There's no need to be reticent. What I've found helpful is to start billing for all customer interaction immediately after the initial meeting. This includes

There's no need to be reticent. What I've found helpful is to start billing for all customer interaction immediately after the initial meeting. This includes any time I spend drawing up proposals, vetting specifications or customer meetings. Most of all, this also includes any legal costs I incur if the project requires me to sign complex legal agreements that will need to be vetted by my own counsel. The thing is, from the moment a customer starts talking to me they are making use of my time, expertise and personal resources. Because these things do not come to me for free they have value both to me and to my customer. If they are recognised as having value it greatly decreases the likelihood that my time will be wasted and increases the probability that my customer's requirements will be met. When I first started doing this about five years ago it did mean that I lost a lot of "opportunities" in the beginning. Fortunately this also meant I now had time in my schedule to accept more lucrative and enjoyable opportunities with folk who were far more concerned with the quality of my work than my willingness to sign complex legal agreements at the drop of a hat. Take a lesson from those very same lawyers who draw up NDA's! Have you ever heard of one who would spend more than five minutes of their time, expertise or resources on your problem if you weren't going to be paying for every single dollar of it? :-)