Chinese New Year will soon be over at the time of this writing. I still remember that many years ago, when I was still a young boy (ok..it’s not really THAT many years ago), my friends and I used to send Chinese New Year greeting cards to each other. Some of those cards were from outer space abroad while others were from my schoolmates. It was a very nice and heart-warming thing for me since I was able to read all those nicely written cards….one by one. I particularly fancied those cards which were from girls have lots of written content.

Why?

Because, to me, those cards were valuable - they showed sincerity because each was written (not typed)…and each required some time and efforts.

Coming back to the NOW, such greeting cards are no longer popular. Kids nowadays prefer to send e-cards or electronic greeting cards. It’s not entirely bad, since they’re saving a lot of trees. But to me, these cards lack sincerity. Well, they can basically copy paste the content to all those e-cards, or they can just send a single e-card to a multiple recipients.

Can this be considered sincere?

For businesses, the traditional greeting cards are still being used, but nearly all of them are been printed and not hand-written. This does improve readability since you will be surprised at how poor some people’s handwriting is. But again, to me, this lacks sincerity since one can easily create tonnes of those cards as long as one has $$. Maybe a good combination is to have customized messages printed on each of the card.

Similarly, when you send an email to a few people (whether you’re inviting them for a dinner, or proposing a business deal, or trying to sell them your products), a “standard” content will always sound and look not-so-nice and thus, inefficient. However, a customized content which is suitable for that particular recipient, will be much more effective.

Let’s face it, everyone prefers (and wants) to deal with people who are sincere. If you are sending me emails which are not unique at all, I seriously would not pay much attention.

Oh, and don’t think you can cheat people by trying to make it as unique as possible. Because some people WILL know if the email is not sincere…and you wouldn’t want them to know that.

That’s why it’s always better to spend some time and efforts to show your sincerity. Remember, in a world where competition is stiff….being sincere will help you a lot.