There’s nothing more dispiriting when you work for yourself than to be told you haven’t won that interesting (and lucrative) new project you were going for.

No matter what the reason was (you were too expensive, someone else had more relevant experience, we chose someone local), it still rankles to know you have just missed out on a rather nice slice of much-needed new business.

And, if you’re not careful, it can dent your confidence a bit. (It shouldn’t do, because you’re just as great at what you do today as you were yesterday before you got the news.)

Here are four things you can do to help ensure your confidence remains high and to help motivate you to find your next new project.

1. Keep a log of every compliment your clients send to you

On Friday, I went to the excellent Women Unlimited 2012 conference at the British Library in London. There was a tremendous line up of truly inspirational speakers and I spent the entire day surrounded by successful, entrepreneurial women.

In no particular order, here are some of the key learnings I took away from the day. Some of the speakers run multi-million pound empires, but we can still apply their words of wisdom to our smaller-scale freelance businesses.

• Stop and enjoy the journey

• Integrity is paramount

• When you become successful you need to learn to be tough – with people and situations

• Go for awards; they are great for your business
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Referrals are the lifeblood of every business. It’s a fact. There is no better business than the one you didn’t have to chase and invest any time and energy on winning. Having said that, getting a referral is probably one of the hardest things to do when running your own company.

I hear a lot of freelancers complaining that they do not get any referrals. And, I can understand why. Over the years I had struggled myself to be recommended by my clients. I would read everything I could get my hands on about winning new work through referrals and tried the advice there. Nothing worked. Eventually I realized that the problem was somewhere else, changed my ways and referrals started rolling in. Because, you see, in order to get a referral you have to do a bit more than just provide a great service.

Do you regard other freelancers in your niche as competitors or colleagues?

I’ve won some lucrative projects going in with a co-writer that I wouldn’t have secured on my own. Either the workload was too much for me to fit in with my other commitments, or the deadlines were too tight for one person to complete.

On one occasion (writing a big new website for a major building society), all we had to do was agree how we were going to divide the work and prove to the client that we could both write in the same style.

I’m currently pitching for ongoing project work – the potential client is a high-profile international organisation. I’m doing this in collaboration with two other people. If we get it, I will be writing case studies, another writer will be doing opinion/thought leadership pieces, and the third person will focus on producing videos based on those stories.

If you already have freelance experience, and are struggling with finding work, this article will show you how to succeed in the booming freelance market and win new freelance business.

1. Beginners
If you can string a few sentences together, but don’t have writing experience, or the journalistic drive to get to the bottom of the things that matter, you need to gain some experience first. If you are just starting – write as much as you can, for free. Get a blog and start writing about something that you are passionate about, that drives you to want to delve in and give people the most beneficial information they can find on your site.

2. Sites for beginners
There are sites such as Suite 101 and Demand Studios that will sometimes allow you to post your ideas, essays and articles for free, and Demand Studios will give you some training and a little cash. Other places, such as Hub Pages help you get started earning a reputation for your quality work, and will help you get published, and eventually earn money. These are great sites to gain experience.

How do you position yourself as an expert to your prospects, without it costing you a penny?

Answer: LinkedIn.

It’s an easy four-step process.

1. Join groups that your prospects belong to

So, if your main target audience is, for example, photographers, select ‘Groups’ from the top nav bar, click ‘Groups Directory’ and type your keyword phrase into the search box.  In this case, it would be ‘photographers’. All the groups relating to your search term will appear. Browse the ones that you think will be most relevant to you. And that’s not always the ones with the most members.

You’ll find many groups will accept you, even if you don’t fit their profile. For example, my target audience is designers and I belong to a number of creative design groups.