How do I find work? It’s the question that comes up more than any other.

And three years of our survey data keeps landing on the same answer. But is it one you can actually build a business on? Kim Ellis takes a look at what’s really keeping freelancers busy, and how to make the most of it.

For the past three years, our Freelancer Insight Survey has told us one thing about how you’re all finding work… referrals.

But we’re not talking just a few gigs here and there, for many of you that is the number one source of your workload.

This year 84.5% of freelancers told us they use referrals to find work, and 37% of all work-finding activity came from referrals alone. That’s more than social media, agencies and direct outreach put together.

The message is clear – your reputation and your relationships are your most valuable assets.

But – there’s always a but – finding work is still the hardest part of what we do. 59.2% of people scored the ease of finding clients at 5 or below, and that number hasn’t changed much across the years.

So, if referrals are the most common way we’re all finding work, why is it so hard to land clients? And is having referrals as your number one actually sustainable in the long term?

There’s only so many times you can tap a person up to refer you before you annoy them, that’s a fact. If you ask them if they know anyone who could use your services every time you contact them, pretty soon that’s all the relationship is about, and it becomes pretty one sided.

And let’s not forget the elephant in the room – referrals are completely reliant on someone else! Just relying on another person telling the right person at the right time about you and your business seems a little bonkers when you put it like that.

Here’s what you can do to give your referrals a boost

Don’t disappear the second the invoice is paid. So many of us wrap a project, send the final bill and vanish straight into the next bit of work – especially if we do fix term projects. Then we wonder why the referrals dry up. A quick check-in a few weeks later, a “how did that land with the team?”, keeps you warm in someone’s mind. That’s often exactly where the next introduction comes from.

Make your work easy to talk about. People can only refer you if they can explain what you do in a sentence. If your offer is a bit woolly, the referral comes out woolly too. Be specific, and hand people the words. “She designs eLearning that people actually want to do” travels a lot further than “she does eLearning stuff.”

Actually ask. Most of us hate it, so we skip it, and then we’re baffled when nothing happens. You don’t need to be cringey about it either. Just after a project’s gone well is the natural moment… “Really glad that worked for you. If you know anyone else wrestling with the same thing, I’d love an intro.” Done. No hard sell, no ick.

Take the faff out of it for them. Busy people won’t refer you if it’s effort. Offer to draft the intro email. Point them at your LinkedIn if a recommendation would help. Tell them the exact kind of work you’re after right now, so they’re not left guessing.

Close the loop. When someone does send work your way, tell them how it went and thank them properly. Return the favour where you can… the freelancers who give referrals tend to be the ones who get them.

Don’t forget your reputation

You can’t be recommended if nobody remembers you. Referrals and reputation are two sides of the same coin. The people who get the most “oh, you should talk to…” moments are usually the ones who show up, share what they know, and stay visible. Not in a shouty, look-at-me way. Just consistently enough that when someone in their network hits a problem, your name is the one that floats up first.

So, putting yourself out there matters more than you could imagine. Don’t think of it as vanity, think of it as nurturing your future pipeline. Every post, every talk, every free webinar, every conversation where you say something useful is a little bit that says, “this is what I do, and this is how I think about it.”

Then when the need lands, weeks or months down the line, you’re already front of mind and halfway to the conversion before the referrals even happened.

Staying front of mind means finding your voice, finding the thing you’ll be known for in the right circles. And that’s exactly what we’re focussing on at the Free Spirits LIVE! conference on 1 October.

The freelancers who thrive aren’t the ones hiding. Come and find your voice with us.