As an independent consultant, Linked-In has worked well for me. I've been contacted there for more opportunities that I can count - real customers. I have very

As an independent consultant, Linked-In has worked well for me. I've been contacted there for more opportunities that I can count - real customers. I have very few recruiter contacts and weed them from my list every once in a while. In fact, I received a referral a couple weeks ago that's a paying customer today. One of the things I do that I don't see much is to reach out and stay in contact with people occasionally. Sometimes I'll make a referral too. Networking works many ways and you have to give to get. (#givefirst) Sometimes just replying to the anniversary, new job, or giving a technology kudo means something to some people (maybe more so in a pandemic world). I also like the points that a few other folks made that customers almost always look at the Linked-In profile.