Hows your business?

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Call on the client, sit and talk, create mock-ups, once the client agrees on a style you have him sign the agreement and pay half down, get host running and domain working, create the entire site and test, show to client and collect remainder bill, uplaod site and submit.

Without all the nitty gritty details. Is this how you go about the proccess?
I'm considering getting the agreement signed and half down at the "sit and talk" phase.

Quote: Originally posted by theprofessional
Call on the client, sit and talk, create mock-ups, once the client agrees on a style you have him sign the agreement and pay half down, get host running and domain working, create the entire site and test, show to client and collect remainder bill, uplaod site and submit.

Close, but my order is different.

I get a client commitment and 50% before creating any design mockups and bill the final 50% after completion and uploading of site. Web hosting is separate, but parallel to the process. Since the site construction takes place on my server, I don't really care when these arrangements are made as long as the server is live and ready to receive the finished project.

How many sites per month? Are we talking 5 pages or 50? Static brochure or database driven? Scope and complexity are major factors. It could be 5 small projects in a month or 1 major project over 3 months. My personal ideal is to juggle 3-5 projects simultaneously. I like the variety.

Discussions on pricing are arguably illegal. Suffice it to say that you'll want to revisit yours if and when you quit the day job.

Yea, I know now about the prices part. Although you have to wander why. Others put prices on thier site for all to see, including other Webmasters. But, anyway...

So you do handle more than one at a time. Is this smart for a freelancer?
And I am hopeful that I'll have to revisit my pricing. Especially when I can charge "professional" prices.

Thanks for the input.

It's called price fixing. What this means is that groups of professionals can't sit down and discuss what they're going to charge, setting a fixed rate for the industry. A lot of little discussions of pricing could be considered price fixing even when if you don't mean it that way. So just to be on the safe side it's best not to talk abour pricing - we don't want to get TWF in trouble.

However, I think that for the most part prices usually tend to line up with each other in the industry depending on experience/ability level/location etc. That's just market forces.

I first have them fill out a pre-design form, with questions vital to the design of their site. Next, after the pre-design form has been filled out, layout design begins. After the layout has been designed, I submit it to the client with an I-design form. (I is for Initial). In this form they give you any changes that they'd like to have made. Besides that, they sign off on the design and pay 50% of the total cost. After 50% is paid, content is gathered (by the client) and submitted to the me. In the case of a simple site, after the content is gathered and submitted, I'll just make the rest of the pages that stick to a very consistent template. Once the project is complete the client pays the remaining 50% and the site go's live. That's basically what I do. I feel that it works pretty well. I'm still new to the game as some may know.