If you're just starting out in the freelance world, your biggest need is most likely to find new clients. Please understand, though: your search for clients never ends, whether you've logged one year or ten. You'll always be looking, no matter how well your business is doing. What makes the first year or so the most difficult is that you are still learning the ropes.

I've been there, believe me. I remember when clients were as rare as unicorns. I've been fortunate over the years to find (or be found by) amazing clients, and have also spent a ton of my time searching for new clients through trial and error. I know what you are going through. I can't promise that you'll find new clients tomorrow, but I can tell you that it gets easier. Maybe some of the lessons I've learned over the years can help that happen.

I know a few things that are indisputable. First, that after all these years of running my freelance design business, I'm still in operation. That's a major victory in itself, right? I also know that I have continued to meet new clients each and every month. These things are true signs of a successful freelancer. When you start to see less and less new clients, you should see that as a warning sign that the ship is starting to sink.

What I've tried to do, then, is reverse-engineer my success. This section is less a "how to" and more a fireside chat. I'll tell you what I did, and together we can surmise what went right in order to distill some essential knowledge from my experiences. Cross your fingers, because here we go.

Learn From Failure

In the first few months of my freelance business's life, I tried seemingly everything. I even tried cold-calling, which was a complete and utter waste of my time. Maybe it's just that my profession (graphic design) isn't best aligned with random phone calls to office managers of small companies, or maybe it's just because cold-calling is a thing of the past and not worth exploring for anyone. You won't know unless you try, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone as their one and only hope. There are better ways.

I tried writing letters and mailing them to businesses that I really wanted to work with, but that was equally ineffective. The bigger downside to a mass-mailing, even one as targeted as my early attempts, is that there's a hard cost associated with it. The envelopes weren't cheap, and I printed the letters on custom letterhead. And then there was the postage expense. If your budget is small or nonexistent, you might want to avoid a mailing.

Those early days of trying to find clients didn't really net me any positive results. So why am I telling you about it all? Because you need to know that it's healthy and helpful to explore your options. You need to be ready to think creatively and look for new methods to reach out and get people to notice you. What those new methods are will depend heavily on your type of profession and the business model that you've built your freelance work around. The key, though, is to try.

You won't find new clients by waiting for them to come to you. Experiment and pull all the levers you can find. When one of those levers nets you a positive result, pull it again. Sometimes it's just that simple.

Strategic Alliances

Right up there with who you know in the business world is the smaller group of people you might know in closely related fields. As a freelancer, you are a business of one, and you get to reap all of the benefits of being such a small, nimble company. But working alone means giving up the resource of having an office full of teammates around you each day. Every freelancer who wants to stay in business for the long-term needs to find a way to overcome this handicap. And that's where strategic alliances come into play.

A strategic alliance is a partnership with professionals who work in a field that brushes up against your own. For a graphic designer like myself, the most important alliances I have ever formed are with developers and printers. In the world of publishing, every copywriter needs to align themselves with a good editor and cover designer. Photographers should be in close partnership with event planners, florists and DJs.

These relationships work because they are symbiotic. Every developer has limits to their artistic ability, and aligning with a designer allows them to offer a more comprehensive list of services to their potential clients. It helps create that business team environment, but only when it's needed, and only with those you trust with your precious clients.

Finding people in similar professional fields is the easy part; finding people you can trust is the challenge. In my experience, the best way I've found to make sure someone is a good fit for my small, elite stable of allies is to tackle a small, low-pressure project together. Pick a project where the stakes are low, and failure won't ruin either of you. Perhaps it's a brand new client, as long as your gut tells you that there's room in the project for experimenting and overcoming cooperative friction. It could also be a long-standing client who is very patient and understanding of your business methods, and wants to offer you a chance to grow while working on a smaller project for them. You could offer a slight discount if that helps sweeten the pot, too.

Find allies to partner with for things that you aren't equipped to handle entirely on your own. Those alliances can become pillars that hold up your business in the long-run, and serve as a new source of clients.

Client Referrals

Growing a client base is a lot like growing plants in your garden. There are certain things those plants need to grow, and if you take care of their needs, they will thrive. With clients, like plants, your goal is to nurture them into fruit-bearing members of your business.

