To get started, you’ll need an Initial Consultation with us. This Consultation costs $45 an hour and is NON-REFUNDABLE. This can be done via phone after you send us an email letting us know you would like to schedule an hour of our time to discuss your needs and goals as you see them. Once your Consultation Fee is paid in full to us, we will schedule a time for US TO Call YOU.   During this Consultation, we will ask you several questions and then let you know what we think we’ll be able to do for you.  We will give you a FREE Cost Estimate in writing via email.  If you agree to the Cost Estimate for whatever service you require, then we will need to be paid up front for any Domain Name Services and Web Hosting Fees.  These Fees are paid directly to us via PayPal or to the Domain Name service and/or Web Host you will be using.    NEXT>

Getting a Domain Name is easy, but like anything you do on the web, you must understand how to do it properly to avoid costly mistakes. We will be glad to help you with this if you don’t have a Domain Name yet.  A Domain Name which uses  uses a .com or .net extension typically costs under $20 a year and can be paid for more than one year at a time – say for 2 years or 5 years in advance, but at a minimum must be paid for at least 1 Year at a time.  Domain Services charge these fees to reserve your name for your use only during the period you pay for to keep other individuals or organizations from taking that name and using it for their businesses. We will explain this to you again before you pay for anything.

Setting up hosting is something that you can do yourself or we can help you get it done.  We have been using our hosting company for 20+ years and highly recommend their services.  We have the prices for their hosting packages clearly listed on this website under Web Hosting in our Web Services Section.   There are no hidden fees and we will be glad to assist you with the setup of your account.   Continue>

Do you have a Company ID?  What does that mean?  For details, we recommend you read this page and discuss any questions you have with us during your Initial Consultation.  Basically, your  Company ID is your logo, your identity package (business cards, etc).

If you don’t yet have anything developed, we can help you with that as well for an additional cost, of course. If you do have at least a good quality logo, we can proceed to Designing Your Site using your logo or we can use a text logo to get you started. If we think the design or quality of your existing logo will not meet our standards of quality and/or our mutual understanding of your vision for your company, we will also discuss that during your Initial Consultation, so that you get started on the right foot for achieving your goal.  This will help determine from the outset if you can afford for us to help you achieve what you are looking for and also help us determine if your project is a good fit for us.

This step is the one that will take the most work, but should yield you the most rewards in the long-run.  After  you have agreed in writing to our Cost Estimate and Proposed Schedule of Work for Web Design, we will require a 50% NON-REFUNDABLE down payment to begin work on your site. You can pay this online via PayPal, so it is an easy way to get your project started.  The remainder of the cost for your project will be due in full upon completion.

So how to get started? On our end, we will establish a Proposed Schedule of Work that sets tentative deadlines  and progress goals that we both agree upon.  As a small firm, we try to maintain a flexible schedule overall. By the same token, BECAUSE WE ARE ONLY a 2-person team, we must also maintain a certain amount of time discipline on our end, so we can comfortably juggle more than one project at a time and give our clients the attention they need. 

Because this type of flexibility is necessary for us to stay creative, be productive and keep up on new and exciting technologies, we ONLY charge for our Design Services BY THE JOB/PROJECT, rather than by the hour. We DO NOT give a per hour cost quote or tie ourselves to a preset per hour work schedule for any of our services, UNLESS it is for something we publish specifically like Consultation Fees.  This policy has served us well and is the one issue not up for debate  when you are considering whether or not you would like to work with us.

If this arrangement is something you do NOT feel comfortable with, we will NOT be offended if you choose someone else to work with you.  At this point in our lives and our careers, we do not want to be the biggest nor the best design firm in the world.  We do this work because we love the creativity and the challenge of helping others with their businesses. As a result, there will be some projects that we will certainly decline because we don’t feel we can offer the best solution for the client, it doesn’t suit our religious, ethical or moral beliefs or simply won’t work with the number of projects we have ongoing at the time.  If your potential project does not seem a good fit for us or is just too big for us to handle, we will make that clear up front and try to steer you in a direction more appropriate to your needs.  We want to stay happy doing our work and we want you to get the best solution for your needs as well.

