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?

If you are going to say something to me, or your customer, make it sincere, make it meaningful, and make it relevant. Otherwise, I mentally check you off – the same way you check people off. And the question here is, are you being checked off?

Consistency of message and expression is important – but NOT ROBOTIC.

Give people leeway to be human.

Boring and insincere typically have 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 10 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.