I agree with most of the article. I am primarily a web programmer, but most of the projects I work on have or already had excellent designers work on them, whic

I agree with most of the article. I am primarily a web programmer, but most of the projects I work on have or already had excellent designers work on them, which makes my portfolio projects that much more appealing. However, I find your work-acquisition strategy a little shallow. The best thing I can recommend is to spend a decent amount of time crafting your message (even if its as simple as "I make websites for small businesses"). Consistency and clarity is key here over specialization. Once you have a clear consistent message tell everyone, especially non-technical folks. As the article said, its a numbers game. By doing this, I have found clients through friends of friends who talked about me, twitter, and my mom even picked up a project for me at her book club. If you can manage your own projects, I would branch out from just working with firms that already hire/manage designers/devs (freelance or not). There's an endless supply of businesses that hire contractors without having technical managers and then end up extremely unhappy (at the least). If you're competent, a good communicator and transparent with the client, you'll easily wow them over and over again. Further, these clients will pay consulting rates (min $100/hr) rather than designer/developer rates ($50-$75/hr).