Originally Posted by vdc-Loki

My first thought is that you must be mad at your boy lol, to make him "cold call" a bunch of small biz's and deal with people who are barely bright enough to turn ON their computer.....

ALL JOKES ASIDE:

This is REALLY allot more pain then it's worth, I've been dealing with "mom and pop" clients since around 1998 and damn near EVERY ONE of them I'd love to shove a spike through their collective heads....

When you "give them something for free" you open up a HUGE can of worms, your boy will be working NON STOP for pennies pretty much, and ANYTIME someone who "knows about computers" talks to his clients they will be calling him up DEMANDING some sort of trivial updates and NOT want to pay what his time and skills are worth!

Case in point...

As far as I can tell, the GOING HOURLY RATE for a "good" designer is around $45.00 per hour, no matter how "Basic" these sites are, lets say the client "demands" a site wide change that will take say 10 hours to complete, do you think they will pay $450.00 for that? NOPE!

Another nice thing to take into account, is that IF your telling them they pretty much get a site for free, they will think it will either be sub-standard or some type of scam at best, not to mention these days, they can have their own kids or friends kids build them a site for "free" and get their own $5.00 hosting account.

THEN....

The site goes down, Your kid's phone rings off the hook

Someone tells the client their paying WAY to much for hosting your kid's phone rings off the hook, or worse yet his name gets drug through the mud as a thief around your local community.

Bottom line, (imho, and experience) it's not worth the chump change to deal with all that hassle and bullshit. I sacrificed all of my free time and made little to no money when I went the same route (and for the record I had over 100 active clients in my 'hey-day") and my phone never stopped ringing and the checks would never come either lol

-Loki-