It was only after Anita Precious had finished a project for a senior executive that he told her who had recommended her. For years, on her way into meetings, she had made time for someone whose company she enjoyed. They would greet each other, talk for a few minutes and get on with their day. Somewhere along the way, they became friends. When the executive needed an interior designer, it was that friend who put her name forward. The commission, she says, changed her life.

That experience informed a piece of advice the founder of Noani offered young designers and businesswomen at Design Week Lagos: “Your customer can come from anywhere.” Treat the security guard with the same respect you would give the president, she told them. Her own introduction began with the ordinary pleasure of talking to another person. She could never have predicted where it would lead.

Returning to Design Week Lagos for her second speaking appearance, Anita joined the panel Shaping Africa’s Creative Future. The moderator asked how she markets the different parts of her business and how she reaches an international audience. Her answer began with a question she asks whenever Noani launches a product: who is going to buy this?

Noani Design serves people commissioning interiors. Noani Home sells pieces people can bring into their homes, including furniture, artwork and bedding. Some customers move between the two businesses. Someone who buys a set of sheets may later ask the studio to design a bedroom. Even so, Anita approaches each launch with a particular buyer in mind. A person choosing bedding has an immediate, practical interest: they want to see what it will look like on their bed.

When Noani Home launched its bedding collection, Anita wanted to reach customers beyond Nigeria. She began filming herself styling her own bed. The premise was simple enough to fit in a caption: style my bed with me. Viewers could see how she used the sheets and hear what she enjoyed about them. The bedroom she had furnished for herself became a place where someone discovering Noani for the first time could see her taste at work.

Anita says she subsequently began hearing from more people abroad, including Nigerians in the diaspora, who wanted to know about the bedding. Some went on to buy it. For a young designer thinking about an international audience, her experience offers a practical starting point: show a prospective customer enough of the product in use to help them imagine owning it.

The conversations continued after the panel. Young designers and businesswomen approached Anita with questions about their own ventures, including how to find customers in Nigeria. She understood why they wanted details. Early in her career, one of the hardest things to learn was how an established designer had actually secured a client. Who had made the introduction?

Where had they met? Those parts of the story were rarely shared, she recalls, and they were precisely the parts she needed to hear. Her own first major commission illustrates the value of answering those questions plainly. At 22, she was working and taking on smaller freelance projects. She had made a habit of telling people what she did. At a work party, one such conversation led to an offer to design a residence on Banana Island. She already had some experience, and she was willing to call herself a designer and talk about her work. That gave someone the opportunity to hire her.

On the panel, Anita used a phrase she wanted young women in particular to remember: “the audacity of a man”. For her, audacity has a practical meaning. It can be the willingness to introduce yourself, describe what you can do and pursue an opportunity whose outcome is uncertain. She also spoke about the hours that follow the introduction. Winning a commission means someone has given you a chance. Doing the work well enough to earn their confidence takes time.

Anita believes established designers have a part to play here. She would like more of them to explain how they found work and what it took to build a practice. She sees value in paid teaching: expertise has commercial worth, and designers can decide which parts of their businesses to keep private. A candid account of how one commission came about can give a newcomer something useful to try.

Through The Designer Framework, Anita has taught 750 students. She began by teaching the business of interiors, drawing on the questions she had encountered herself. At Design Week, some of those students introduced themselves to her. One woman told her that the teaching had helped her feel more confident in her business. What she appreciated, Precious recalls, was the transparency.

That encounter brought the panel’s theme down to a human scale. A designer starting out wants to know how to reach her first client. Someone further along can tell her about the work party where she spoke up, the bedding she showed people how to style, or the friend who quietly recommended her. For Anita, helping shape Africa’s creative future includes being willing to say how the work came through the door.