How did you acquire your first client?

Hello fellow members.

I hope everyone is making enough money to sustain money. My question is to people who work as a freelancer or have an SEO agency.
We all know that the toughest job in digital marketing is acquiring clients. So how did you get your first client and after that?

Please share here as it will help many beginners like me who don't have money to run ads.
Thanks in Advance

I got my first clients through word of mouth for work I did when volunteering at my University. I did some free designs for a lecturer, he hired me for a paid job then recommended me to his friends who hired me for several projects. Basically networking.

For social media marketing I was just looking for people who had good content that they would share but who had been doing it for a while with a small following. This is how I knew they sucked at social growth and then I would just email or message them and tell them what I do and show them my proof of engagement. And then as I got more clients I would show new clients I was going after some of the accounts I was helping to build.