A Client Judges You by How You Treat Other People

Imagine a private chef named Odile Ferrand. Mrs. Halvorsen needs a chef for a dinner for 10, and her house manager, Peter Dunmore, gives her Odile’s name. An hour before the guests arrive, Mrs. Halvorsen comes into the kitchen with a glass of wine and stays to talk.

Odile is plating the first course, and she talks while she works. She tells a story about another family she cooks for. “The husband says he can’t eat garlic. Then I find him in the kitchen at midnight, eating the leftovers out of the pan.” Mrs. Halvorsen laughs.

When the talk turns to anniversaries, Odile mentions that she cooked the Ashgroves’ anniversary dinner at their lake house in June. Most people in town know the Ashgroves. Mrs. Halvorsen has not asked about them.

Then Mr. Dunmore comes in with the seating plan. Mrs. Halvorsen asks whether Odile could cook for her every week. “I’d love to,” Odile says. “I’ll give you my number, and you can text me the dates yourself. No need to go through Peter.”

The dinner is excellent. After the guests leave, Mrs. Halvorsen says to her husband, “By Christmas, someone will be hearing a story about us. And she cut Peter out the minute she met me. Once we’re booked, she’ll treat us the way she treats him.” She does not book the weekly dinners. Mr. Dunmore heard every word. When another family asks him for a chef, he gives a different name.

Suppose instead that Odile keeps the kitchen talk to the dinner. She tells Mrs. Halvorsen that the halibut came off a boat that morning, and she asks who is coming tonight. When the talk turns to anniversaries, she asks about the Halvorsens’ own.

When Mrs. Halvorsen asks about cooking every week, Odile says, “I’d love to. Peter and I can work out the days.” Mrs. Halvorsen books the weekly dinners, and Mr. Dunmore and Odile settle on Tuesdays. When another family asks Mr. Dunmore for a chef, he gives Odile’s name.

Odile cooked the same dinner both times. What changed was how she spoke about the people who were not in the kitchen, and how she treated Mr. Dunmore. Odile thought of the kitchen talk as off the record. Mrs. Halvorsen took it as a preview of how Odile would treat her once she was the one out of the room.

Three parts of what you do off the record reach a client. They are how you speak about other clients, whether you drop names, and how you treat the person who opened the door. Here is why each one counts.

What you say about someone else becomes part of how people see you

In 1998, John Skowronski and three colleagues published a set of studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. They found that when a person describes someone else’s qualities, listeners come to see the speaker as having those same qualities. The link lasted over time, and it changed what listeners thought the speaker was like.

The link formed even when there was no logical reason for it. The researchers concluded that the link is automatic. Listeners do not reason their way to it.

Those were listeners in a study, and the step to a client’s kitchen is the course’s own. Here is the step. When Odile told the garlic story, she described a client who says one thing and does another. Part of that description stays with the person telling it. A complaint works the same way. Call a client difficult, and the word stays near you, whether or not the client listening agrees.

A writer for interior designers warns that a client wonders what you will say about them

Kevin Law writes a newsletter for DesignerLogic, a company that makes software interior designers use to run their projects. In a post from April 2024, he compares a designer to a therapist. A designer, he writes, will know “exactly what their private, intimate spaces look like, which pieces are most valued and where they came from, and how much everything costs.”

He gives the same tip twice in the post. A designer, he writes, should not talk about other projects “in too intimate detail because your client will wonder if you’ll be talking about them in that way too.”

His tip is about detail, not names. A story can leave out every name and still tell the client what you will say about them to the next client. Mrs. Halvorsen did not know whose husband ate from the pan. She knew that her own kitchen could be the next story.

Dropping a famous name made people seem less likeable and less competent

In 2008, the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest described a study of name-dropping by Carmen Lebherz and two colleagues. The study appeared in the journal Social Influence. Students in Switzerland read an email that seemed to come from a student they would be paired with later. Some of the emails claimed a friendship with the tennis player Roger Federer. Others said the writer was a fan, and some did not mention him at all.

The students who read about the friendship rated the writer as less likeable and less competent than the other students did. The claim made the writer seem manipulative. Being a fan did no harm, and it did no good either.

