Well, my dear, they come from many places. If you go to the library known as Freelance Folder, you’ll see people sharing how they find their clients.

When a freelancer and a client meet, they check out each other to ensure they are a fit. It may take some bio and web site reading to get familiar with each other. After making it pass the test phase, they come together and a product or service is born. No storks involved.

But how do freelancers and clients meet in the first place? Believe it or not, Mommy never relies on cold calling. Isn’t she lucky? Imagine how many bad phone calls I’ve had trying to contact strangers through the relay service. Blind dates just don’t work well here.

All of the following ways work because Mommy met at least one client each way.

• Referrals: Mom has clients from everywhere. Only one client has an office in Dallas. Yet, Mom found him through a colleague based out of Seattle. I helped teach a thesis related course for a few years plus created the bibliography guidelines for the school. Professors refer students to me for editing help. I love thesis editing because I learn new things like the impact of gentrification on cities.
• Social network profile: Just last week, someone who found me on LinkedIn sent me a query to do web content for his business.
• Existing clients: It’s important to keep current clients happy. It’s easier and cheaper to keep clients than to find new ones. A current client emailed me a project for another client.
• Plain ol’ reply to ads: A lot of people think this doesn’t work anymore, sweetie. With many people out of jobs, we all think every opening receives hundreds of applications. I replied to a call for writers and landed the gig.
• Twitter: I don’t think Mom has gotten any gigs directly from twitter. But it keeps her name out there as she tries to help others solve problems and link them to valuable and fun resources.
• Networking: Another client got to know me through his site’s forums and a couple of email exchanges. Networking involves many places including twitter, blogs, Facebook.
• Web site: A web site with all of its contents add to a person’s credibility. Well, if it’s done right. Too many business sites have no About page, photos, bios or anything to put a friendly face behind the company. Add a newsletter along with an email subscription box and you start building relationships.
• Existing work: A client liked several articles your mom wrote and contacted her. Another client and I worked for the same web site.
• Interviewees, editors and resources: I can think of at least three people I interviewed for an article or book chapter who eventually hired me.
• Volunteer work: I encourage new freelancers to build their portfolio through volunteer work. Besides that, you do something good. People will notice your work and refer you or hire you.
• Former students: I suppose this could count as existing work. I assisted many professors in NYU’s online graduate program. The students got to know me through online classes.

I’ve bought ads for directories with local non-profit organizations. I knew it was more for helping out the organization than advertising. As you know, I have only one local client and he find me through an ad.

So there you have it, darling. That’s where Mommy’s clients come from. And in not one instance did I rely on protection in the form of advertising or blind dates from cold calling.

Blurbs, testimonials, and quotes are a great way to promote yourself or your book as you let the clients and readers do the talking. No worries about sounding like a braggart. But there are good, bad, and tricky testimonials.

“This is a great book!”

“Joe did an excellent job on the project!”

Do these tell you anything? These are empty and generic quotes. Here’s one that’s an example of a tricky testimonial, but you wouldn’t know it:

“Jane is very reliable.”

This tells part of the story. The rest of the story… “Jane is very reliable in arriving late for work every day.” Makes it easy for someone who didn’t like the person’s work to avoid saying something bad. But in most cases, the employee wouldn’t use such a person as a referral. So referrals can’t be trusted 100% — another problem with the traditional job search process.

When reading book reviews in Amazon or elsewhere, you can tell which ones are the author’s friends. They’re short and empty. They tell you nothing about the book. It’s better not to have a testimonial than one like this, I think. What if a big name wrote this kind of blurb? The blurb is useless in terms of convincing you to buy the book, but the author’s association with the person could convince some people to buy it (that old “It’s who you know.”).

When asking for a testimonial after the person agreed to supply one, ask the person to answer this results-oriented question and the testimonial will more likely be valuable.

“What has [product or service] helped you achieve?”

The latest article from Roy Peter Clark of Poynter.com and author of Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer says it’s the 100th anniversary of the “blurb.” Since when do words get their own anniversaries? How do we know which ones deserve an anniversary?

A reader responding to Clark’s article wrote a great comment and an excellent example of a tricky blurb:

My all-time favorite came from a soft-hearted sportswriter who was asked to provide a blurb for a memoir by a washed-up and nearly illiterate professional boxer. His contribution: “Obviously a labor of love.”

You can make your testimonials more credible if you include one that’s not positive. Why would you want to include that? It shows you’re honest and human. But why would we want to show our weaknesses? C’mon. Everyone has weak areas and we might as well as be up front about them and earn credibility points.

