Not strictly freelancing/clients but I think B2B is somewhat similar... The most insightful thing that the founder of a company I used to work for decided to d

Not strictly freelancing/clients but I think B2B is somewhat similar... The most insightful thing that the founder of a company I used to work for decided to do was...take on less customers and grow slow and steady. This won't work for everyone or in every industry but it worked really well for that company. In B2B you can really screw yourself over if you have to deal with toxic customers. Not only can it clog you up and bind lots of resources but it can also create a horrible working environment in your own company. There was usually an initial discussion with the potential customers and if something felt off, we wouldn't take them on. The mantra I've seen at many other companies seems to be "more customers = better" but for me adding more customers without thinking too much about who you deal with is similar to trying to fix software by pouring in more hours on a death march. So if you can afford it, always think long term not short term, don't be afraid to say no to customers and reject them outright and also don't be afraid to drop customers later. It's called customer relationship management for a reason. Try to think long and hard before starting a relationship. The second benefit of screening really hard is that you usually have very good relations with the customers that you do pick and keep. And they are usually quite happy and refer you to other potential customers. And those are usually high quality referrals because they tend to deal with people who won't turn out to be toxic, too.