What matters most when you’re building a freelance business? Kim Ellis ran a LinkedIn poll with freelancers and self-employed professionals, and the results tell a very real story about how clients actually appear, and why network and great work sit at the heart of sustainable growth.
One of the most common questions I hear from freelancers and people thinking about making the leap into self-employment is this:
How the heck do I find clients?
And to be honest, it’s a fair question.
Because yes, in an ideal world you’d line up a few lovely ‘lucrative’ clients before you leave employment. You’d have a neat little pipeline, some predictable income, and a reassuring sense that it’s all going to be absolutely fine and you aren’t going to have to start selling pictures of your feet to pay the mortgage.
But real life rarely works like that.
Most freelancers build as they go. They test things. They wobble a bit. They try different routes to market. They figure out what works by actually doing the work.
So I ran a LinkedIn poll to see what people felt mattered most when building a successful business.
Here’s what you said:
- A mega strong network – 41%
- Just doing really great work – 31%
- A super clear niche – 22%
- Having a visible brand – 5%
And honestly, I love this spread because it tells a very real story about freelance business building.
It’s not tidy.
It’s not formulaic.
And there is no single magic lever.
But there are some very clear patterns in how businesses actually grow.
Your network is your business oxygen
The strongest result by quite a margin was network.
And that absolutely tracks with what I see every single day inside the Free Spirits community.
Because here’s the truth: work rarely falls out of the sky.
It comes through:
- referrals
- collaborations
- repeat clients
- community visibility
- people remembering you exist
As Becs McNeill put it in the poll comments:
You can’t sell anything if you don’t have anyone to sell it to.
YES! Exactly that 👆👆👆👆👆
Freelance business is fundamentally a relationships business. People buy from people they trust, recognise, or have seen in action somewhere.
That doesn’t mean constant pitching or awkward outreach. It means being present in spaces where conversations happen and relationships form over time.
It’s also why community matters so much for freelancers. When you don’t have a workplace ecosystem around you anymore, you have to consciously build one.
But don’t treat your network as just leads, it’s so much more than that.
It’s support. It’s learning. It’s visibility. It’s opportunity.
Great work is your engine
The second strongest result was doing really great work.
And yes, absolutely.
As Sarah Pocklington commented:
Without it there is no niche, no brand and no reason for people to connect with you.
This is such an important grounding point in a world full of marketing noise….full of pitchslapping and waffle.
You can have the clearest niche in the world, but if the work doesn’t deliver impact, clients don’t stay.
You can have a visible brand, but if the experience disappoints, referrals stop.
You can build a network, but if people aren’t confident recommending you, opportunities dry up.
Great work is what turns:
- clients into repeat clients
- projects into case studies
- contacts into advocates
- visibility into credibility
It’s the thing that makes everything else sustainable.
And it’s also worth saying this: many freelancers massively underestimate how good their work already is.
Corporate comparison hangover is real. People assume they need more credentials, more polish, more positioning before they’re “ready”. When I first started out, I felt I needed to be ‘older’ to have more credibility (and I was in my late thirties then!)
But often the actual differentiator is simply caring deeply about outcomes and delivering thoughtfully designed work that actually does what the client needs it to.
Niche, brand, network and work are interdependent
One of the most insightful threads in the comments was this recurring theme: you can’t really separate these things. We can’t just pick one.
Jen Taylor summed it up beautifully:
A clear niche makes all three easier.
Yes.
Because niche clarifies:
- who you help
- what you help with
- why it matters
Which then makes networking easier. And messaging easier. And visibility easier. And positioning easier.
At the same time, Philippa Hammond highlighted something equally important:
knowing the transformation you deliver
communicating it clearly and consistently
building and nurturing your network
That’s the ecosystem view of business growth.
These elements reinforce each other:
- niche shapes message
- message supports visibility
- visibility grows network
- network creates opportunities
- opportunities generate great work
- great work strengthens niche
Round and round it goes.
No single lever.
But a powerful flywheel when aligned.
So what actually matters most?
If I step back from both the poll data and years of watching my own businesses grow, here’s the honest answer:
Nothing works in isolation.
But if you absolutely had to choose the foundational layer, the one that unlocks the rest?
It probably is network.
Because without people knowing you exist, none of the rest can really land.
You can’t demonstrate great work to people who never encounter you.
You can’t express your niche to an empty room.
You can’t build a brand no one sees.
Network is the exposure layer that allows everything else to function.
But, and this is the kicker, it only works long-term when it’s fuelled by great work and clear value.
Let’s wrap this up
What I loved most about this poll wasn’t actually the winner.
It was the nuance in the comments.
Freelancers instinctively know there’s no seven-step method for success. As Sheridan Webb said:
There’s no secret formula. But work rarely falls out of the sky. You have to do the groundwork.
And I absolutely agree. Building your business is less like flicking switches and more like growing your own veggies, you put the work in then reap the rewards.
So if you’ve reached this point and you’re still wondering how clients actually appear…
They usually emerge from a simple but powerful combination:
people know you
people trust you
people value what you do
Everything else flows from there.
