The Most Expensive Customers are the Ones Who Want it Cheap
As a seasoned business professional, I’ve noticed something strange: Most people are so sure of what they want that they’re completely closed off to something better.
How is that even possible? It usually starts with one thing: price. Now, don’t get me wrong, having a budget is smart. But some purchases deserve a bigger piece of the pie, especially those that aren’t supposed to fail, break, or need replacement in a year.
And let’s be honest, when something has to be replaced, it’s usually because the cheapest option was chosen the first time. “Cheap” just likes to disguise itself as “affordable.” And we all know how that ends.
In our world, we see it all the time. A customer chooses the more affordable company over us without really factoring in quality. Then the job gets installed incorrectly. Things break. Systems don’t work. And guess who they call? Now they’re paying three times what they would have if they had just gone with the right company the first time. But that’s not even the worst type of customer.
The worst ones are the people who want quality but refuse to pay for it. They’re the ones jumping over a dollar to pick up a dime. They’ll ask for drawings, pricing, and timelines, then take your work and shop it around to every competitor they can find. Then they come back with: “Match this price, or we’re going with the other guy.”
We used to fall for it. And it crushed us. Endless site visits. Constant spec changes. Upgrades without budget increases. Time burned, margins destroyed, team morale drained. By the end of it, we’d be out thousands of dollars, wishing we had just said no from the start. That was the turning point. We learned the hard way that not every job is worth having. And more importantly, not every customer is worth serving.
What changed everything for us?
Two things: Tactical empathy and learning how to negotiate properly. I give a lot of credit to Chris Voss for that shift in mindset. One line stuck with me:
“It’s not a sin to not get a deal. It’s a sin to take a long time to not get a deal.”
That hit hard. Because the wrong customers don’t just cost you money. They cost you time, energy, culture, and eventually your business. Now we qualify hard. We listen differently. We’re not afraid to walk away. And if someone doesn’t see the value? That’s okay. Bees don’t waste their time explaining to flies that honey tastes better than shit. If you want, I can break down exactly how we use tactical empathy to filter out bad clients before they ever become a problem. Just let me know.
