Who Speaks, Who Defers, and How a Client Says No

Imagine a home organizer named Clara Brandt who is meeting Emeka and Ngozi Okoye at their house. The Okoyes moved from Lagos 12 years ago. Mr. Okoye booked the meeting, and he wants the kitchen and the pantry sorted before his parents come to stay at Christmas.

In the kitchen, Mr. Okoye answers every question Clara asks. Before each answer about the cupboards, he glances at his wife. Mrs. Okoye says little. Clara has another client at two, so she keeps her eyes on Mr. Okoye and her notes.

Clara suggests boxing up the china in the glass cabinet and storing it in the garage. That would free two shelves for everyday dishes. “We will think about that one,” Mr. Okoye says. Clara writes “china to the garage” in her plan. Three days later, she sends the plan. Mr. Okoye writes back that they have decided to wait until after Christmas, and Clara does not hear from the Okoyes again.

Suppose instead that Clara notices the glances. She takes them as a guess, not a fact. Perhaps the kitchen is Mrs. Okoye’s to decide. To check, she turns her notes so that both of them can see. “Which cupboards do you each open first in the morning?” she asks. Mrs. Okoye answers in detail, cupboard by cupboard, and Mr. Okoye nods along. So Clara puts her next question to both of them too.

When Clara suggests the garage for the china, she hears the same answer. “We will think about that one.” This time she does not write it down as agreed. “Or the china can stay where it is,” she says, “and the serving dishes can go on the shelf above the fridge.” Mrs. Okoye says the china was her mother’s, and it stays. The Okoyes book Clara for two days in December.

Clara had the same plan for the same kitchen both times. What changed was what she did with three signs. Mr. Okoye did the talking. He looked to his wife before he answered about the kitchen. The idea about the china was turned down with a promise to think about it. In the first version, Clara missed the glances and took the promise at its word. In the second, she treated each sign as a guess and tested it with one small change. Then she watched what the Okoyes did.

So in a first meeting with a client from another culture, watch three signs. Watch who speaks, who defers, and how an idea gets turned down. Treat each sign as a guess, test it, and let the client show you what it meant. Here is what each sign can tell you, and why a guess has to be checked.

Three signs show up before the work does

A first meeting usually starts with the client talking. So the first few minutes are the client’s. You can watch before you have said much. With a client from another culture, three signs are worth watching in those minutes. The three are the course’s own, and here is the reason. Each one answers a question you need answered before you plan the work.

Who speaks is the person who answers your questions. They are not always the person you will work for. In some families, whose say counts sits with someone who says little. Listen for the people they mention in their answers, as in “my father says” or “my wife likes.”

Who defers is the person who looks at someone else, or passes the question on, before they answer. Mr. Okoye glanced at his wife before every answer about the kitchen. Deferring can mean that the decision belongs to the other person. It can also be good manners, a language gap, or a habit that means nothing at all.

How disagreement shows is the way an idea of yours gets turned down. Some clients say no. Others promise to think about it, change the subject, or go quiet. With your usual clients, you may know what each of these means. With a client from another culture, the same words may mean something else.

A sign is a guess until the client shows you what it meant

Each of the three signs has more than one meaning. So none of them tells you on its own what is going on. A quiet person may be showing respect, or holding back a no. A glance may be a husband checking with his wife, or a man making sure he has the cupboard right. What you have read about a culture describes a whole society, not the one family in front of you.

So the course’s suggestion is to test a guess before you act on it. Make one small change that the guess calls for, and watch what the client does with it. Clara’s guess was that the kitchen was Mrs. Okoye’s to decide. Her change was a question put to both of them. Mrs. Okoye’s long answer and her husband’s nod told Clara that the guess was likely right. If Mr. Okoye had answered for both of them again, Clara would have learned that too, at the cost of one question.

That is curiosity, rather than certainty. A professional who is certain changes the whole plan on one sign. A professional who is curious changes one small part, and then watches. The reason is the cost of each. A wrong guess acted on in full can lose you the client, and a small test costs almost nothing. A label is only a starting guess, and a sign in the room is too.

A New York buyer told his broker whose rule decided the showing

Isaac Halpern is a real estate broker at Halstead in New York. In 2017, the website Brick Underground asked brokers about superstitions that had stopped a deal. Halpern described a buyer whose father had superstitions about lucky and unlucky numbers.

Halpern wanted to show the buyer a fourth-floor apartment at 444 West 19th Street, a condo in Chelsea. The buyer would not go to see it. “My father won’t let me see that apartment,” he said. “Way too many 4’s…”

The buyer was the one talking to Halpern. The rule that decided what he would see was his father’s. That rule came out in the buyer’s own words, over one apartment, the moment his father came up.

So listen for whose name comes up when a client answers you. “My father won’t let me” tells you that someone else has a say, without you asking. Take it as a guess about who else will want a say. Then check it with a question that brings that person in. For example, a broker in Halpern’s place could ask, “Would your father like to see the list of apartments before we go?”

