How To Find Clients As a Freelancer, Coach, or Entrepreneur

You may have already tried – without success – many of the common strategies to find clients as a freelancer, coach, or entrepreneur. 

Here’s what usually happens when freelancers/coaches/entrepreneurs try the most commonly mentioned tips to find clients:

1. Ask for referrals: I’m just starting out and don’t have anyone to ask for a reference. 
2. Cold email: I tried this, but nobody responds to my emails!
3. Apply to jobs on Upwork: I applied to dozens, but winning a gig is impossible because there’s so much competition. 
4. Build a website: I did that, but nobody knows it exists!

In the end, you spend more time and effort trying to find clients than actually doing work.

Yet these are the tactics many freelancers use to get jobs today. The difference is how they execute these tactics. 

To help you land your first few clients, here are seven ways to find clients and, more importantly, how to execute each strategy so that you succeed in closing clients. 

Post on Social Media 

If you have an established network on social media, you can easily earn clients with a single post. For example, Shaan Puri sold out his writing coaching program in days with a simple Tweet:

Here are just a few of the comments:

As you can see, it’s easy to earn clients if you have tens of thousands of followers who fit your ideal customer profile. 

The obvious problem is that most freelancers just getting started don’t have tens of thousands of followers. 

Unfortunately, if you publish a post on social media saying that you’re taking on new clients, yet you only have a handful of followers, you probably won’t generate any clients. 

For example, this person took the typical “best practice” advice to searching for new clients by posting on social media:

Yet this person has less than 1,000 followers, and you can see that the post generated minimal engagement and likely didn’t drive any sales.

If you currently have zero followers on social media, here are two solutions to this problem (and I recommend you do both of them):

1. To close a new client in the next few weeks: Partner with someone who does have a social media following.
2. To generate endless client demand over the next several years: Build your own social media following by building a personal brand. 

To partner with someone who already has a social media following, first identify your ideal customer (industry, title, characteristics, etc.).

Then, reach out to a person who fits that description and has a strong social media following (ideally, at least 10,000 – 50,000 followers). 

Reach out on social media and ask if you can do your service for them for free, and in exchange, they will post about your work on social media.

For example, a freelancer named Diego reached out to influencer Sam Parr and offered to make clips from his long-form content. In return, Sam posted about it on his social media, and demand for Diego’s services blew up.

Meanwhile, start building your personal brand on social media so that several years from now, you’re the person with thousands of followers.

Once you have thousands of followers and a strong reputation, you’ll have people reaching out to you for your services, and you’ll never have to do cold outreach again. 

To build a personal brand and attract thousands of followers, start posting about your journey working for free for some of these people. In the beginning, expect that nobody will comment or engage with your content.

As your free clients (who have social media followings) begin talking about your work on social media, you’ll soon start building a following. 

Use Charles Miller’s 10-10-10 rule:

• Spend 10 minutes engaging with other content you find interesting
• Spend 10 minutes writing content
• Spend 10 minutes replying to people who engage with your content

Got 30 free minutes per day?

Then you can build a personal brand.

Just follow my 10-10-10 method:

🧵

— Charles Miller (@charlesmiller_7) January 16, 2023

If you still don’t know what you should talk about when posting content on social media, Charles has a free course and 67 viral post templates that you can use to get started creating content.  

Cold Emailing

Most cold emails have very low response rates, though I have personally won several clients using cold email.  

Here are a few of the most common reasons cold emails typically don’t work:

1. The subject line isn’t compelling enough to get them to read your email.
2. The recipient may not want or need your service at the moment.
3. Nothing in the email gives them any reason to believe your service is superior to other service providers.
4. There’s no genuine connection in the email. 

For example, this is a cold email I received this morning. The subject line actually got me to open the email because it looked like it could be something from a friend. 

Unfortunately, I’m not interested in it and just deleted it.

There are two reasons why this cold email was unsuccessful:

1. I’m not interested in cold email services.
2. There’s no proof that they are actually good at cold emailing. 

On the other hand, this cold email I sent ultimately turned into a client that paid me tens of thousands of dollars. 

