When variables are not processed, chances are you do not have them within a <cfoutput> tag.
<cfoutput>#paragraphFormat( 'Hi ' & firstName & ', your info...' )#</cfoutput>
What we're doing here is concatenating between literal text, like "Hi" and variables that need to be processed (when inside a ColdFusion Built-In Function like ParagraphFormat, you do not need to # the variable name).
