The Expensive Side of Being a People Pleaser

If I can see a way to make someone’s life easier, it is incredibly hard for me not to help. A client asks for one little thing, I know exactly how to solve it, and saying, “Sure, I can take care of that,” feels so much easier than explaining why it isn’t included in their services. After all, it will only take me a few minutes...right?

Except those few minutes have a funny way of multiplying when you own a business. One favor becomes something you do every month, one extra email turns into another meeting, and suddenly your team is providing concierge-level service at entry-level prices. You look at a client you genuinely love working with and realize that despite the revenue they bring in, you are barely making money serving them.

That is scope creep, but I think calling it that makes it sound much less emotional than it actually is. For a lot of us, the problem isn’t that we don’t understand boundaries, it is that disappointing someone feels worse than doing a little extra work ourselves. We care about our clients, we are grateful they chose us, and sometimes that gratitude turns into feeling like we owe them more than what they actually purchased.

Most clients aren’t intentionally taking advantage of us either, and I think that is important to remember. We teach people how to work with us, and when we repeatedly say yes to something outside the agreement without charging for it, eventually they believe it is part of what they are paying for. Then, when we finally decide we can’t keep doing it, setting the boundary is confusing to them due to our lack of clarity.

Because every extra thing we give away still costs somebody something. It costs our team time, it costs the business payroll, it costs us profit, and sometimes it costs the evenings or weekends we were supposed to spend with the people we built this business for.

I have had to learn that being able to solve someone’s problem does not automatically make that problem mine to solve for free. I can still be generous, caring, and incredibly invested in my clients while also saying, “Absolutely, we can help with that. It will have an additional cost since it isn’t included in your current service.” That boundary doesn’t mean I care less about them, it means I am being clear and kind for everyone involved.

And that matters more to me at this stage of my life than it ever has before. I want to pay my employees well, protect their time, maintain healthy profit margins, and still have enough in my energy tank at the end of the workday.  I don’t want the success of my company to depend on how much extra time and energy my team and I are willing to give away.

Friendly Reminder: You can have a huge heart and still send the additional invoice. You can deeply care about your clients and still have a clearly defined scope of work. And you can be incredibly generous without building a business that requires you to give your time and energy away for free.

Xo, Crys

Ps, tired of scope creep? Get my workbook to bring you clarity: CLICK HERE