What Western Defaults Get Wrong

Imagine a personal trainer named Garrett Lowe who trains clients in their homes. Selin Demir books him for her husband, Kemal, who is 64 and had a hip replaced in the spring. Mr. Demir has finished his physical therapy. He moved to the US 25 years ago, and he speaks English more slowly than his wife does.

At the first visit, the three of them sit at the dining table. Mrs. Demir asks most of the questions, and Garrett gives each answer to her. He has another client at eleven. When Mr. Demir does speak, he says that he walks for an hour every morning and would like to keep walking. Garrett cuts in before he has finished. “I’d stop the long walks for now,” he says, looking Mr. Demir in the eye. “The hip needs strength work first.”

Mr. Demir looks down at the table and says nothing more. Garrett takes the lowered eyes as a sign that Mr. Demir is not sold. So he talks faster about what the program will do for him. Mrs. Demir thanks Garrett at the door and takes his plan. Two days later, she writes that her husband would rather keep to his walks for now.

Suppose instead that Garrett turns to Mr. Demir with his first question. “What would you like to be able to do by the summer?” Mr. Demir talks, slowly, about his walks and his grandson’s soccer games. Garrett waits until he has finished. “The walks are good for you, and you should keep them,” Garrett says. “I’d make them 20 minutes for the first month, while we build up the hip.”

While he explains the month, Garrett looks mostly at the plan on the table. Mr. Demir looks at it too. “And after the month?” he asks. “Then the walks grow again, ten minutes a week,” Garrett says. Mr. Demir books two sessions a week.

Garrett gave the same advice both times, which was to cut the walks back. What changed was whom he spoke to, how he disagreed, and where he looked. In the first version, he followed three habits that many professionals are taught. He answered whoever asked the question. He gave his opinion outright, with its reason, the moment he heard about the walks. He held the client’s eye, and he took a client who looked away as a client holding back. This course teaches two of them. With Mr. Demir, all three misfired.

So treat these habits as your starting point, not as a rule for every client. Keep your opinion, and change how you say it, where you look, and whom you speak to. Here is where the habits come from, and how each one can misfire.

The habits that make most meetings go well belong to one culture

Several lessons in this course teach habits that most clients welcome. An opinion said outright, with its reason, keeps a client from walking into a mistake. One designer’s advice for a first consultation is to look the client in the eye. Eyes that go anywhere but the plan are one of the signs that a client is holding back.

Each of these habits fits a client who grew up with the same manners. Not every client did. In some societies, saying what you think is seen as healthy, and in others keeping the peace comes first.

A misstep of this kind is hard to catch, and the reason is the course’s own. It does not feel like a misstep. It feels like doing the job well, so nothing tells you to stop. Garrett drove away from the Demirs’ house sure that he had given good advice clearly. He had, and it still cost him the client.

A Flushing broker tells his agents to let a client finish before they disagree

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 wrote about the cultural missteps that can cost brokers a buyer from abroad. Seto spoke about working with buyers from China.

New York brokers may know far more about the local market than their clients, the magazine wrote. Even so, Seto said, brokers should be careful not to state their views too strongly, or they can come across as rude. “You have to be careful how you’re putting your thoughts across,” he said. “You should always let them finish what they’re saying and agree with them.” When a broker disagrees, he said, “it’s best to say, ‘I understand. However …’”

Seto was talking about Chinese buyers, and the step to other clients is the course’s own. Here is the step. His order is the part to keep. The client finishes, you agree with what you can, and your view comes after. Letting a client finish is polite with anyone, so the order costs nothing with a client who likes a plain answer.

His wording is the part to change. “I understand. However” is close to the “I understand, but” that cancels the agreement in front of it. So say what you agree with in your own words, so the client can tell you mean it. Then give your opinion as its own sentence, with its reason. Garrett’s second version did both. He said the walks were good for Mr. Demir, and then he gave the 20 minutes.

A New York designer spent three hours at lunch, and about 30 minutes on the project

Joy Moyler is an interior designer based in New York. In 2021, she told Business of Home how she won a job near Moscow. The job was the interiors of a golf and country club. An architect she had worked with called her the day before Thanksgiving in 2015. He asked her to lunch the next day, to meet someone. She did not know who the client was, so she brought her portfolio.

Five well-dressed people were at the table with the architect. They talked for three hours, about everything from sustainability to favorite places to travel. “I think a mere 30 minutes of those three hours were spent talking about the project,” Moyler said. The clients had already looked at her website and knew her work.

Nobody asked her outright whether she wanted the job. “There was no, ‘Are you interested in doing a project in Moscow?’” she said. She came away believing that Russian clients want to know a person before they work with them. “They want to look you in the eye, see how you move, how you react to things,” she said. Three days later, the architect called to say that the client wanted her on the job. There was still no brief, “or even a sketch on a napkin.”

