Your clients are also lost

One of the most dangerous assumptions we can make about our clients is that they know what they need.

Sometimes they do. But often, they don’t.

More often, they know what they think they need, limited by a mindset shaped by the way they've always done things. They believe they know the solution to their problem, but they might not even have identified the real problem. Or they might only grasp 10% of the possible solutions. Or both.

And that’s exactly why they’ve come to you: because you’re the expert. You know things they don’t. But sometimes, let’s be honest, you don’t know either.
And that’s okay.

The myth of knowing

If I ever have children, I’ve promised myself one thing: I won’t pretend to have all the answers. When they ask me something I don’t know, I won’t mask my ignorance or give them a generic, half-assed explanation.

Instead, I’ll say: “I don’t know. Let’s find out together.”

Because in that moment, I’m not just offering honesty. I’m modeling something deeper: That the refusal to disguise not-knowing is a quiet form of courage.

And this response, in my opinion, teaches two crucial principles:

1. Ignorance isn’t a deficit. It’s a doorway.

We live in a world obsessed with certainty. But certainty can be a trap. When we tether our sense of self and our identity to always having an answer to everything, we start to fear the learning process, because it reveals the depth of our ignorance. We become defensive when faced with our knowledge gaps. Rigid. Vulnerable to confirmation bias. More on that idea here: The hedonism of certainty.

It's important to have a clear sense of our ignorance.

It keeps us humble, it keeps us alert. It stops us from becoming know-it-alls in a world constantly bombarding us with half-truths and misinformation. It prevents us from mistaking surface-level knowledge for real understanding.

Uncertainty, when embraced consciously, makes us better thinkers. More curious. More open. More rigorous. It keeps us honest in the current reality of echo chambers (algorithmic or otherwise).

2. Research is a skill, and a shared journey.

You don’t need a PhD to begin investigating something. In 2025, access to information is easy. But the ability to evaluate and synthesize that information? That’s a practice worth cultivating. And searching for answers can be a shared act, not a solitary burden.

(Honestly, How to use a search engine to find credible sources should be part of school curriculums.)

Now, how does this apply to client work?

Sometimes clients are explorers too

Clients may come to you with strong opinions or assumptions. But under the surface, they’re often unsure.
Maybe they know their market, but not how to position themselves in it.
Maybe they don’t fully grasp what they want their business to become.
Maybe they’re unsure how the web will affect them, because they’ve never done this before. There may be no data yet, just hunches.

As professionals, we often believe we’ve collected all the data after an initial round of questions. But I’ve found that if you keep asking, digging, gently pushing, there’s always more. And some of it might change the whole direction of the project (I’ve written about that here).

But what if you’ve asked everything you could think of, and you're still unsure?
What if your client simply does not have the answers?

Make space for shared uncertainty

You make space for shared uncertainty, that's what you do.

You turn that murky space from something awkward and uneasy into something that allows inquisitiveness and creativity. You help your colleagues feel comfortable and inspired in there too.

And then, your clients. They've declared their ignorance, you declare yours, and, together, you start searching for the answers.

This shifts the relationship from expert vs. client to co-explorers of an uncharted territory.

You research, map possibilities, test ideas, ask new kinds of questions. You present your findings, not as declarations, but as hypotheses. Then you discuss. And discuss some more.
You co-discover.

And yes, you charge for all of it. Please.
Because research is not free. It is skilled labor, and it is foundational to everything that comes next.

“By embracing uncertainty, you’re developing a culture that supports innovation and learning through experimentation... one that acknowledges testing new ideas will inevitably lead to some failures.” — William Jung, PO at Macquarie Group | Full article

Embrace uncertainty, let it be a tool.

Your job isn’t always to know. Your job could sometimes be how to not know well.

Clients don’t need you to have all the answers. They need you to help them ask better questions. To help them navigate uncertainty. To stand next to them and say:
“We’re going to figure this out. Together.”