One of the easiest things to do as a business owner is to become completely immersed in your own business. We know our own customers, processes and the challenges they face. We know how we like to install, how we sell, what has worked for us and what hasn’t. When you’re moving from one project to the next, answering calls, preparing estimates and handling everything else that comes with running a business, there isn’t always much time—or reason—to question any of it.

Then you spend a few days at the International Window Film Conference and Tint-Off™ (WFCT) surrounded by people who do the same thing you do, only differently. That’s when things get interesting.

Because one of the things this year’s conference reminded me of is that there are a lot of incredibly talented people in our industry. Some installers can make difficult applications look effortless. Business owners who have built successful companies in completely different markets. People who are developing new ideas and technologies. Sales professionals who approach customers differently than we do. When you put all of those people in the same place, you quickly realize something: No matter how much experience you have, someone in that room knows something you don’t.

Recognizing that is one of the most valuable parts of attending WFCT.

Getting Outside Your Own Bubble

One of my favorite parts of this year’s conference wasn’t something I could have written down in a notebook. It was the people.

We met new people and reconnected with people we’ve known for years. There is something about seeing old friends in this industry that can feel a little like a family reunion. But beyond catching up, we talked business. We talked about the differences between our markets, as well as the challenges and successes.

Those conversations matter. A challenge that feels unique when you’re sitting inside your own business may suddenly sound very familiar when someone from another part of the country starts describing what they’re experiencing. At the same time, something that works incredibly well for one company may not work at all for another. That’s part of what makes those conversations so valuable.

You don’t necessarily walk away with someone else’s answer. Sometimes you walk away with a better question about your own business.

Experience Should Make Us Curious

Experience is invaluable in this industry. Every installation teaches us something. Every difficult project adds another tool to our mental toolbox. Every customer interaction, estimate, mistake and success becomes knowledge we carry into the next one. Over time, we develop instincts.

That’s part of becoming good at what we do.

But experience can also make it easy to stop questioning what we already “know.”

We’ve always installed it this way. We’ve always handled this type of project this way. We’ve always approached customers this way. We’ve always run the business this way.

The more something works, the less reason we have to question it. Until we’re sitting in a seminar listening to someone approach a familiar subject from a completely different perspective.

That happened to me at this year’s conference.

Some of what I heard reinforced the knowledge I already had. Some of it was new. And some of it challenged the way I was thinking about something I thought I already understood.

I think all three have value.

Learning isn’t always discovering something you’ve never heard before. Sometimes it’s hearing something familiar from a different perspective and realizing you haven’t thought about it from that angle.

There Isn’t Always One Right Way

The WFCT competitions may have demonstrated this better than anything else. Put several talented installers in front of similar projects, and you’ll see different techniques, movements, and processes. Their end goals are the same, but they take very different routes to get there. Yet they can all produce great installations.

I love that.

Because it’s such a simple reminder that our way doesn’t have to be the only right way.

Experience teaches us what works for us. Eventually, those techniques become second nature, and there’s tremendous value in that. But mastery of your own method doesn’t automatically make someone else’s method wrong.

That lesson extends well beyond installation.

There isn’t one perfect way to run a window film business. There isn’t one perfect sales process. There isn’t one perfect market. There isn’t one path to success.

We can learn from someone else’s approach without abandoning everything experience has taught us. Sometimes we add another option to the toolbox.

“I Don’t Know” Can Still Be a Professional Answer

I think this is especially important in a skilled industry. Customers come to us because we’re supposed to know the answers. Our teams look to us for direction. When other professionals surround us, it can be tempting to demonstrate what we know rather than expose what we don’t.

But the longer I’ve been in this business, the more comfortable I’ve become with four words: I don’t know yet.

That doesn’t mean we stop there. It might mean asking another professional who has encountered the situation before. It might mean doing more research. It might mean talking directly with the people who manufacture or develop the products we’re working with.

Having the opportunity at the conference to hear directly from manufacturers and learn about new developments in our industry was another reminder of just how much information exists beyond the four walls of our own businesses.

We don’t have to know all of it. We do need to know when to ask questions.

There’s a tremendous difference between lacking knowledge and lacking the curiosity to find it.

Confidence and Curiosity Can Coexist

None of this means we should constantly second-guess ourselves.

Experience matters. Some lessons only come from years of installing, solving problems, working with customers and running a business. We should be confident in those lessons.

But confidence and curiosity aren’t opposites.

I think the strongest professionals have both. They know what they’re good at. They trust their experience, they’re willing to share what they’ve learned and they’re still able to walk into a room believing someone there might teach them something.

Maybe it’s someone with decades more experience. Maybe it’s a newer installer with a technique they’ve never considered. Maybe it’s another business owner experiencing the same struggle. Maybe it’s someone whose business looks nothing like theirs.

That’s one of the greatest benefits of getting outside our own shops.

Our world gets a little bigger.

What Did You Bring Home?

A conference can easily become a blur. You travel. You walk the show floor. You attend seminars. You talk to people. You watch competitions. You learn about what’s coming next. Then you pack your suitcase and return to the same business you left a few days earlier.

The question is whether you return the same.

What did you hear that challenged you? What did you see someone doing differently? What conversation made you feel a little less alone in a struggle? What did you learn that deserves another look? What did you already know but needed to hear again? And what are you going to do differently because you went?

We don’t need to return from a conference and change everything about our businesses. We can come home more confident about something we’re already doing, or realize we need to make one small adjustment. Sometimes we gain a new idea. Sometimes we gain a new person we can call when we don’t know the answer.

And sometimes the greatest takeaway is simply realizing how much knowledge exists outside our own little corner of the industry.

Closing Thought

The longer I’m in business, the less interested I am in being the smartest person in the room.

I’d rather be in a room filled with people who know things I don’t. People who challenge the way I think. People who have solved problems I haven’t encountered yet. People who approach the same work differently and still achieve incredible results, and people who can talk openly about the successes and struggles that come with building a business in this industry.

That’s what I brought home from this year’s conference.

Not one big revelation, but something better: A reminder that experience and curiosity don’t have to compete with each other.

We can be confident in what years of experience have taught us while remaining humble enough to recognize that there is always another perspective, another technique, another idea and another lesson worth considering.

Because navigating the changing tides of this industry doesn’t require us to have all the answers.It requires us to remain curious enough to keep looking for better ones.

Maybe the smartest person in the room isn’t the one with all the answers.

Maybe it’s the one who never stops asking questions.