How to handle this situation?

[cgl102770]

This sort of thing happens a lot, almost every time. I was talking with a friend who manages a restaurant. The owner stopped by, complaining about their website. My friend, the manager, suggested they have me do their site. So, we started talking, the owner isn't happy with their CMS, would like to have certain features, more mobile friendly, etc. I gave them some feedback and my manager friend suggested I send them a list of suggestions. All of this was perfectly reasonable, and they were very polite.

So, I looked over their site, and sent back a list of suggestions as well as my recall of the conversation concerning their needs. They replied with some more detail and clarification, and sent a few possible solutions, like a website targeted for restaurant owners in which they can create their own website.

So, I'm about an hour into this, and now I have to test drive some technology theyve sent me and give a critique, basically I'm consulting at this point. I dont mind at all an initial free meeting, though I think I'm going to end up spending about 4 hours on this before I figure out the best solutions on this and send them a quote. I feel though, if I charge them just to go back and forth initially, that may be a little too aggressive/greedy. Or am I wrong? I'm sure a lot of you have run into this type of situation, its rare a new client says "I need you to do this and this and I'll pay you this". So how do you handle it? Thank you for any feedback!

[Norrie]

Yeah, you're wrong. It's not greedy. Charge for it. A free initial consultation is normal and then and charge for the rest. Can't believe no one answered before now. Must be all the spam in here.