You need to give more details about <i>what</i> services you are freelancing. When you say "portfolio", it can imply design, coding, architecture, the gamut of potential services that can be presented in a portfolio is huge.<p>You also need to give more details about your goal(s). What advice you receive should differ based upon whether you need to make money now to pay rent by the end of the month, or sacrifice a little money now to build up your sales pipeline (in either quantity and/or quality) because you have some cushion cash built up for the next 6-18 months.<p>In extremely general terms, you want to move away from differentiating on price as soon as possible, and get as close as possible to directly helping people make/save money with your services. By "directly", I mean find the person with check-signing authority, <i>and</i> find a pain point you can clearly solve for that person.<p>Plan on spending about half or more of your time marketing and selling yourself. If you think that equals 20 hours a week, then expand your notion of "your time" to approximately 60-80 hours a week, likely in bursts separated by more sane 40 hour weeks. Take good care of your body and soul, you're going to need the literal physical stamina and the emotional fortitude to push through the really dark, hard periods.<p>Never, never, never, <i>EVER</i>, disrespect or show discourtesy to someone, no matter how menial their role, no matter how unrelated they are to your current assignment. Always. Be. Selling. This doesn't mean you are a doormat, however.