Doing it right the first time may take a little longer than you’d like. But the total time spent goes down if you spend that extra bit up front.
For example, pulling a list of all buildings in a market that fit a client’s needs prevents the common process of the client finding sites on their own and bringing them in at the middle of the process. It may take extra time to find those not-so-visible buildings but you save time and frustration by pulling them in up front. Even if all it does is allow them to be eliminated early in the process by the client.
Extra time up front also shows commitment to a client and is more likely to lead to follow-on work. Putting in some out-of-scope work now can be looked at as marketing. You will reduce the sales time down the road while increasing sales rates. Win-win.
But it can be hard to think this way because the total impact is not always measurable. Second level thinking.