The Gap Between Understanding & Agreeing
A project can grow with everyone watching and still end in a pricing fight.
One of the founders said it out loud on a call about the next phase of the project.
The scope had grown.
He could name exactly why.
And I still had to fight for the new price.
They understood the work had changed. But they hadn’t agreed to what the changed work would cost.
I thought those were close enough.
They weren’t.
I learned that the annoying way.
How it started
The project started clean.
The first phase was strategy, direction, and the foundation for the work. It was scoped, paid for, delivered, and closed.
Everyone felt good.
Then we started moving toward the next phase.
That’s when the company brought in a new senior person.
She was great. Smart. Clear. She had a stronger point of view on where the company needed to go.
The positioning changed, the audience changed, and the original plan didn’t really make sense anymore.
And honestly, most of it was right.
The old plan didn’t fit anymore.
But that also meant the next phase wasn’t really the next phase anymore.
It was a new project.
The client was the same. The relationship was the same. But the job had changed.
I should’ve paused there.
I didn’t.
Where I got it wrong
I don’t usually start a major phase of work without written sign-off.
This time I did.
Partly because we already knew each other. Partly because the project had momentum. Partly because the new direction seemed right and I wanted to be helpful.
But the biggest reason was probably this:
I was still figuring out how big the new version was while I was already working on it.
The work didn’t get bigger in one obvious moment.
It was a new direction here, a bigger structure there, more people weighing in, more decisions to make.
Each thing made sense on its own.
Together, it was no longer the same project.
By the time I sent the updated number, it made sense to me because I’d been inside the work the whole time.
They hadn’t.
So even though they agreed the scope had grown, the price still landed late.
My mistake wasn’t the price.
It was the order of things.
The issue was surprise
When a client pushes back on price, it’s easy to think, “They don’t get how much work this is.”
Sometimes that’s true.
In this case, I think the number just surprised them.
The work justified it. The scope had changed. The bigger version needed more from us.
But I hadn’t brought them along while the number was changing.
So when I finally sent it, they weren’t reacting only to the logic.
They were reacting to the jump.
Instead of talking about what to keep, cut, or phase, we were talking about whether the number felt reasonable.
Any of those trade-off conversations would’ve been better than getting to the number too late.
The message I should’ve sent
This is what I should’ve sent the moment the direction changed:
“Just flagging this now. The direction has changed enough that we’re past the original scope. I’m going to update the estimate before we keep moving so we can make sure this still works.”
Nothing dramatic.
Not a big legal moment. Not “we need to talk.”
Just a checkpoint.
That kind of message can feel annoying when the relationship is good. You don’t want to slow things down. You don’t want every good idea to feel like it comes with a price tag attached.
But the alternative is worse.
If you don’t pause when the scope changes, the invoice becomes the pause.
And by then, everyone is already tense.
The part I really didn’t like
There’s another thing I don’t love admitting.
When I felt tension around the number, I offered to bring the price down before we’d really talked.
I thought I was being reasonable.
I wasn’t.
I was guessing.
And guessing with price usually makes things worse.
It can make the number feel soft. It can make the client wonder if there was padding in it. It can turn the conversation into negotiation before anyone has even said what the actual problem is.
The better move would’ve been:
“I can adjust the scope to fit a tighter budget. Which pieces would you want to remove?”
I wish I’d asked that instead.
It keeps the conversation tied to the work.
If the budget is real, we cut scope. If they don’t want to cut scope, then we’re dealing with a different problem.
Instead, I moved on price before I knew what I was solving for.
Panic dressed up as generosity.
I’ve done it.
I’m trying not to do it again.
How it ended
We had a call scheduled.
I knew it was going to be tense.
Before the call, I sent a note.
I told them I should’ve re-anchored the project the moment the direction changed. I said I kept going because the work felt right, but I hadn’t given them a clean chance to approve the bigger version before I was already deep in it.
That message did more than the call probably would’ve.
They came back calmer than I expected.
They said the budget ceiling was real. They still valued the work, but they were going to take part of it in-house.
So we agreed on a smaller handoff.
I cleaned up the files, wrapped up the thinking, and gave them what they needed to keep moving.
It ended without a blow-up.
I still left money on the table.
I hated that part.
But I also knew I’d made the number harder for them to accept by sending it too late.
So I chose the clean exit.
I think that was the right call.
Not because it felt good. It didn’t.
Because turning it into a billing fight would’ve made a messy situation worse.
What’s different now
I put one line in my proposals: if a new senior hire changes the direction, we pause and agree on the new scope before continuing. Took me longer than it should’ve to write that down.
The harder thing to change is the pull to keep going when the work feels right. That feeling doesn’t go away. The relationship is good, the ideas are sound, everyone wants the same outcome… and that’s exactly when you skip the checkpoint.
The lesson isn’t that I’ll feel differently next time. It’s that I know what that feeling costs now.
So when I notice it, that momentum, that “we’re close enough, let’s just keep moving” — that’s the moment to pause.
Because good work still needs a clear agreement.
Especially when the relationship is good.
The lesson
This wasn’t a bad client story.
That’s why it’s worth writing about.
Bad client stories are easy. This was harder because everyone was being pretty reasonable.
The client wanted better work. The new hire had good ideas. I wanted to be helpful.
And still, I handled the sequence wrong.
If you’re thinking, “They know this is bigger, right?” pause.
Don’t leave that as a thought in your head.
Make it a sentence in the project.
Better work still needs a clear agreement.
Especially when the relationship is good.
Thanks for reading,
Gev