The other side of that coin is that often the clients I get via referrals have no reasonable alternatives. They often have done all business through referrals and so the alternative to me is the open market which is intimidating and has a significant barrier to entry. The end result is that we build a solid and stable client relationship that generally only gets upended if/when money runs out.

It's a great position to be in, provided you have the throughput to expand to other clients and aren't dependent upon a single client for income.