The cost of purchasing a course related to IT proffession is quite on a high side in our world today, still lots of competition out there, a lot of people searching for clients using different advertising methods making it harder to find clients.
You almost sound as though, your scared of competition and is most likely not to survive in a highly competitive market as we've got in our world today. I might not be able to point you to any specifics that could help you meet with clients but, I can tell you,clients are everywhere on the net and it's there job to find you and not the other way round. The lamest you could do is to be visible and that means, advertising yourself, joining communities and owning pages on social media platforms to display your works.
Note, work done properly for one client is enough to earn you sme referrers and then, a trend develops. It become of increasing importance that, anytime you've got a job, you deliver an excellent service and go about some positive advertising. The Internet has made a lot of things easier for those that are good at what they do. Be best, better than good!