Max Passino Deboer, Director of Marketing & Membership for The Club at Mediterra in Naples, Fla., offers her guidance on how club leaders can communicate better with their members.
“Ask Max” is a regular feature of C+RB’s monthly Membership + Marketing column, where Max Passino Deboer, Director of Marketing & Membership for The Club at Mediterra in Naples, Fla., answers questions sent in by readers.
The Club at Mediterra is a Distinguished Elite, Platinum Club inside the community of Mediterra, which has been named Community of the Year in Naples 12 times in 16 years.
Max is a veteran hospitality leader with a 15-year hotel career followed by an almost 20-year club career, the last 13 at Mediterra. Max is a proud member of the Membership Directors Association of Southwest Florida, whose program for exchanging ideas and information is unmatched.
Max’s passion is being helpful, so… let’s “Ask Max”!
Dear Max,
I manage communication for my club and my grammar is not the best. I want to take a business writing course, but are there some common mistakes people make that you can share, so I can avoid them?
#rightwriting
Dear Future Editor,
Good for you for caring about professional communication. It is imperative to pay close attention to every message that your club sends out—not only to convey information in the most effective way possible, but because precise and well-selected words will make the deepest impressions.
These days, it is easier to edit what you write with tools like Microsoft Editor or Grammarly. But they don’t always make for perfect messages, because while there may not be a spelling or punctuation error, there could still be a poor choice of words. Here are a few of my “favorite” examples.
• Eager/Anxious – Think: eager “for” and anxious “about”
You can’t be anxious to go on vacation unless you are swimming with sharks.
• Who/That – Think: people are “who” and things are “that”
Members “who” use the club. The bell “that” kept ringing.
• May/Can – Think: permission versus able.
If you ask someone if you can help them, a response might be, I don’t know, can you?
• Affect/Effect – Think: A is for action, so affect is a verb. Effect is a noun.
Your positive attitude affected me greatly and the effect is that I am happy now.
Always be editing,
Max
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