Why Being Liked Matters

Guest contributor Meg White of REALTOR®Mag says:

Marketing strategist and author Rohit Bhargava explains the value of likability and why personal bonds may matter more than experience.

In your book Likeonomics (John Wiley, 2012), you point out that we make choices based on likability, not always straight-up ability. What would you say to those who find that unfair?

It is unfair. If life were fair, the person who was best on paper would always get the job. But we all know that the world doesn't work that way because people don't make decisions based on logic or as if they were robots. They make decisions based on emotions. There's a lot of new brain science that essentially shows this to be true. Sometimes we do choose the person we have the closer personal bond with, even though maybe that person doesn't have the same amount of experience as someone else.

Real estate professionals may assume strong social ties are always better than weak ones and so may work to strengthen weak ties. Is that a worthwhile endeavor?

Multiple pieces of scientific research actually show that, particularly around job hunting, weak ties are much more valuable to you because they introduce you to people you have no connection to. Also, social media has forced us to redefine what is a strong tie versus what is a weak tie. For example, if I make a decision on whether to buy a product based on a review from someone I don't know on Amazon, is that a strong tie or a weak tie, or is it a tie at all? At the end of the day, it influenced my purchase decision. It's changing the nature of virtual trust versus personal trust. The challenge is that anonymous reviews can influence people's behavior on whether to look for a place in a certain area, whether to trust a certain company or not, or how to price or make offers.