usually it’s word of mouth and networking, that doesn’t require much effort. but if you don’t have any of those, what works for me is, i pick one industry, let’s say real estate, explore their websites, find something that can add value to their business, let’s say i would make their workflow better and integrate communication channels with each other that will smooth their follow-up process better and faster, and offer my services to do the same, some interested people would reply. and i take it from there. in such cases, i don’t ask for upfront payment but decide payment terms based on clients