www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | MAY 2016 27
Recently I was working on a bid to
provide highway diesel for a major uni-
versity's fleet of buses. Per my usual
process I printed the 40-some-odd
pages and sat down with a highlighter
and stack of Post-It notes. Pretty soon
I found myself wishing I had a red pen;
this bid was full of low-level errors. Chief
among them:
"Bid can be terminated at the dis-
cretion of (School name here) on the
basis of poop performance."
Now, the procurement department
is completely separate from the instruc-
tional faculty and not representative of
the education one receives at this insti-
tution. Procurement officers do not
teach classes. Still, I found myself won-
dering what in the world was going on
at this university! Who is this person's
boss? Did they
approve this?
In one single
document the
opinion of the
p r o f e s s i o n -
alism of this
huge organi-
zation was put
into doubt.
In the age of informal digital commu-
nication where letters suffice for phrases
and "I" is no longer in need of capitaliza-
tion it is easy to overlook such errors and
make the dangerous assumption no one
will notice or care. If your customers read
your website and can pick out multiple
grammatical and spelling errors will they
still trust you to pump heating oil into
their basement tank at a rate of 75 gallons
per minute? Maybe, but why risk it? It's
worth the investment to have someone
review drafts of your website or direct mail
pieces and point out errors or inconsisten-
cies before your customers or (equally
important) your competitors see them.
A professional proofreader isn't
always required; any fresh set of literate
eyes is an excellent start. The spelling
and grammar checks built into word
processing software rarely catch mis-
takes in tense (deliver vs. delivered)
and often miss improper use of they're
and there. This is your company image
on the line; your brand. Get multiple
reviews of your information before it
goes to print.
l F O N
Misty Sexton is vice president of sales
and marketing for Space Petroleum, a
wholesale fuel brokerage supplying petro-
leum products to the Mid-Atlantic States.
She can be reached via email at Misty.
Sexton@SpacePetroleum.com.
BRANDING in LANGUAGE
