One thing I’ve always heard about learning a new language is that you can’t consider yourself fully fluent until you can tell a joke. Telling a joke requires the understanding of homonyms and how words flow together. “So a guy walks into a bar…” sounds different than “A man enters beverage store…”.

When dealing with clients, it’s easy to joke about your client, but don’t miss an opportunity to prevent future missteps once you know more about them.

How often do you get off the phone with a client and immediately have a funny remark about some critique or issue they have mentioned. Typically this manifests itself when the client brings up an issue, that while important to them, is considered trivial by the developer.

Can you believe this guy!? I built out this whiz-bang feature and he’s just complaining about the font being too small!

The key part of this interaction is that you’ve now got a little insight into what makes this particular client tick. When you demo the next few features and he is unimpressed by the functionality, but comments on the spacing of form elements you should skip the joke and make a mental note for the future.

Once you can tell a joke about your client, before the interaction, and you have an “I told ya so!” moment with yourself or your pair afterwards, you know you’ve made it to the next level of understanding that client. Now, the next time you deploy a feature, discuss requirements or ask a question you can preempt the inevitable by accounting for those quirks and personal preferences of your client.

Instead of making a joke, make them happy, then you can both smile.