To-The-Trade Episode Summary
This episode of To-The-Trade is brought to you by AJ Madison Pro, the industry’s trusted appliance resource for interior design professionals.
What does it actually take to build a vendor relationship that lasts? Not a transactional one where you place an order and hope for the best, but the kind where a brand goes to bat for you, a rep becomes a genuine resource, and both sides feel like they are on the same team.
That is the question at the center of this special episode of To-The-Trade, recorded live on the KBIS 2026 show floor. Host Laurie Laizure is joined by two guests who represent both sides of the trade relationship: Nikki Levy, a high-end interior designer based in South Florida running a boutique firm of 12 with 30 active projects and $50 million in annual specifying dollars, and Jenny York, Vice President of Marketing for Currey & Company, the lighting manufacturer that has built a 37-year reputation on being designer-first.
The Vetting Process and the Role of Trust
When Nikki encounters a new brand, she does not commit immediately. She asks deep questions, dips her toe in, and leans on her network of trusted designer colleagues for candid feedback. That peer-to-peer word of mouth is a genuine shortcut. If a trusted colleague says a brand has difficulty with returns or hides defects under the guise of “artistry,” that warning travels fast. If they say it is solid, the door opens faster.
Jenny describes the Currey & Company model as one built on designer service long before that was standard in the industry. Today, that means a live person always answers the phone, returns are quick, orders ship within 48 hours or can be held as long as a project needs, and there are no surprise credit card surcharges. It also means Currey actively polices its minimum advertised price so designers are not undercut by the open market on products they are sourcing for clients.
Nikki is direct about why MAP enforcement matters: when she regularly purchases and then finds the same item available online for significantly less, something breaks in the relationship. Brands that protect their trade customers earn a different level of loyalty in return.
What a Bad Rep Costs a Brand
The rep conversation gets candid fast. Nikki walks through two examples. In the first, a rough and dismissive rep caused her firm’s spend with a lighting company to drop from over $100,000 to $20,000, a shift the manufacturer apparently never investigated. In the second, a 30-year veteran designer brought five colleagues to meet a rep at a competitor’s showroom, was ignored, and walked away without placing a $100,000 order she had been ready to place. The brand never got another first-choice opportunity from her again.
Both Nikki and Jenny agree: the rep relationship is at once fragile and powerful. A great rep educates. They know the firm’s aesthetic, bring sneak-peek product photos, advocate internally when they cannot fix a problem, and show up as a resource rather than a catalog-delivery service. Brands that invest in that kind of rep see the loyalty come back.
What Designers Can Do to Strengthen the Partnership
The conversation also covers what designers can do on their end. Laurie shares a practice from designer Shannon Ggem: she photographs finished projects and sends the images to her reps and brand contacts with a simple note: “This is what it looked like, and the copyright is yours to use however you want.” The result has been extraordinary goodwill and, in some cases, better pricing and profitability for her firm over time.
Jenny confirms that real installation images are more valuable to Currey than any staged lifestyle shoot. She also encourages designers to think beyond Instagram, where content has a lifespan of about 6 hours, and to consider Pinterest, where a post can drive traffic for 7 to 8 months. Pinterest is Currey’s biggest traffic driver, aside from Google search.
Other ideas that come up: tagging brands on social media so they can reshare with permission, writing about products on a blog where the content lasts 2 or more years, and, when something arrives slightly damaged, asking whether it can be fixed rather than immediately requesting a return. Brands remember the designers who make things easier, and those relationships often translate into tangible benefits over time.
Freight, Billing, and the Hidden Costs That Hurt
Nikki raises a pain point that resonates across the industry: fragmented shipping charges. When freight invoices arrive months after delivery, or when split shipments trigger surprise charges at the end of a job, clients resist paying, and designers absorb the difference. Her solution is to build a shipping percentage into the client’s budget upfront and draw from it throughout the project. Currey’s solution on their end is a freight calculator available before checkout, so designers know their landed cost before committing to an order.
Lighting as the Jewelry of the Room
Jenny makes the case clearly: lighting is the jewelry that finishes the room, and designers who treat it as an afterthought are shortchanging every other decision they made in the project. It is one of the first pieces to spec, not the last. Nikki offers a way to explain it to clients: imagine having every element of a bridal look perfectly assembled, then walking out without doing your hair or makeup. That is what leaving lighting out of a space does.
Brand Storytelling as a Selling Tool
When a rep walks into a studio and explains where a piece was made, who made it, and what craft goes into it, that story travels directly to the client. Nikki shares examples from the KBIS design tour, including a visit to the SKS booth, where designers learned that LG, the manufacturer behind the oven panels, also produces the interface panels for Mercedes vehicles. That is the kind of detail that turns a specification into a conversation, and a conversation into a commitment.
A client who understands they are purchasing something handcrafted with real heritage, whether that is a Currey chandelier or a piece with an Amish-made lineage, understands why the investment is worth making. That story is the designer’s most powerful tool, and the best reps are the ones who equip them with it.
Building Relationships That Last Decades
The episode closes on the long game. Currey does not enforce annual minimums. They do not penalize designers who go quiet for a year or two due to life or career transitions or slow project cycles. When those designers come back, they are welcomed back as valued clients, not treated as new accounts. That flexibility, Jenny explains, is how you build relationships with designers from the beginning of their career all the way through.
For small firms and solo designers who may only specify a piece or two a year, the message is the same: Currey wants them to feel valued regardless of order size, because those designers are brand ambassadors who can do more for the brand than any paid marketing campaign.
Whether you are a newer designer still building your vendor list or an established firm looking to deepen the relationships you already have, this conversation from the KBIS floor offers a rare look at what trust between designers and brands actually looks like and what it takes to build it.
00:00 — Introductions and setting the scene at KBIS 2026
02:18 — The vetting process: how designers evaluate new brands before committing
04:41 — How Currey & Company built its designer-friendly reputation over 37 years
07:18 — Rep relationships: stories of what bad service actually costs a brand
13:17 — What makes a great rep, and what designers owe their vendor partners
19:20 — Website tools, Revit files, and making the buying experience easier
23:21 — Freight fragmentation and how to protect yourself
28:43 — What designers can do to build goodwill: photos, Pinterest, and brand love
33:49 — Brand storytelling as a selling tool and what great reps bring to the table
41:53 — When things go wrong: why empathy is always the right first move
43:35 — The long game: flexibility, loyalty, and relationships that last decades