A New York photographer hands her camera to the groom’s sister when a guest is uncomfortable

Ghila Krajzman is a photographer in New York. For more than a decade, she has shot weddings and other celebrations for Orthodox Jewish families. At these events, the men and the women celebrate on separate sides. In 2022, Religion News Service reported on how photographers work at weddings like these.

Krajzman respects a common Orthodox Jewish practice, which is to avoid contact with members of the opposite sex who are not family. She feels she has earned the community’s trust, most of all on the women’s side. The men’s side can be different. “They don’t like that I am the one shooting on their side,” she said.

Sometimes a male relative of the groom was not comfortable with Krajzman being there. When that happened, she asked the groom’s sister to take the photo. As the report put it, she “has learned that sometimes the only way to get the shot she needs is to hand over her camera.”

Krajzman did not press on, and she did not argue for her place. She changed one part of her own work, which was who held the camera, and the photo was still taken. She also knew the practice behind the discomfort. In a first meeting, you may see only the discomfort. The course’s suggestion is the same kind of change, small and made without comment, because it asks nothing of the client. Then watch whether the client relaxes.

A Flushing broker says a promise to consider your idea can mean no

Bill Seto is a real estate broker in Flushing, New York, and president of the Chinese American Real Estate Association. In 2012, The Real Deal asked New York brokers how to avoid cultural missteps with buyers from abroad.

Seto explained what buyers from China may mean by a polite answer. The magazine reported Seto’s view that when Chinese buyers say “they’ll consider your thoughts” on a subject, it generally means they disagree.

Seto was talking about Chinese buyers, and he said “generally,” not always. The step to other clients is the course’s own. Here is the step. A promise to consider your idea may be a no that the client would rather not say outright. It may also mean exactly what it says. The words alone do not tell you which.

So when an idea gets a polite promise to consider it, do not take it as agreed. Do not drop it either. Offer a way around it in the same breath, and let the client choose. Clara did that with the china. She gave the Okoyes a second place for the dishes, so Mrs. Okoye could turn down the garage without turning down Clara. If the client still wants time, ask what they will be weighing.

Why acting on a sign as if you were sure goes wrong

Imagine a florist named Rosalind Achterberg who meets Mrs. Takahashi about the flowers for her daughter’s wedding. Rosalind has read that some clients promise to consider an idea when they mean no. At the first meeting, she suggests white orchids for the tables. “We will consider the orchids,” Mrs. Takahashi says.

Rosalind has two more consultations that afternoon, and she is sure she knows what she heard. At the second meeting, she brings a plan with garden roses and no orchids. Mrs. Takahashi looks at it for a while. Then she says that she had hoped for the orchids, and that she only wanted to see their price in writing first. She thanks Rosalind and books a florist who sent her a price for orchids.

Rosalind’s mistake was treating one sign as a fact. What she had read may be true of some clients, and it was not true of this one. She changed the whole plan on a guess and never checked it. The version that works offers a way around in the same breath. “Shall I price the orchids for you, with the garden roses beside them?” Mrs. Takahashi says yes, and when the prices come, she chooses the orchids.

Changing how you work for one client is not stereotyping them

Adjusting to a client from another culture can feel like treating them as a type. Many professionals would rather treat every client the same. They worry that noticing a difference is the first step to a stereotype.

The change in this lesson comes from what the client did in the room, not from where they grew up. Clara changed her question because Mr. Okoye looked at his wife, not because the Okoyes came from Lagos. The change was small, and the Okoyes’ answer decided whether it stayed. The stereotype was Rosalind’s, a rule she carried into a room where it did not fit.

For the same reason, never say a culture out loud as the reason for what you do. “I know that in your culture the elders decide” turns your guess into a label, and puts the label on the client. That is the course’s own rule. A guess kept to yourself can be dropped the moment the client shows you otherwise.

How to watch the signs in your next first meeting

1. For the first few minutes, say little and watch three signs. The first is who answers your questions. The second is whom they look at or name before they answer. The third is how they turn down an idea of yours.
2. Write each sign in your notes as a guess, with a question mark. For example, a specialist realtor might write, “Husband looks at his wife before every answer about the garden. Her decision?”
3. Test one guess with one small change, and watch what the client does. For example, the realtor can turn the listing sheet toward both of them and ask, “What do you each want from a garden?”
4. When a client names someone who is not in the room, take it as a guess about who else has a say. Check it with a question that brings that person in. For example, a tutor whose client says, “My mother won’t want Saturdays,” can ask, “Would your mother like to see the schedule before we fix it?”
5. When an idea gets a polite promise to consider it, offer a way around it in the same breath. Let the client choose. Do not mark the idea as agreed, and do not drop it. For example, a caterer can say, “Shall I keep the lamb on the menu while you think, or put the fish in its place?”
6. When a sign shows that something you are doing makes someone uncomfortable, change that part of your own work without comment. For example, a private chef who sees the grandmother watching him use her knives brings his own knives to the next visit.
7. Never name the client’s culture as the reason for anything you change. If you need to know more, ask how the household runs.
8. Afterward, write on the client’s page what you saw, what you tried, and what the client did. Keep the question mark until the client has confirmed the guess.

Next: You will see the common missteps, from the gift to the joke, and how to avoid them.