You are right. But proverbially drug dealers give you the first hit free all the time.

See also how 'picking the low hanging fruit first' would get you fired from any picking gig: the fruit higher up the plant tends to ripen first. So that's what you pick first.

There's lots of other funny (business) metaphors going wrong.

See also how a 'quantum leap' is the smallest possible change possible, not something big and amazing.