When someone tells me to “Have a nice day,” I don’t think they mean it. I think they’re just saying it as a kind of mundane, almost impolite, form of politeness. Forced nicety. Said out of habit, not sincerity. To me, it’s not just thoughtless, it’s also meaningless. Heck, half the time people don’t even look at you when they say it.
Oh, they don’t mean it as an insult. People say, “Have a nice day,” because they don’t know what else to say. Or don’t care what they say. Or they are trained to say it.
But think about it. Do they only mean THAT day? Do they want me to have a crappy tomorrow? Or they will go so far as to say, “Have a good rest of the week.” What does that mean, I’m going to have a horrible weekend? Or month? Or year? Or life?
Boring and insincere typically has a way of permeating everything else in a company. The color of your logo.
The politically correctness of your slide show.
The stuffiness of your business card.
The boringness of your job title.
Who cares? ONLY YOU! (Your marketing people, your ad agency, yada, yada) Anyone preparing “boring” marketing tools in this day and age should be forced to take that crap out on a sales call and see how CUSTOMERS perceive it or care ten cents about it.
The key word is SINCERITY.
The secondary word is DIFFERENTIATION.
Here are some GOLDEN opportunities to be creatively sincere:
• At the fast food window
• When customers walk in your store
• When customers pay for something
• When customers board the plane
• When customers are about to order in a restaurant
• When customers are sent an invoice
These are all opportunities to prove differentiation, be sincere, and even WOW the customer!
What about you? How sincere are you?
Here are 4 things you can do tomorrow without anyone’s permission:
• Look me in the eye. Make sure there’s a locked-in moment
• Say something slightly different. “You’re all set.” vs. “Thanks for your business.”
• Shake my hand like you mean it. Firm, with eye contact.
• Smile. When you smile, it makes others smile.
IDEA: Make a goal to create 12 smiles a day through your words, actions or deeds. Creativity and sincerity will automatically materialize.
Have a nice day!
