*Lookin’ Slightly Accomplished*

Well well well….this lazy chickkie finally did some work!
I got the site updated and still have a few more things to do with it but for now I’ve been dredging through my inbox of doom…it’s a mess…

Err..ok so time for some pluggin:

*BlogAzoo*- Neat little proggie…sort of like blogexplosion (points to the left).
*Mz Kitten*- The newest addition to the Blog Roll!

Phew, now that’s outta the way..down to business…

I have a dilemma that’s been naggin away at me for awhile now, something that I’d of never thought of if 4 different people hadn’t mentioned it to me.

As some of you may know I offer website hosting at my *main site*. Currently as well as in the past people have always come to me for HTML help and I’ve given help freely and spent countless hours with people, even one’s who aren’t my clients.

My packages range from $2-$9 a month for bandwidth and space, which isn’t very much (barley covers my costs actually). I don’t charge for HTML/CSS/PHP help at all. However the average time spent with a person helping them is about 3 hours. And I help A LOT of people…

Josh was the first person to mention that I should really be charging for my “extra help” that I provide, as I have a family to take care of, a house to run, and two businesses to look after. He says that if this is going to be a business I shouldn’t’ be doing it for free otherwise I’m making diddly-squat for a profit and shouldn’t even bother.

Now I can see his point and I agree with him 100%. However, a lot of the people who come to me for help are my friends and I feel kinda weird about saying “Hey I helped you in the past for free but now you have to pay me.” So I don’t know what to do here…

I offer tech support on all server issues and help clients learn about FTP and things of that nature, that is included in my current pricing. So I have a few options here:

1. Start charging per hour (half hr min) on all HTML/CSS/PHP support no matter who it is.
2. Raise my hosting prices to try and make up for the time I loose. (really don’t want to do this one)
3. Create a Members area full of flash/text tutorials where people can purchase memberships.
4. Do nothing and feel really bad about the whole situation.
What is your opinion on what I should do? I’m open for ANY suggestions at this point because I’m at a loss here…comment please!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 21st, 2005 at 6:18 am and is filed under Tech Crap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.