Why Small Talk Fails and What Works Instead

Imagine a specialist realtor named Caleb Mortensen who sells houses on the lake. A neighbor, Tom Lind, has given his name to Mrs. Whitcombe. She is selling the house she has lived in for 30 years. Caleb arrives at two on a Tuesday. “What a day,” he says at the door. “And what a street. I’ve always loved this end of the lake.” Mrs. Whitcombe says that it is lovely, and she shows him to the kitchen.

She has had two other agents in the house this week, and both of them said the street was lovely. So she takes Caleb’s sentence as the part of the visit that is the same at every house. She waits for the part that is about hers. Caleb gives his presentation, and she says she will decide by Friday. She lists with the second agent.

Suppose instead that Caleb asks Tom Lind about her before he goes. Tom says that the garden was the Whitcombes’ whole life for 30 years. At the door, Caleb says, “Tom told me the garden is the reason people slow down on this street. Did you plant all of it?”

Mrs. Whitcombe takes him out the back door before he has seen the kitchen. She talks for ten minutes about the apple trees, the winter the pond froze, and the family she hopes will buy. Then she asks what he thinks the house is worth, and the meeting begins. On Friday she lists with him.

The street was lovely both times. What changed was whether Caleb’s first sentence could have been said at any door. “What a street” could. The question about the garden could only be asked at hers. It gave her ten minutes on the subject she knows best. Here is why the first kind of opening falls flat with a wealthy client, and why the second kind does not.

A sentence that fits any door tells the client nothing

A wealthy client has let many professionals in, and each one said something at the door. What the client notices is attention that could only have been meant for them. “Gorgeous day” and “how was the traffic” were meant for whoever opened the door. So they tell the client that the visit has not started yet, and the client waits for it to start. That is the course’s own reason, and research on strangers points the same way.

In 2022, Michael Kardas, Amit Kumar, and Nicholas Epley published a series of experiments in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Pairs of strangers were given questions to talk over. Some of the questions were shallow, and some went deeper, into the person’s own life. Before they started, people expected the deeper conversations to be awkward. They also expected the other person to care little about what they said.

Afterward, the deeper conversations felt less awkward than people expected. People also felt closer to the partner they had the deep conversation with. The gap between what they expected and what they got had one cause. People expected the stranger to care less about what they said than the stranger did. The authors conclude that getting other people wrong is what keeps conversations shallow.

Those were pairs of strangers in a study, and the step to a client’s front door is the course’s own. Here is the step. The weather is the shallow question, and the garden is the deep one. The client cares more about the garden than the professional at the door expects. The reason, as a Harvard study found, is that talking about your own life is its own reward. So the professional who plays it safe with the weather is choosing the subject the client cares least about.

A trainer who teaches small talk says the weather is not the point

Debra Fine, a former engineer in Denver, has taught small talk for more than 25 years. In an interview from 2021, she says what most people think small talk is. “We think small talk is like talking about the Denver Broncos or talking about the weather, but there is so much more involved.”

The question she will not ask is the one most people open with. “I don’t ask them, what do you do? Because I hate that question. It’s mundane. It’s the same old, same old.” She puts it with the other questions that “feel like an FBI agent,” such as whether someone is married or where they are from. Her own opener is “What keeps you busy outside of work?” and she gives the reason. “Because then they’ll tell me what they want me to know.”

She also says how long the opening should last. Small talk, she says, “can be a picture frame around that business conversation for about one minute.”

Fine is standing in a conference room with a stranger, so she knows nothing about the person. Her question hands them the choice of subject. With a client, you usually know one detail already. It came from the introducer, from the client’s message, or from what is in front of you at the door. Measured against this lesson, that detail comes first, because it could only be said to this client. Her question is for the client you know nothing about. Her minute is the length to plan for, and the client turns to the work when they are ready.

A tutor opens with the sentence the father wrote

Imagine a tutor named Ines Valdez who meets Mr. Okafor for the first time about his daughter, Zara, who is 15. His message said that Zara “has stopped putting her hand up in math.” At the door, Ines says, “Your note said Zara stopped putting her hand up. When did that start?”

Mr. Okafor talks for a few minutes about the new teacher in September and the test that went badly. He mentions the older brother who finds math easy. Then he asks how Ines works, and the meeting begins. Before Ines says a sentence about her method, she knows what the family is worried about. Mr. Okafor has spent the first minute on his own daughter. He books a month of sessions.

The detail Ines opened with cost her nothing to find. It was in the message. A client who writes to you has usually put one sentence in the message about their own life. That sentence is the opener.

Why an opener taken from a search goes wrong

Imagine an event planner named Priya Raman who meets Mr. Dalgleish about his wife’s 60th birthday. Before the meeting, she looks him up and finds that he sold his company in the spring. “Congratulations on the sale,” she says at the door. “I read about it.”

Mr. Dalgleish has heard that sentence for six months from people who want something from him. It tells him that Priya looked him up, and that the first subject on her mind was his money. He is polite and brief for the rest of the hour, and he hires the planner his wife’s friend used.

The detail that works is one the client gave you. It came in the message, through the person who introduced you, or in the room when you arrive. What the client handed you, they expect you to have. What you found tells them that you looked them up. A wealthy client has reasons to guard what is known about them. Priya had the detail she needed in his message. His wife “has never once let anyone throw her a party.” The opener is a question about that.

Asking a client about their own life is not prying

With a client who could hire anyone, a question about their garden or their daughter can feel like stepping over a line. The first minute seems early for it.

The line is the one Fine draws. She will not ask whether someone is married or has children. The question picks the subject for them, and the answer may be no. The question that works asks about something the client has already shown you. Tom Lind mentioned the garden, Mr. Okafor wrote about Zara, and the dog is at the door. Mrs. Whitcombe chose to take Caleb outside, and she chose how much to say about the apple trees. A question about a detail the client gave you lets the client decide what to tell.

How to open your next conversation with the client’s own subject

1. Write down what you said in the first minute of your last three client meetings. Mark each sentence that could have been said at any door, such as the weather, the traffic, the lovely street, and “How are you?”
2. Before your next meeting, find one detail that belongs to this client alone. Look in their message, ask the person who introduced you, and, when you arrive, look at what is in front of you. For example, a travel adviser finds that the client’s email said the trip is for her parents’ 50th anniversary.
3. Write the detail down under the client’s name, with a question about it that the client can answer at length. For example, the travel adviser writes, “Your note said the trip is for your parents’ anniversary. Where did they go the first time?”
4. At the door, after hello, ask the question and stop. Leave the weather out. If the detail is in the room, ask about that instead. For example, a coach who sees a sculling trophy on the shelf can ask, “Do you still row?”
5. When you know nothing about the client, ask what keeps them busy outside of work, and let them pick the subject.
6. Let the client answer in full, and turn to the work when they turn to it. Plan on about a minute, and do not cut the minute short if the client is still talking.
7. Afterward, write what the client told you on their page, in their words. It is the opener for the next visit, and the detail you can act on before they ask.

Next: You will see the three steps that keep a conversation going, including the one most people skip.