Nice. It's the four letter word we need to hear more of. I don't know about you, but I think we seem to be back to the days of ‘lunch is for wimps.' We're surrounded by a cut-throat business environment where workers think nothing of trampling on each other in the fight for profits. And if you haven't squished a competitor by lunchtime then you're weak.

You can probably tell that watching films like ‘Wall Street' where every day begins with a three large cups of coffee, and every interaction, even between employees is shouted, sends shivers down my spine. That's not my idea of fun.

I believe in being nice.

You should know that I'm not some ‘save the world' Greenpeace tree hugging, carob eating idealist. If you are, that's fine. I'm realistic and optimistic, and I know that despite my best efforts I'm not going to please everyone, but I do try. And I believe it's the right thing to do, as this example illustrates…

I recently read in an issue of Entrepreneur magazine about the CEO of a company called ‘Kaplan Thaler' – they're an advertising agency. The CEO is Linda Kaplan and she related how both a team from her company and a rivals had been working on a campaign for a client. When it came time for both companies to present, they were all in the same room together in front of the client. Kaplan's team went first and their presentation was met with crossed arms and stony faces from their competitors. Clearly, this was war.

However, Kaplan's team listened attentively to the other presentation and at the end, they smiled and applauded, indicating that they thought their competition had done a nice job.

Well, it was really interesting what happened next. When Kaplan when returned to her office the client called and gave her the contract because of the way her team had reacted to the other presentation. Kaplan also continued to receive a further profitable stream of jobs from that same client. There's more. Several employees of the competitive company left their posts to go and work for Kaplan's firm, again based on their observation of how nice Kaplan'sA nice result from being nice the team had been to them.

Applying this to your eBay or online business is easier than you might think. Even a little effort will make you stand out from the crowd (in a good way).

Analyze every interaction with your customers from the very first to the last moment. And recognize that many interactions take place without you realizing. We're not talking just about the few occasions when you might actually physically see or talk to a customer. When someone reads your eBay listing, reads an answer to their question, buys an item, receives it in the mail, those are all interactions. You did your part in advance, but the interaction still takes place, and you'll be judged by how that interaction went in the mind of the customer.

“many interactions take place without you realizing.”

Think about this. On a day to day basis you make similar judgments about businesses that you deal with, based on all these kinds of factors just mentioned. That's the reality. And we talk about those experiences to our friends, don't we?

I guess the problem with ‘nice' is that it doesn't get much respect. ‘Nice' doesn't seem cool, it tends to stay in the background. But I believe we all need to break out ‘nice' more often.

I know from my own experience that it's the smallest favors, gestures and compliments that mean the most to me. A warm, genuine smile for example. That can't be faked. But how many employees offer that these days? Sadly, not many. The best hotel I've ever stayed in was a small, 12 room hotel in Scotland where every staff member was super nice – genuinely - not to try and win a tip. When you consider that I've stayed at literally hundreds of hotels over the years, that's no small achievement. That's the power of nice. It pays to be nice.

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