Ask HN: How do you balance good design with industry norms?

I'm redoing an e-commerce b2b website in the construction industry. In my opinion, existing websites in this space don't have the best user experience.

However, my clients want something similar to their competitors. Their argument is that customers are familiar with this (unfriendly) design, so keep it the same.

How do you balance this contradiction? Give them what they want? Make the effort to educate them? Learn a little, teach a little?