I hear you on the whole “buying into a system” thing. I think that there are a lot of people out there who make a living by selling promises and “plans”, rather than sharing concrete advice and examples to show people how they can build up their own businesses.

The referral system has been, for us, our single best way to find contacts. Mostly this involves doing a good job for someone and inviting them to pass our name along. It also means partnering with people in our sphere who do things similar to us (but don’t do web design), so we all refer business to each other.

I’m curious if you have found any other systems that work. I’m also a big fan of Business Networking International for when people are just starting out with meeting others in their local community.