Well, Paul, I understand what you're saying, but I find that it's a very
common expectation that a proposal should be fairly detailed, and free,
since this has been typical in related industries for a long time. The
number of people competing for each contract makes it so that clients can
continue to ask and get that kind of proposal from lots of people.

Also, even aside from that, it's pretty difficult to offer an estimate for a
web site project without knowing a lot about what the web site will consist
of. And it's the determining those specs that take a lot of the time. For
independent or small-company web developers, clients don't usually have an
RFP, or if they do, it sucks. And yes, I've tried charging clients for the
specification-determining process - again, most won't pay for it, because
there are 10 web devs lined up behind me ready to spend several weeks doing
it for free.

My experience, anyway. :-)


--
Patty Ayers | Adobe Community Expert
www.WebDevBiz.com
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"Paul Davis" <kaosNOweaver@kaosSPAMweaver.com> wrote in message
news:ftlkgg$fcs$1@forums.macromedia.com...
> Which is why you don't provide very detailed design proposals. Overviews
> work - also, if they want a detailed design document, they should pay for
> it. Yes, you'll lose people who want that for their quote for free
> first - let them scam someone else and that is one less company that you
> can sidestep on your way to a paying customer. Anyone in a serious
> business, while trying to be cost concerned, knows that everything that
> takes serious time will cost real money.
>
> Paul Davis
> http://www.kaosweaver.com/
> Visit us for dozens of useful Dreamweaver Extensions.
>
> http://www.communitymx.com/
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>
> P@tty Ayers ~ACE wrote:
>> "Mad Dog" <md@maddogproductions-remove.com> wrote in message
>> news:ftlj85$e81$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>>> P@tty Ayers ~ACE wrote:
>>>> "Mad Dog" <md@maddogproductions-remove.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:ftlibv$d8k$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>>>>
>>>>> The business will still be there, but be prepared for people wanting
>>>>> to pay less for the same thing or at the least, just wanting
>>>>> smaller, cheaper sites.
>>>> Or to create the site themselves, or have a nephew do it.. <sigh>.
>>> ...and then call you to fix up the mess they made and wind up paying as
>>> much or more than they would have had they gotten you to do it in the
>>> first place.....(:})
>>
>> ..And then find another relative or intern to do it, and leave you
>> writing time-consuming proposals for 3 or 4 web sites a month, but not
>> getting nearly enough of the contracts because they're all just shopping
>> and taking advantage of you, so that you get tired of the whole thing and
>> leave the country for a while to do volunteer work, and then come back
>> and start up doing web design again, but with a different business
>> model.. oh, sorry, was I actually writing that? :-)
>>