Foot in the door

I've got a couple questiosn for those already freelancing.

As of now, all my webdesign experience comes from personal projects - attempted graphics community here, fan pages there, band website, forum skins here, friend's website there.... countless attempts at making portfolio/compny sites...

So, I've got work to put into my portfolio that can say "here's what I can do" (which showsit pretty well) but, I'm looking for advice to get potential people to even boher looking at what I can do. After landing a couple jobs, word of mouth can get your name around, but what advice can you guys gives to attract those first couple clients?

There's always saying "I'm going to do freelance design so I don't have to flip burgers" to your friends in school showing them in the hopes, word could get passed aorund or overheard. OR going to networking events for IT people and getting my name out. Any otherr sugestions?