Do you know what a third-tier referral is? It's kind of like a grandchild. Let's say you work for a client, and they walk away incredibly happy. They might mention you to a colleague who turns around and hires you for their own stuff. That person is a second-tier referral. If they in turn recommend you to someone else, and that person hires you, then pat yourself on the back because you've just encountered your first third-tier referral.

I have an email in my inbox right now that I need to respond to from a third-tier referral. I have worked for clients who are fourth-tier, fifth-tier and even sixth-tier referrals. What's the big deal? To me, it's all about bearing fruit.

When you please a client and send them away with a problem solved and grateful they hired you, you have made a client for life. This is a good thing because regular clients are one of the best signs of a healthy business. Regular clients who talk about you to others, though, are even better. So when you hear from someone who discovered you through a past client, you know you are doing really well.

How do you get there? Crank out the basics: solve the client's problem, charge them fairly, don't create reasons for buyer's remorse, and give more than they expect.

Win your clients through the business equivalent of sunshine, water and fertilizer. It sounds corny (see what I did there?), but it's a pillar of finding new clients. Wow the ones you have, and they'll bring new ones to your door for you.

I also end every project by asking two things from my clients: to type out a short, simple testimonial about their experience with me, and to keep me in mind down the road when someone they know would benefit from my skills. Those two requests empower my clients to become my teammates, out in the world generating leads that can grow my business.

The testimonials are great for storing away for future reference or marketing efforts, but their true power is in the act of writing them. When a client has to stop and take five minutes to write about how awesome you are, it helps cement that notion in their mind. If it was semi-clear before, it becomes crystal-clear after writing out the words.

Don't forget to thank the clients who pass along your name to other people. When those new referrals turn into paying clients, it's important to send a small gift to the first client as a way of thanking them for their efforts. They deserve the gifts, and it just might encourage them to keep doing it in the future. And if one client sends more and more clients over time, be sure to increase the value and significance of their gift. It's only fair, and it can only fuel future growth on your end.

Find new clients by empowering the ones you have. It saves you time and creates a partnership with those clients that helps solidify your business relationship.

Job Boards

Avoid them. Honestly. Job boards are filled with people wanting to hire the cheapest service provider they can. You don't want to spend the first year of your freelance career playing the lowball game, do you? Just skip the job boards.

Small Sales for Big Results

Early in your freelance career, you may find that the best way to convert tire-kickers to paying customers is to use cheaper rates and special offers. I'm not an advocate for lower prices all the time, and undercutting is never a safe path to walk. But the occasional special price on an in-demand service is a great way to tip the scales in your favor. For some clients, their bottom line is, well, the bottom line.

I remember spending much of 2011 offering special logo design prices every other month. It meant that I didn't earn as much from those projects as I would have liked, but I picked up a lot of new clients that way, and that extended the reach of my network. Those new clients had friends and associates that had never heard of me, but after seeing my work, they knew they had a designer to call if they ever had the need.

Just a note about special pricing: always show the discount on your invoices. I talk about this in more detail in The Freelancer's Guide to Getting Paid, but the goal here is to manage the client's expectations. If your invoice just says "$200", they might always assume that the service will cost them $200 the next time. If it says "$400", though, and then the next item on the invoice is a $200 discount, they'll know the true value of the service they've hired you to perform.

I also recommend to freelancers that they never snub the tiny projects. It is beyond cliché, I know, but one of my biggest clients (representing a significant portion of my annual income last year) started out as a small gig that involved one PowerPoint graphic and some pocket change. Use small projects as a chance to get your foot in the door, blow them away with your skill and professionalism, and then carefully nurture that relationship into something much more significant.

I think of those survival shows on television, where the outdoorsman has worked for two hours to generate a spark in a bundle of shredded leaves and sticks. It seems like such a small reward for all that hard work. But if they protect that spark, gently encourage it to grow, and avoid smothering it, they can turn that tiny spark into a bonfire.

Try to turn every new client into a bonfire. Focusing on the small things can result in something huge down the road.