That said, if we DO take on your project, there will be several simple requirements we will have of you right up front for things like company and product information, perhaps blog or policy content, photos, videos, logos, etc. to help us reach mutually agreed upon goals and progress deadlines for the project.  Additionally, there will be 2 Official Progress Assessments during which changes in function and or design may be addressed.   We will require your approval at each assessment to move forward with our work.  Any suggested changes may be rejected or adopted by both parties before proceeding to the next stage of development. These checks will serve to document both negative concerns and positive progress acknowledgment from both sides. This strategy will give you peace of mind that we are indeed listening to your ideas, visions and goals for your company’s image on the Internet, as well as making sure your site is beginning to function as envisioned.  If you are not really sure what you want until you see it, that is usually not a problem for us either as we are very creative and love to work as independently as possible to come up with good solutions for your issues. 

One of the main keys to our success with this approach is communication. We work hard to keep our lines of communication open, flexible and well-documented to avoid misunderstandings and confusion wherever possible.  We commonly use messaging, chats and email to communicate.  We will also give you a call if needed, but like to keep as much in writing as we can, so either party can refer back to any topic or issue we aren’t sure about at any point. We don’t want/expect to teach you how to do what WE do, but we would like to teach you why we do what we do and will try to help you learn whatever practical applications you will need to understand how to use your site after we complete our work on the design.  We expect our clients to make themselves available to us as needed, via messages or email to keep the workflow moving along as smoothly as possible.  Thus far, we haven’t had any problems that we haven’t been able to easily and smoothly resolve.  Our working attitude is generally friendly, but professional, just like our company name, Jolly German.

Overall, our biggest challenges seem to be related to getting the initial content we need from our clients to help us get started in a timely manner. We realize all business people and especially new entrepreneurs are extremely busy, so in the beginning of any project, we try to ask only for what we need most to start building a strong foundation.  As we make more progress, we will adjust, add to and take away from that initial framework, in order to begin fleshing out our vision for your design.  If any significant changes need to be made along the way, they can be discussed and agreed upon during our progress assessments at a minimum and as needed otherwise, via email and/or phone calls.  If any cost adjustments need to be made (usually not necessary), these will be documented  in an Addendum to our Proposed Schedule of Work, so we can compensate for any new or unexpected resources, whether it be extra time, new software, new training, etc. that we may require to meet the changes in vision.

Our ultimate goal is to provide you a good, solid functioning and visually pleasing presence on the Worldwide Web that we can all be proud of. If we do take on your project and are successful in our endeavors to help you achieve your dream or vision, our hope is that we can contribute  some kind of measureable value to your business for years to come.  Of course, in any creative services or design business such as ours, there can never be a guarantee of specific results.  Regardless, our priority is still to try to make a quantifiable difference in your company’s overall success by at least getting you off to a solid start with a good website.  We will be happy to share tips and some advice along the way and if you need Marketing Services or an official Branding Strategy, we can provide those services for additional fees as well.  We will be happy to discuss all that in our Initial Consultation before we start work so that both parties have a solid framework from which to proceed.

After all, your success is our success!  We obviously realize a highly satisfied customer is more likely to enthusiastically recommend our services to others which helps us continue to grow as well –  a Win-Win strategy.

Once all project deadlines and goals have been met to our mutual satisfaction,  we will require you to pay the remainder of your Projected Cost Estimate in full.  At that time, your Initial Consultation Fee may, at our discretion, be deducted from your final total, thereby rendering it in essence, a FREE SERVICE to you.  Some Consultations may take more than one hour, so this may be quite a little discount from your overall cost and we are happy to offer it as an option.

Then, if after completion of your initial project, you so desire, we can establish a New Contract for Monthly Maintenance Fees for specific services, such as updating product listings , photos, etc. You can pay for this by the month, quarterly or annually in advance.

If, indeed, you like our work so much that you would like us to consider additional project work on your behalf, we will be happy to discuss the possibilities with you when you are ready – of course, giving consideration to our workload and schedules at that time. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this in advance of your Initial Consultation. Good Luck with your projects, regardless of whether (or not) you choose us to help you with your future business!  Finally, especially in these strange and uncertain times, try your best to Stay Jolly!  We will!

Once your site has been completed, you may opt to have Jolly German Web Services take care of things you must do monthly to keep your site running smoothly and updated in accordance with your site maintenance plan.  We can discuss this with you upon completion of your Website Design Project and if you choose to have us maintain your site or update certain things on your site each month, we will require a new Contract for Website Maintenance in which we will list the kinds of things we will do for you for a specific fee per month.  You may choose to pay for this maintenance by the month, per quarter or annually in advance via PayPal online just as you did for your Website Design Project.  Gary will be glad to discuss this with you via messaging, email or on the phone.  The Contract for Maintenance will be in writing and must be agreed to in writing online in the same manner as we used for your Website Design.