472: Turning Your OOO Into Member Engagement w/ Denny Corby

Holiday season at the club means packed banquet sheets, nonstop member events, and inboxes that will not quit, so let us turn that boring out of office reply into a tiny hospitality win. In this episode, I walk you through a simple way to turn your autoresponder from a dead end into a warm, useful touchpoint that actually drives engagement. You will hear a real world example from my buddy and fellow club pro, Sean Bleyl, whose OOO emails use playful subject lines, personal details, and smart links to feel human and helpful.

We talk through easy plug and play ideas for every role at the club. Chefs can drop a seasonal recipe or tease the New Years Eve menu, golf pros can link a winter warm up or holiday scramble registration, and events teams can push a wine dinner or family night with direct RSVP links. Underneath it all is a simple idea, hospitality lives in the little moments. Update that one tiny setting in your inbox and you will set better expectations, get more smiles, and quietly nudge members toward the next best thing at your club.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage For Holidays
• 0:27 The Case Against Boring OOO
• 1:38 Sean’s Autoresponder Masterclass
• 2:41 Turn OOO Into A Mini Newsletter
• 3:20 Role-Based Ideas For Every Department
• 4:03 Use “Busy Season” As A Feature
• 5:00 The Little Things That Drive Loyalty
• 6:45 Final Reminders And CTA

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to the Private Club Radio Show, where we give you the scoop on all things private golf and country clubs from mastering leadership and management, food and beverage excellence, member engagement secrets, board governance, and everything in between, all while keeping it fun and light. Whether you're a club veteran, just getting your feet wet, or somewhere in the middle, you are in the right place. I'm your host, Denny Corby. Welcome to the show. In this episode, once again, it's a short but really important one. We are heading into the Holocaze. You're busy, I'm busy. Your club's probably slammed. You have banquets, you have member events, you have emails, but in the middle of all of this craziness, you probably are gonna slap on an out-of-office email and an out-of-office autoresponder. And chances are it's probably gonna be boring. Probably gonna be generic, personality free, very cold. I'll be out of the office with limited access to my email. Come on, we all know. We all know that's a lie. You're checking it on your phone while you're hiding in the bathroom from your families. We do it. We all do it. Um, but we can do better. And not just for this year, but moving forward. So let's make your out-of-office email something worth reading. It doesn't have to be cold and it doesn't have to be that serious. To me, a good out of office email is a chance to show some personality, to connect with whether it's your members, your people, your staff, your team, um, and even a great place to plug things that are happening in and around your world, in and around, in and around your club. And most of us for an out-of-office email, we waste that opportunity. Now, real quick, let me get you started as to where this idea and where this episode came from. Um, because as you know, I gotta tell you about my my good buddy Sean Blyle, fellow club pro, members first, amazing, amazing human. And he has the most amazing out-of-office emails and autoresponders. There was one I got from him a few weeks ago. Even the subject line just started off great. There was an emoji with some books, and it said school's out equals Sean's out. And then in parentheses, well, I've got something for you inside. Right away, fun, light, the emoji in the subject line. What what a welcoming thing to see for me personally. Um and then in the email, it was so personal, it was so personable, it was so him. Yeah, in the email, he said, uh, the kids have off today, so I'm spending time with them. Pretty sure they're not interested in raking leave, so we're probably gonna be figuring out Halloween costumes in instead. Boom. There's personality, there's relatability, and uh, you know, he's a good dude, you know he's a good human, and it gives you something to connect with um, you know, on a human on a human-to-human basis, on a human-to-human level. But then here's a genius part is in the email, he also adds a link to some upcoming webinars, recent some recent showcasing of some of their client stuff, uh, ways for you to book a meeting with him and a clear contact in case you do need help with something, uh, you know, ASAP. So literally almost turning your out of office email into a mini newsletter, and it works and it's personal and it's helpful and it's friendly and it's useful. And it made me think we can all do this. We can all utilize this in what we do. So think about how you how you can use it at your club. You're the chef. Uh, maybe you're gonna be out, you drop a holiday recipe in there, um, something to something easing for easy for them to uh try out, your favorite recipe this week, or something that you read and thought was interesting. Uh sneak peek at the New Year's Eve menu. Uh you're the golf pro. So maybe it's a link to a new warm-up or something to do in the cold months. If you're up north in the cold where I am now and it's freezing, I'm looking at snow outside. Uh, or a re you know, a reminder to register for the holiday scramble. Um, if you're in events and marketing, you can plug the weekend's wine dinner. You could plug the amazing comedy, magic, and mind reading show by Denny Corby that you booked. Shameless plug. And speaking of shameless plug, if you or your club is looking for one of the most fun member event nights for 2026 and even 2027, booking far in advance. Reach on out dennycorby.com from fun member event nights, um, golf tournaments, member events. I do really well at these stag events uh because the show is very crowd work focused. So it's a way for me to have some playful jabbing, uh, mixing the magic, mind reading, and the comedy all in one. It's a really great experience. If you want to learn more, head over to dennycorby.com. But you're picking up what I'm putting down, making it personal, making it you, getting people, giving people a little sneak peek behind the behind the curtain. Taking a long weekend with the with the fam, but here's what's coming up at the club that I'm really excited about. Literally any department, any role, you can add a spark of personality and sneak helpful info into your OOO. And here's the fun part is since it's the holidays and clubs are usually always busy around the holidays and just generally busy, um, you can pretend you're out of office just to set up a fun autoresponder. So with the craziness of the holidays coming up, you can say something like, Hey, we're in full holiday event mode, might be a little slower than usual getting back to you, but while we're here, while you're here, did you sign up for the holiday gala yet? Here's the link. Did you do that? Right, giving people a call to action. This is that time of year. My inbox is wilder than the Black Friday sales last week. So while you wait, check out what's going on in the club this week. You know, something easy, simple, effective. And I think the bigger point, the bigger picture of all of this, it's, you know, we we we talk about in clubs and higher-end hospitality, touch points, member engagement, and all these big ideas. But sometimes it's it's these, it's the little things. It's these little things. It's an out-of-office email that is a tiny moment of surprise. It's a it's a potential to give somebody a smile, a spark of delight, a reminder that they're not just a facility, you're not just a place. They're a club where you're welcomed and you're appreciated and where we love to have people and we love to have you. And and these little things add up over time. Our buddy Joe Joe Smith has a podcast all about the little things, right? It's these little things that add up. These are why people renew. This is why they show up. It's why they tell their friends. So as we're heading into this crazy December, before you're taking a few days off, remember before you slam the out of office on, add some you into it, make it fun, give people something useful, make it a little better than it was last time. Just like what we try to do every day, a little bit better every day, a little bit better than yesterday. Uh, just like what we're all trying to do here in the industry and in our lives, right? It's not rocket science, it's not anything crazy, it's just hospitality, it's just the people business. And it's giving people a really great experience. So that's it. That's this episode. Appreciate all of you listeners. If you're enjoying the content this holiday season, you can help me out. Give me a five star review on whatever platform you are consuming this content on. You want to book some fun entertainment? Hit me up, dennycorby.com. But that's this episode. Until next time, catch y'all on the flippity flip.