
IN SCOPE NOT IN SCOPE DATA SOURCE NEXT STEP
The order in Automated analysis Accounting exports, 20 to 30 invoices,
which requests of the source not project folders about 1 hour
are worked imagery
The exclusion is visible in the first screen, so nobody can claim it was buried, but it is framed as scope rather than apology. Give it a full section at the end if the objection is serious enough to deserve one.
Rule 5: number the sections
01, 02, 03. Consultants do it because it makes a document referenceable in a meeting ("go back to 02"). It also forces you to notice when you have eleven sections, which means you have no argument, only a list.
Rule 6: one falsifiable next step
End on something specific, small, and capable of failing. Not "let's discuss". The strongest closer names the kill condition:
If the ranking is wrong, the logic is wrong, and the idea is dead.
An offer that can fail is more credible than an offer that cannot, especially to a room that has already been sold to.
Rule 7: MECE, and cut to the load-bearing sections
Sections must not overlap and must not leave a hole in the argument. If two sections make the same point, merge them. If a section supports nothing above it, delete it.
Applied test from the same document: an unrelated reference case sat in the middle of a proposal about order prioritisation. The reviewer's note: "the text is random ... either it goes in the email, or if it goes here, there has to be clear context." It supported a different governing thought, so it belonged in a different artifact. It moved to the covering email and the page got shorter and stronger.
Checklist before shipping
- First substantive sentence is the recommendation, not background or a caveat.
- Headings read alone as a complete argument.
- There is a stated complication, ideally arithmetic.
- Exclusions live in a scan strip or a closing section, never the opening.
- Sections are numbered and MECE.
- The close is one specific, falsifiable next step.
- Nothing on the page supports a different governing thought.
Not covered here
Tone and register: this skill is about argument order, not voice. Length caps for short client messages, and the build and publish mechanics of a share page, are separate concerns.