Every month we run through a series of questions to help you run your freelance business like a bigger business—“self-coaching” your way to better results and a better life. You can view a condensed version of this month’s coaching prompts here. 

Hey!

As CEO, you’re the face of your freelance business. This means nurturing relationships with non-prospects like clients and other partners—the kind of relationships that keep your business healthy and help you understand and respond to the market you’re working in. 

So this month, we’re going to cover four types of relationships (sometimes called “channel partnerships”) that you can prioritize in 2025. 

• Referrals
• Resellers
• Champions
• Complementary freelancers

Before we get started though, when I say “prioritize”, I mean reaching out, scheduling some time to talk, updating them on your business, and offering support where you can. 

…so let’s get into it. 

Do my referral relationships have legs?

A couple months ago I was talking to a potential referral partner and he made a good point…

“Ya know, I think we could refer business to each other, but what I’ve found is that if we don’t have something formal set up, these kinds of things go nowhere.”

And he was right. 

I’ve got a couple of referral relationships, and the only ones that have panned out are the ones where we sat down, talked out terms, and got an actual contract signed…the ones that say I get paid X% for X years of any business I send them and vice versa. 

Now’s a great time to start looking for referral relationships and asking to formalize any that you might already have with a contract. 

If you need some ideas for contracts or who to talk to about referrals, drop by the Facebook Mastermind and we’ll see what we can help you with.