Where I've Found My Clients
A six-year breakdown of revenue by source.
Happy Friday, friends!
There’s one question that comes up more than any other when talking about fractional work - how do you find clients? And since I love data, I decided to take a look back at the last six years of building my business and break down each year’s revenue by client source. (This is kind of a long one, but hopefully it’s helpful!)
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While I’m not sharing specific revenue numbers, my business has been my sole source of income since it launched, save for my very part-time teaching gig at the University of Washington, which is effectively volunteer work. For each of the years I’ve broken down below, my revenue was in the six figures.
Now let’s get into it…
2018
This was the year I started my business - I often say I did so accidentally, because I’d quit my corporate job planning to take a few months off, then find my next role. But I really enjoyed my time off and wasn’t ready to go back, so I took on a couple of freelance projects and started thinking about making it a full-time thing.
31% of my revenue came from freelance platforms, specifically Upwork - this is where I started when I thought freelancing would just be a bridge to my next full-time role.
69% came from referrals, including an initial batch of referrals from one of my Upwork clients; a few of those new clients referred me to additional clients.
My work during this timeframe was mostly project-based, and I was definitely underpriced. I struggled with accurate scoping as well as the never-ending hamster wheel of needing to find more work.