The Trust Economy: How Freelancers Find the Right Clients

This is the first in a series of blogs summarizing learnings from The Future is Freelance Forums. These forums are where stakeholders from all levels of the freelance ecosystem (freelancers, agency leaders, coaches, platform CEOs, enterprise leaders, etc.) come together to surface and solve the biggest problems facing independent work. These summaries will serve as a place to house our collective wisdom on these topics. As such, I want to credit everyone who attended this forum for these insights. 

In today's rapidly evolving freelance landscape, trust has become the most valuable currency. 

Whether you're a freelancer seeking clients or a business looking for talent, the success of these professional relationships hinges not on platforms or pricing but on the fundamental element of trust. 

This shift has created what we might call a "trust economy" – where reputation, relationships, and mutual understanding drive successful partnerships. As we explore the intricate dynamics of client acquisition and relationship building in the freelance world, we'll uncover how different business models, networking approaches, and modern platforms play crucial roles in establishing and maintaining trust-based professional relationships.

Your Business Model Drives the Method

Your approach to finding clients should align with your business model. 

Transactional work with concrete deliverables and outcomes lends itself to platforms and more transactional connection methods. Hiring someone for a short, specific deliverable requires less trust than a longer-term, more ambiguous engagement. 

On the other hand, strategic work is more challenging to sell and requires a higher level of trust, which means it is easier to find clients through networking and referrals where trust has already been established. 

For example, people are much more likely to hire someone to post and schedule their social media through a platform like Upwork than they are to hire a content strategist.  

Your business model will also determine how many new clients you need to bring in and at what pace. Freelancers managing multiple smaller projects need a steady stream of new clients, which requires consistent networking and marketing efforts. In contrast, those handling larger, long-term projects may need fewer clients but must invest more time building the deeper trust these relationships require.  

The Double-Edged Sword of Passive Client Acquisition 

Passive methods of obtaining clients, such as repeat business and referrals, are among the “easiest” methods. Still, they entail building a trusted reputation and network, which takes time and intentionality. 

Networks are an incredible asset if you’re working in a field with an existing network from previous experience. However, long-term, intentional work will be crucial to building and maintaining a strong network if you're starting something new or pivoting into a new context. 

Often, even freelancers who start with a strong network often don’t put in the work to maintain it. Actions are usually based on incentives: if you’re not incentivized to maintain and expand a network because you have enough work from existing and repeat clients, you won’t. This means that many freelancers who rely on only passive strategies can always be one or two lost clients away from losing everything.  

Networking and actively seeking clients help us hone our messaging, offerings, and business model. If we don’t actively do these things in our businesses, even in times of abundance, we’ll be out of practice when we suddenly need to fill an income gap. 

Know Your Clients and Their Problems

Many freelancers struggle with "selling themselves," but the truth is that most successful ones focus on relationship-building and understanding their clients' problems rather than sales pitches. 

One of the main ways trust is built is through empathy. Clients want to know that you understand their context, problems, needs, and solutions better than they do. They want to have a conversation with an expert who will lead but passively listen while they run through a laundry list of things they think will solve their perceived problems.

Before a client is ready to hire, they must know they have a problem. Freelancers constantly enter an engagement with a client for a concrete deliverable only to uncover underlying issues that undermine the effectiveness of the perceived solution.

Clients can’t pick the right solution without understanding the problem. A highly skilled freelancer knows how to use questions to uncover that problem and make the client aware of it before proposing a solution. 

Freelancers who use every client conversation as an opportunity to explore their problems and needs will be best positioned to leverage that information to create better solutions and communicate more effectively with their ideal clients. 

This is especially true for strategy and consulting clients. When you hire someone for a strategic role, you want them to be in the driver's seat and tell you what to do, not the other way around.  

A healthy client-freelancer relationship requires balance. When freelancers are unclear about their value or desperate for work, this creates an unhealthy dynamic. The most successful relationships occur when both parties evaluate fit. Experienced freelancers know they're not just being interviewed—they're also assessing whether the client aligns with their expertise and working style.

The power of strategic positioning becomes apparent when freelancers clearly understand their target market. Finding clients becomes remarkably more straightforward when you know exactly who you serve. You can speak their language, understand their challenges, and position yourself in the spaces where they seek solutions.

Modern Matchmaking

Trust operates in concentric circles. A recommendation from a trusted source carries significant weight, while connections through social media or casual acquaintances require more vetting.

Platforms, agencies, and professional ecosystems have emerged as valuable intermediaries and vehicles for building trust in various ways. 

At the most basic level, a platform like Upwork leverages reviews and profiles to build trust. Other platforms create more curated experiences, where freelancers are pre-vetted before joining the talent pool. Others vet clients and job opportunities by scouring the internet and making targeted recommendations. 

Agencies build trust by offering curated, vetted freelancers managed by a professional team instead of the clients themselves. 

Ecosystems are more of a hybrid between platform and agency, where freelancers join a talent pool, but often, a team also matches clients and freelancers to ensure fit. 

While many freelancers prefer to subscribe to free job boards and groups, the top-tier platforms, agencies, and professional ecosystems deserve to be paid for their services because they’re frontloading a lot of the inherent trust-building for both the freelancer and the client. 

As the freelance marketplace evolves its leadership demographics, platforms, and social media are becoming more commonplace. While previous generations relied heavily on traditional relationship-building and formal credentials, younger leaders are increasingly comfortable finding and vetting freelance talent through social media and digital platforms. This shift is reshaping how connections are made, and trust is established.

Peer-Driven Business

Peer relationships among freelancers are a powerful source of opportunities. They are among the best ways to share work, form flexible teams for larger projects, and support each other's growth. 

Freelancers should also intentionally build relationships with their peers and competitors. It is often easier to promote others than ourselves, but the same rules apply: if you don’t know who you serve, what problems you solve, and how you solve them, people can't refer you. 

These relationships typically develop organically, raising interesting questions about whether formal referral fees would enhance or diminish their effectiveness. On the one hand, connecting money to these mutual aid interactions cheapens the relationship. On the other hand, conventional stigmas around money and being compensated for our talent consistently hold freelancers back from getting paid what they deserve. 

Conclusion

At its core, successful freelancing remains rooted in trust-based relationships. Whether through traditional networking, modern platforms, or peer-to-peer connections, the most successful freelancers are those who understand that client acquisition isn't just about selling services – it's about building trust, understanding problems, and creating genuine value.

The "trust economy" demands more from both freelancers and clients than traditional business relationships. 

It requires authenticity, strategic thinking, and a long-term perspective. While platforms and technologies may change, the fundamental need for trust remains constant. For freelancers looking to build sustainable businesses, the focus should be on cultivating these trust-based relationships while maintaining a balanced approach to both passive and active client acquisition strategies. In doing so, they create not just a client base but a resilient network that can support their business growth for years to come.

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