Indeed, a lot of people here don't really want to help, they want a quick ego stroke.

Anyway, here's what I would do.

If you have nothing to show I would start with small things that have big ROI on "showing off".

Help some non-profit with their website for a few hundred (or for free) make sure to establish a warm relationship and then you can say "I worked for this Church, the Red Cross, University of X" or something like that, "you can contact X for more details", if you did something that's public then show it off! It's all about that.

If you're after technical jobs, contribute to some open source projects, just close down some tickets get on the AUTHORS file and then you can say "I contributed to Firefox" or something.

If you think a bit about it, you can align this experience towards the job you want, a concrete example:

You want to land an incredibly well paid job on the AI/ML space.

* Check out tinygrad, they have a list of open issues with bounties, meaning that you wouldn't be working for free.

* Solve three or four of them. Do it well, documentation, follow procedures, be autonomous, etc...

(by this point I would offer you a job and I'm sure many others would as well, but that's specific to that particular niche)

You get the idea, adapt to whatever you want to do.

Edit: I just realized you're talking about a firm not yourself as a developer, lol.

Most of it still applies I would only add that many people have told me that expos and industry events are where they get like 80% of their clients, it is really worth investing in them, set up a small booth on a local SMB fair or something.