Failure at the first hurdle, eh?[TW]Fox;28641355 said:
For you, perhaps. Perhaps you missed the bit where I pointed out that, in my case, a proper quote can take several days to prepare? Or that I have more work than time?
As I said, I often do a relatively brief initial meeting which I don't charge for. If someone wants an estimate, then that's not a problem. But the larger and more complex the job, the bigger the risk factor from unexpected or undetected issues, on a fixed price legally binding quote.
I don't advertise. I don't seek new jobs. They find me, nearly always based on recommendation, and in nearly every case, based on the prospective customer having seen previous jobs.
If a prospective customer objects to me expecting to be paid for my time, and wishes me to "go away and offer someone else a quote", I'm more than happy to let them find someone else to do their work for them. In fact, as I said earlier, a large part of the reason I charge is precisely to weed out time-wasters.
The process you are looking at is effectively where the customer is seeking to "qualify" the trader, perhaps by comparing quotes, perhaps by meeting and assessing the trader. What I think you're missing is that sometimes that cuts the other way, too. In my case, most of the customer's qualification has been done by seeing previous work and by recommendation. But they also have to convince me I want the job, and part of that is a realistic approach to me spending what could be several days on a quote. If they aren't happy with that, then the sooner both sides find out, the better.
The point, again, is that provided the customer knows what they are paying for, and agrees to it, there's no problem. If they don't agree, it stops either of us wasting any more of the other's time.
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