🔧Welcome to the Friday Fix!
👉 Each Friday, we break down a real-world professional problem and replace “textbook” phrases with the authentic, native-level language that actually gets results.
The starters have arrived, the wine is poured, and the conversation has drifted comfortably away from work for the last twenty minutes.
That’s not a bad thing - rapport matters. But there’s a meeting tomorrow that depends on this dinner actually moving something forward, and right now you have no idea how to bring it back without sounding like you’re suddenly all business.
The best client dinners aren’t the ones where you push hardest. They’re the ones where the client arrives at the business point on their own - because you asked the right questions.
The Situation
You’re hosting a client at dinner the night before an important meeting. The conversation has been warm but has drifted entirely away from business. You need to steer it back toward something useful - without killing the mood or sounding like you’re suddenly pitching over dessert.
The Challenge
Write your response so that it:
· Move the conversation toward business without an abrupt subject change
· Use questions to get the client talking about their actual priorities
· Keep the tone warm throughout, even as the topic shifts
Have a go before scrolling down.
Phrases you’ll need for this one:
· So, with everything going on at your end at the moment...
· What’s actually keeping you up at night with that?
· And if that doesn’t get sorted, what happens?
· It sounds like getting that fixed would make a real difference.
