The wrong tone can kill a message. 

A senior associate at Paul Hastings gave a presentation on best practices to junior corporate associates and had bullet points such as “You are online 24/7” and “You are in the big leagues, which is a privilege, act like it.” The slide, titled “Non-Negotiable Expectations,” was meant as a tutorial for what new attorneys should expect in their day-to-day when dealing with clients. The end result was something that sounded like the script from “Boiler Room” or “Wall Street.”