When Pride in the Work Becomes an Extra
From the Buyer’s Chair: What sales, service, and business development look like from the other side of the conversation.
Let me tell you where buyers start to lose trust.
It usually starts with something small, obvious, and technically “not in the scope.”
A cleaner finishes the sink, walks past visible dirt on the inside of a window, and says, “That’s extra. It’s not in the scope.”
Now, before anyone starts drafting a strongly worded comment, I am not saying scope does not matter. It absolutely does.
If I hire a landscaper to cut the lawn, I do not expect them to spend the afternoon pulling weeds out of the flower beds and trimming every shrub just because they were “already there.” That is extra.
But there is a difference between protecting the scope and hiding behind it.
If you are already there, already doing the work, and you see something obvious that makes the space still look unfinished, the buyer is going to notice. They may not know your internal checklist. They may not know what was included, excluded, itemized, or buried in paragraph four of the agreement.
They know how the room feels when they walk in.
That is where service companies can lose the buyer without even realizing it, because the buyer does not experience the job as a scope sheet. They experience the result.
So when something obvious gets ignored, even if the answer is technically correct, it can still land wrong.
“That’s not in the scope” may be true.
It may also sound a lot like, “Not my problem.”
And once a buyer hears that enough times, they start questioning the whole relationship.
The issue is not always the window, the sink, the corner, the hallway, or whatever detail got missed. The issue is judgment.
Do you see what they see? Do you care how the work lands? Are you looking at the job as a checklist, or are you looking at it as something your company’s name is attached to?
That matters in cleaning. It matters in landscaping. It matters in facilities. It matters in every service business where the finished product is what the buyer lives with after your team leaves.
Scope protects the business.
Pride protects the relationship.
The best companies understand how to respect both.
So I’ll ask from the buyer’s chair:
When did pride in the work start getting treated like an upgrade?
And where do you draw the line between “that’s extra” and “we should make this right because it reflects on us”?
#FromtheBuyer'sChair
Andrea Goodman
Appointments By Design
High-touch business development partner for B2B companies in facility services, trades, and beyond. We open doors to decision-makers—not just calendars.
Comments