When I was in elementary school, every year seemed to bring another fundraising campaign. Chocolate bars. Wrapping paper. Greeting cards. It seemed like every season there was another opportunity to help the school by selling something to family, friends, and complete strangers.
One year I was introduced to Captain “O,” the smiling mascot for the Olympic Stationery Company. Captain “O” arrived carrying a catalog filled with notepads, gift wrap, calendars, stationery, and assorted paper products that, to this day, I can’t imagine anyone actually needed.
But I wasn’t interested in the stationery. I wanted the prizes.
Alongside the paper products catalog was another catalog filled with increasingly exotic rewards. A Swiss Army knife. A tent. A telescope. A digital watch. And each prize required selling a certain number of products. Once I settled in on the desired reward, my sales purpose became remarkably simple: sell enough to earn it.
With the support of my parents, we headed out to begin knocking on doors, and every house represented a small act of courage. You never knew who would answer, whether they would be friendly, or whether you had just interrupted their Sunday afternoon nap. Every conversation carried just enough uncertainty to make the next knock a little intimidating—and just enough possibility to keep me going.
Looking back, I realize how incredibly transactional my little sales strategy really was. My goal wasn’t to understand the person standing on the other side of the door, to discover whether they had a genuine need for stationery or calendars. My objective was singular: earn enough points to claim an Olympic catalog prize. And once I reached my goal, I stopped. It didn’t matter that we might be halfway down a block with another dozen homes ahead of us. Everything beyond that point felt unnecessary; and if I’m being honest, as a kid I certainly wasn’t interested in putting in any more effort than was required. Mission accomplished. Prize earned.
Something about that story still resonates with me today because, in many ways, our industry often approaches clients as a means to prizes. As I’ve matured in the worlds of sales, consulting, and lighting design, I’ve come to recognize that design conversations are, in many respects, sales conversations. That isn’t meant in a manipulative sense. Every meaningful idea must ultimately be communicated, understood, embraced, and acted upon. Whether we’re presenting a luxury lighting design, recommending a control system, or introducing a creative concept, we’re inviting someone to invest in a solution they cannot yet fully see or often understand.
Over the years, I’ve found myself returning to a remarkably simple conversational framework: Greet. > Build rapport. > Ask questions. > Bridge to a solution. > Present the recommendation. > Close warmly.
What’s fascinating is that only one of those six steps actually involves selling a solution.
Everything else is about understanding another human being.
The quality of the recommendation is almost entirely determined by the quality of the conversation that precedes it.
The interview—the questions—is where real design begins, and one of the most effective ways I’ve found to cross that threshold from the known into the unknown is through curiosity.
One of the greatest misconceptions about expertise is that experts always have answers. However, I’ve found the opposite to be true. Experts usually ask better questions. It’s not because they know less…but because they understand how much they don’t yet know. Curiosity isn’t a lack of confidence–it’s intellectual humility. Curiosity is acknowledging that before I can improve your world, I first need to understand it.
But if all I’m trying to do is convince someone to spend money, then the relationship remains shallow and transactional. It becomes little more than an exchange of products for dollars. At best, I might succeed in selling a beautiful fixture, an impressive lighting control system, or an expensive collection of architectural luminaires. But if I take the time to connect with someone on a deeper, more human level, something very different begins to happen. I’m no longer simply selling products; rather, I’m helping a friend solve a problem and I’m applying a unique combination of creativity, technical knowledge, and experience toward a purpose that actually matters to them.
That distinction changes everything.
The products still get specified. The design agreement still gets signed. The project still moves forward. In fact, I’ve found that the products often become easier to recommend because they now exist within a much richer context. They are no longer isolated objects to be purchased; they become tools that help accomplish something meaningful in the client’s life. More importantly, something else begins to emerge that no fixture schedule or bill of materials can ever capture. Trust. Confidence. Loyalty.
When clients genuinely feel understood, they become remarkably willing to trust your recommendations because they recognize that those recommendations are no longer about your products or solutions—they’re about their lives.
Curiosity is far more than simply asking questions. It is taking a genuine interest in another person. It is setting aside the temptation to immediately solve the problem long enough to truly understand it. Creativity then becomes the companion to curiosity, guiding those questions toward places of possibility, discovery, and unexpected insight.
In lighting design, curiosity often has very little to do with lighting itself. I’m curious about:
- How someone chooses to live within their home.
- Where do they naturally gather?
- What rituals define their mornings and evenings?
- Which spaces give them energy, and which offer rest?
- What art object carries sentimental value?
- What family traditions deserve to be celebrated and how?
- What obstacles quietly frustrate them every single day without them even recognizing that a thoughtful design solution might exist?
Those questions rarely appear on a reflected ceiling plan, and they certainly don’t emerge from a fixture schedule. They emerge from conversation.
Questions raised during a consultation almost never deal with lumen output, color temperature, or beam spreads. Instead, they revolve around occupants, routines, hobbies, aspirations, and experiences. Those conversations uncover opportunities that no amount of technical expertise alone could ever reveal.
This leads me to believe that curiosity is one of the designer’s most valuable tools.
We often celebrate expertise because experts possess answers. Yet I find that the best designers I’ve encountered distinguish themselves by how thoughtfully they ask questions, not answer them. Experience certainly provides knowledge and perspective, but curiosity uncovers purpose and aim. It keeps us from solving the wrong problem exceptionally well.
Perhaps that’s one of the great paradoxes of design.
We are hired because people expect us to have answers, yet the quality of those answers depends almost entirely upon the quality of the questions that precede them.
Creativity imagines what could be. Curiosity discovers what should be. And together they move us beyond mere transaction and into transformation.
