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Because humans are social animals, being nice is a basic requirement to stay in business. If we want our businesses to last, we must learn to work with people's emotions effectively. We must build relationship equity with our emotional intelligence (EQ.)

Just being nice is not enough however. People tend to buy from us when we have something of value to offer them, above and beyond our niceness. In other words, niceness doesn’t matter if we cannot salve our customers’ pain.

Being nice, however, is extremely valuable when it comes to building long-term repeat custom. Selling features (and price in some markets) get the new customers in. Being nice keeps them coming back.

Niceness may not work in certain markets at all. Examples are highly-commoditised and low-seller visibility markets like selling products on stock photography/video, crafts and general auction sites.