The course plans on about a minute of talk before the work, and many clients want no more. Moyler’s clients wanted three hours, most of it not about the job. She let the lunch run, and the job came out of it. So let the client decide how long the talk lasts before the work. A client who talks with you for an hour about travel may be deciding about you, as Moyler’s clients were.

How much eye contact feels friendly differs between cultures

In 2013, Hironori Akechi and five colleagues published a study in the journal PLOS ONE. Twenty university students in Finland and 20 in Japan each sat facing a woman from their own country. A screen between them cleared, and the woman either looked straight at the student or looked away. Then the students rated her face.

The Japanese students rated the face that looked straight at them as angrier than the Finnish students did. They found it less approachable and less pleasant, too. The authors also point to earlier research in which looking away is a sign of respect in Japan.

Those were students in a lab, and the step to your clients is the course’s own. Here is the step. Moyler’s clients wanted to look her in the eye, and the Japanese students found a straight look less friendly. So no single amount of eye contact is right for every client. A steady look that tells one client you are listening can feel unfriendly to another.

That changes how you take one of the signs the course teaches. Eyes that go anywhere but the plan mean a client is holding back only alongside a few other signs. With some clients, lowered eyes on their own may simply be good manners. Garrett took one sign as a no, and he talked faster at a client who may only have been listening.

The course’s suggestion is to look at the client part of the time and at the plan the rest. Look at the client when you greet them and while they talk. While you explain, rest your eyes on the plan between you, and look up now and then. The course already puts your eyes there at the end of an answer. The plan is somewhere you can both look, so neither of you has to hold a stare. Then follow the client’s lead.

The person asking the questions may not be the person you work for

Most professionals answer whoever asks the question, and in most meetings that works. In some families, whose say counts sits with someone who says little. Any household may make its real decision later, in private. A language gap can add a reason of its own. When one person speaks English more easily, they may do the talking for the person who is hiring you.

So speak to the person you are working for, even when someone else does most of the talking. Ask them your questions yourself, and give them your answers. Let the other person help with the words. That is the course’s suggestion, and its reason is that the work is theirs. Mr. Demir was the one with the new hip, and in the first version Garrett gave every answer to his wife.

Why keeping your opinion to yourself goes wrong

Imagine an event planner named Odile Marchetti who has heard that being direct can offend a client from another culture. Lucía Castillo moved from Mexico City ten years ago. She books Odile for a garden party for 80 at the end of October. Mrs. Castillo wants the dinner on the lawn, with no tent. Odile has seen rain at about half the parties she has planned that late in the year. She worries that saying so will sound rude. “Of course,” she says. “The lawn will be beautiful.”

On the night, it rains from seven o’clock. The guests eat in the house, standing up, and the tables on the lawn stay empty. The next morning, Mrs. Castillo asks Odile why she did not warn her. In December, Mrs. Castillo books a different planner for the family’s New Year party.

Odile’s mistake was dropping her opinion along with her bluntness. Seto did not tell brokers to keep their views to themselves. He told them how to give a view. Mrs. Castillo hired a planner partly for what the planner knows, and the warning about the rain was part of the job.

The version that works lets Mrs. Castillo finish describing the lawn. Then Odile says, “Dinner on the lawn is the right idea for that garden. I’d book a clear tent as well. It rains on a lot of October evenings, and the guests can still see the garden through it.”

How to adjust these habits for a client from another culture

1. When a client is telling you what they want, let them finish before you answer, even when you disagree. That is Seto’s first rule. For example, a travel adviser who hears a client list four cities for one week waits until the list is done.
2. Then say what you agree with, in your own words, and give your opinion as its own sentence, with its reason. Leave out “but” and “however,” and do not leave out the opinion. For example, the travel adviser can say, “Rome and Florence are the right pair for a first trip. I’d save Venice for next time, because four cities in a week is mostly trains.”
3. Look at the client when you greet them and while they speak. While you explain, rest your eyes on the plan, the sketch, or the list between you, and look up now and then. For example, a personal stylist explaining the outfits for a trip looks at the list on the table. She looks up at the client after each outfit.
4. Follow the client’s lead on eye contact. If they hold your eye, hold theirs. If they look away often, look at the plan more. Do not take lowered eyes on their own as a no, and wait for a few signs together.
5. When someone else does most of the talking for the client, speak to the client. Put your questions to the client, give the client your answers, and let the other person help with the words. For example, a music teacher whose student’s grandfather lets his daughter talk for him can ask him, “What would you like Leo to play for you at New Year?”
6. Let the client decide how long the talk lasts before the work. If a first meeting turns into an hour about their family and their travels, stay in it. For example, a caterer who is offered tea before anyone mentions the menu drinks the tea and talks.

Next: You will see the signs to watch for in a first meeting, from who speaks to how a client disagrees.