Those were students and a tennis star, and the step to a client is the course’s own. Here is the step. In a wealthy town, a family like the Ashgroves is the famous name. When Odile mentioned their anniversary without being asked, she made the same move as the Federer email. Mrs. Halvorsen also heard that her own name could be the next one dropped.

Answering a client who asks who you work for is a different case. Naming a client who has given permission answers a question the client asked. A name-drop answers a question nobody asked.

People dislike someone who is nice to the boss and unpleasant to the staff

In 1998, the psychologist Roos Vonk reported five experiments in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. In the first two, people judged someone who was pleasant to the people above them and unpleasant to the people below them. They found that person extremely unlikeable.

Being pleasant to the people above made others suspect a motive. Seeing the same person be unpleasant to the people below confirmed it. People spotted the pattern without being told to look for it, however much or little time they had.

Those were experiments about people of higher and lower rank, and the step to a household’s staff is the course’s own. Here is the step. The person who opened the door works for or around the household and gave the owner your name. It might be a house manager, an assistant, or a planner. Once you are hired, the owner is the one paying you. So it is easy to be warm with the owner and brisk with the person who opened the door. That is the pattern people disliked in Vonk’s experiments.

Odile told Mrs. Halvorsen there was no need to go through Mr. Dunmore. In one sentence, she was warm with the owner and careless with the man who recommended her. Mrs. Halvorsen saw the pattern. She was asking whether Odile would be the same next time, once the weekly dinners were booked. The way Odile treated Mr. Dunmore answered it.

Why praising another client in detail goes wrong

Imagine a personal stylist named Wren Abiodun who is meeting Mrs. Castell to plan her autumn clothes. Wren is between two appointments, and she wants Mrs. Castell to see how far her work can go. “One of my clients has the same loafer in 14 colors,” she says, “and a whole wall just for coats. I organized all of it.” She means it as praise, for the client and for the work.

Mrs. Castell knows a few women in town who might own 14 pairs of the same loafer. She also has a closet she would rather nobody described. She books Wren to shop with her for one afternoon, and she does not show Wren her closet.

Wren said nothing unkind, and she did not name anyone. Her mistake was the detail. A client’s closet, kitchen, or bank balance is private whether you praise it or complain about it. The version that works describes the work and leaves the client’s house out of it. “I set up closets so that every coat can be seen at once. I can show you how that would work in yours.”

Keeping other clients out of the talk does not leave you with nothing to say

Stories about clients make up much of what a professional has to talk about. Without them, the hour in a client’s kitchen can feel long, and it is easy to worry about seeming cold.

Two other subjects are left, and both serve you better. The first is the client, because a person’s favorite subject is their own life. The second is the work itself. In the second version of her evening, Odile talked about the halibut and asked about the guests and the Halvorsens’ anniversary. She did not tell a story about anyone who was not there. Mrs. Halvorsen booked her every week.

How to treat the people who are not in the room

1. Before you tell a story about another client, ask yourself whether you would tell it with that client standing beside you. If not, leave it out. The test is the course’s own, and its reason is that the client listening could be in the next story. For example, a caterer can tell the story of the wedding where the power failed and she finished on a camping stove. The couple tells it too.
2. Leave out the details of another client’s home, money, and family, even with no name attached. Leave them out when you mean them as praise, too. Talk about the work instead. For example, a specialist realtor can say, “I sold a house on the bluff last spring that had sat on the market for two years.” He leaves out why the owners were selling.
3. Bring up a client’s name only when the client in front of you has asked. Name only a client who has given permission. For example, an event planner who wants to show she can run a large wedding can say, “Last June I planned a wedding for 300 on a farm with no kitchen.” She leaves the family’s name out.
4. Keep treating the person who opened the door the way you did before you were hired. Tell them first about anything that touches their part of the job, and do not go around them to the owner. For example, when an owner asks a dog walker for a Saturday walk, he can say, “I’d be glad to. I’ll work out a time with your house manager.”
5. When a client asks what another client is like, talk about your own work instead. For example, a tutor can say, “I keep my families to myself. I can tell you how I would work with Theo.”

Next: You will see how to come across as a peer and an expert from the first minute of the first meeting.