Breaking the ice...with clients

[youdunsay]

I am facing some problems conversing with senior clients, especially if they are married and they are so experienced in the industry; I am finding myself trapped in situations where there is nothing to talk about. In a group lunch yesterday, I was introduced to a few senior clients. Topics across the table between my manager, a senior co-worker and the clients were mainly about family, kids and current market situation. I am single and probably fifteen years their junior. On top of that, I am raw to the industry. How should I deal with it? One of the client, I noticed, is not really keen to talk to someone too inexperienced. I look totally foolished in front of him.

[d0nnivain]

Ask them how they broke into the business.

 

 

Ask them about their kids. You don't have to share stories about your kids but they will think you are great because you listened to them brag.

[preraph]

I hate that situation and have been in it most of my life, except the other topic that was mostly talked about was sports which I have zero interest in. I had a couple of stories of accidentally meeting a couple of sports figures like Troy Aikman and Tom Landry, but that was all I had. Kid talk bores me to death, and the best I can tell from listening to mothers doing it together, neither is listening to the other but is just thinking of what they want to say about their kid as soon as the other mother takes a breath. So it's particularly tiresome to listen to. I stay completely out of such exchanges, but you have to learn to fake some minimal interest just on a maybe monthly basis to keep female parents happy. I never found the men cared whether you talked about them or not beyond "How's the family?" And then they'd maybe tell you they all went camping or something.

 

I was the person being sucked up to in many of my business luncheons at my old career, so I have to say I kind of resented why THEY weren't making an effort to talk about things I might have some interest in (music, why we were there; animals, reading, nature) instead of sports and their families. I remember once I was in a situation like that, and I just morphed into Rose from the Golden Girls and started talking about farm animals and let them all see how I felt sitting for 45 minutes listening to sports drivel. I also sometimes brought up random stuff like Cliff on Cheers, because my head is full of random things I've read. I have a wide range of interests anyone could talk about because I like to learn things, but it's a broken sports record in my town. I wanted to mostly know their musical tastes, namely if they had any or were passionate about it or just stumbled into the business, because that goes to credibility whether they know what they're talking about. But after their spiel about whatever it is they were trying to get a big order on, the conversation rarely ever remained on music.

 

I had one really old salesman (he died on the job in fact) who out of everyone was the one genuinely passionate about music. His era was Sinatra. But he understood the passion and respected my passion and so we had a mutual respect and trust of each other.

 

If you're the one who needs to suck up, then you need to feign interest in whatever you think their interest is. If you don't know, then ask. Maybe there's something else you'll hit on besides the obvious that you have more ability to wax intelligent on. I think of it as interviewing the person, because generally people really enjoy being asked a lot of questions. Makes them feel important, gives you a lot of info to work with. And it's never wrong to steer the conversation back to business if it's a business lunch or meeting or you're just at work.

 

My situation now is all the women in the office spend, I would say, a minimum of one hour out of their day showing other mothers in the office their kid videos or telling them what they did, what they wore, blah, blah, blah. It's the first thing that happens in the morning and recurs throughout when I'm there. I didn't mind it until people started playing their noisy smartphone recordings while I'm trying to work because I can't think when that is going on. One day there was a visiting person there and so there were three hovered right next to my desk all talking loud and carrying on waiting for the other to pause so they could change the subject over to their own kid, and I just gathered up my work and went to the conference room.

 

It's important to realize, too, that not everyone is like that, but it's the ones who ARE like that who take center stage and stand out. So if you have a group and it seems like they're all wasting time talking about crappola, single out the main instigators and then start a one-on-one (move chairs if you have to) and talk to the ones who look like they're just following their lead to be polite and maybe you can talk to them and take over and get back on track that way.