Finding IT Freelance Clients

Referrals typically account for the majority of business for established IT freelancers and require cultivating client relationships that generate word-of-mouth recommendations. ...This approach typically produces a modest number of client inquiries relative to the number of messages sent, and only a portion of a professional network will respond and convert to a first project. The volume of a network matters less than the relevance and warmth of the relationships within it. ...A common pattern for new IT freelancers is that their first several clients all trace back to a single prior relationship: a former boss becomes a direct client, a colleague that former boss mentions the work to becomes a second client, and that person's referral produces a third. A freelancer's entire first year can plausibly stem from one relationship that existed before they went independent.