I tried to get one from an editor on an assignment that didn’t work out. Even told the editor that I fully expected a testimonial that wasn’t positive. No luck. But then again, I understand because it would be difficult for me to point out something negative about a person’s work and then let it get published for all the world to see.

Yesterday, I received an email from a company looking to do work for me. Items in quotes are directly from the email. Non-quoted items are my comments.

I apologize for intruding into your busy schedule. Please allow me to introduce ourselves.

Polite, but already off to a negative start. Says he is intruding. It might be better to say something along these lines: “I’m sure you’re very busy, so I’ll keep this short and to the point.”

We feel that your website can be improved substantially in terms of design, and shall be happy to undertake this for you.

Insult followed by the company’s delight in taking on my lousy site so it can get business for itself. “Substantially” makes my site sound like something leftover from the ’90s. Why would I want to hire a company I never heard of that’s already insulting my site without ever seeing it? This line is generic and the email is obviously a template. Oh, it doesn’t even address me — just says, “Hi”.

If it’s the truth — I appreciate the honesty as I’m always grateful when someone catches an error or typo here and lets me know. Perhaps, it would help to point out specifics to show why my site needs help. “The red doesn’t work because it comes across as such-n-such. The navigation needs a lift because of this.”

The next few paragraphs goes into the technologies covered, how smart and talented the employees are, and where the company is located — to clearly point out its ability to do cheap labor.

I love this, which appeared in the disclaimer after the person’s name:

Please note that we have not purchased your e-mail address from any commercial source. We have accessed it through primary research on the internet.

Yeah, and yet there is not one iota of information in the email showing the company did its research except find out my email address, which isn’t hard.

I looked at the web site and check out the portfolio. Half of the web sites look like leftovers from the ’90s. The other half resembles my site — basic, clean design. I wonder how the company would “improve” my site. If I had money to burn, I’d hire the company for kicks and see how it plays out.

The site claims it validates W3C HTML 4.01 Transitional and CSS. HTML, yes. CSS, no. Tables everywhere. This site uses XHTML and CSS for layout. I give the company credit for one thing — there’s no mention of content work. Just reading the site’s contents, you know this isn’t a company you want to hire for writing content.

Networking experts suggest doing research to find the right companies and the right person to contact. But when you do make contact, what do you say? You don’t want to start a relationship with a total stranger asking to take on work. Think of how you would build a relationship. Offer an email newsletter or offer to send a free report — something you can give them for free.

I still can’t picture cold calling (specific people) and trying to start a relationship. Maybe it has to do with my not being a natural telephone user. That’s why I appreciate online networking.

Until recent years, I never thought seriously about starting my own business because I didn’t want to deal with the bookkeeping and the marketing. After all, no marketing equals no clients. I’m no sales person. But I love the work and believe it’s worth doing the “I’d rather not do” activities.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed with business and self-help books because authors provide a wealth of suggestions and no clear path. This is where Hayden’s book stands out from the crowd. She breaks everything down from the six marketing strategies and setting up measurable goals to selecting ten doable activities.

The book also includes two worksheets that work with the program for easier reviewing and tracking progress. While you can follow the program alone, she recommends having support from someone other than family. It could be a coach or a colleague in the industry.

The organized and methodical program guides you through each step. Reading the how doesn’t take long and the program begins mid-way through the book. The latter half of the book describes the activities you can do while following the 28-day program. So you won’t get overwhelmed at the thought of “too many pages to read.”

I worked on it as soon as I started reading the book. Having this guide took a lot of pressure off of me as I know exactly what to do once I’d put my plan together. Not many business books have urged me to take action and this one succeeded. I know that after a month of following this process, I’ll see positive results.

While the book sounds simple, and it is — it takes work to make it happen. Instead of taking the long route and learning from trial-and-error, Hayden provides you with a direct route so you do the activities and don’t worry about overdoing it.

Some people may not like strict rules. The book isn’t like that. It’s okay to adjust the plan so you do six or seven activities instead of ten. It helps you figure out where you’re stuck in the marketing process and provides the tools for working past it. The book is over five years old and its contents are as relevant today as when it first came out. I can say with certainty that anyone who follows the plan will get great results.

Title: Get Clients Now! A 28-Day Marketing Program for Professionals and Consultants
Author: C.J. Hayden
Publisher: American Manangement Association
ISBN: 0814479928
Date: February 1999
Format: Paperback
Pages: 214
Cover Price: USD: $19.95 Amazon: $13.97