Turning work away on purpose: two years of what it did to the numbers

I tell a fair number of enquiries not to hire me. It reads as sabotage from outside. What happened:

• Revenue flat for about five months, then higher and much steadier. The flat stretch is long enough to feel like a mistake, which is the part worth warning people about.
• The largest source of new enquiries became people I had declined. They refer. Being turned away honestly is apparently rare enough to be memorable.
• Bad projects mostly disappeared. Almost all of mine had one shape: I knew during the first call the fit was poor and took it anyway because the month looked thin. Removing those removed the disputes, the scope arguments and the late payments.
• I stopped discounting, because a discount had been how I made a bad-fit project palatable.

Cost: two quiet months, some uncomfortable conversations, and this plainly needs some savings behind it.

What I would do differently: move the filter earlier. For a year I was declining at the end of an hour-long call. Now a short page about who I am not right for, plus two questions on the enquiry form, does it before the call.