There are a few reasons why this pitch worked:

1. I identified a company with demand for my service. I saw this company was already hiring a content writer on AngelList, so they clearly want the service I offer. 
2. I said why I’m different. Instead of just writing blog posts, I’ll interview their key team members and then track conversions – a very unique approach most freelance writers aren’t pitching. Stating your process is even more compelling than just stating generic numbers or company names (e.g., “we helped X company drive X revenue”).

So, instead of pitching generic companies, find people/companies that you know are interested in investing in your service. 

Note that it’s important to invest in companies interested in your service that haven’t invested in it. 

For example, if they just hired an SEO consultant, they probably won’t hire another SEO consultant.

Job boards are excellent for finding potential clients. I prefer to look at job boards for full-time hires as those companies are the most serious about investing in your service (and therefore have more money to spend!) and they tend to receive fewer freelance pitches than if you post on a traditional freelance job board. 

Build Industry Partnerships

A great way to earn new clients is by partnering with other service providers offering parallel services.

A client who needs a website also needs SEO. 

A couple hiring a wedding planner also needs a wedding venue. 

The key to building partnerships is understanding how referring your services will benefit your potential partner.

Keep in mind that many of these companies receive pitches for partnership opportunities frequently, and many already have partnerships in place. Therefore, simply sending a cold email and telling them that you want to partner probably won’t work. 

Instead, use this strategy:

1. Identify companies or freelancers who already serve your ideal customer, but either don’t currently offer your services or only work with clients at a higher price point. 

For example, this person offers design services and, therefore, might be a great potential partner if you’re an SEO who works with startups, as you both serve the same customer, and your services are parallel but don’t overlap.

Alternatively, if you’re trying to sell your SEO services, you could reach out to an enterprise SEO firm and ask if you could take the leads that don’t have the budget to work with them. This strategy has helped me win clients in the past:

1. If you’re pitching someone cold, offer to do a free sample for them and then give them a high percentage (over 50%) or ideally all of the profits for the first few months working together. 

This pitch is compelling because the partner company/freelancer makes significantly more money without any additional work. In fact, many of their clients are probably already looking for parallel services, so the partnership with you makes them more attractive. 

Network 

Networking is a common tip for finding clients as a freelancer, coach, or entrepreneur, but attending local networking events and handing out business cards probably won’t help you close new clients. 

Unless you’re specifically trying to win local clients, attending local events probably won’t help you connect with your dream clients (unless you live in a major city like New York or Austin where major industry events happen regularly).

Instead, try to attend the most popular events in your customers’ industry. For example, attend an equine vet conference if you’re trying to close equine veterinary clients. 

A quick Google search will show you the biggest events in your industry:

Once you’re at the event, acknowledge that relationships take time to build, and people can tell when you’re just trying to sell. So don’t expect to close any deals on your first interaction with a person. 

Instead, use events as market research. Ask people questions like:

• What are you working on that you’re most excited about?
• What have been the biggest challenges in achieving your goals? (You can also tailor this question to be relevant to the services you offer. For example, if you offer SEO services, ask about their biggest marketing challenges.)
• What are some of your goals for this year?

As networking is ultimately about building relationships, also ask them questions about their general interests and genuinely befriend them.

You can also build relationships online if you can’t attend an industry event in person. 

The key to building effective relationships online is setting the right intentions. 

Your goal is to build relationships – not close clients.

To get started, make two lists:

• People who are your dream clients and active on social media: These people should be decision-makers who would eventually hire you. 
• Other freelancers/experts working in your industry who are also active on social media: If you’re a web designer, make a list of the top web designers. These people could send you referrals.

Next, start engaging regularly with their content. Leave insightful comments that carry the conversation forward. 

Here’s a great example:

Source

It’s also a good idea to start building your personal brand and posting your own content on social media. This gives the people you’re engaging with some background on you if they decide to look into you, and it will also help you attract the right people you want to connect with.

After several weeks of engaging with their content, you can send them a DM to continue a conversation you had in the comments. However, avoid immediately pitching them in that initial DM. You’ve already invested so much time and effort into building this relationship, and there are so many other ways it can pay off in the long run if you’re patient. 

So when can you pitch your services?

The point of building relationships isn’t to pitch your services. 

Instead, the idea is that these people like you enough that they will ask to hire you directly (they probably know what you do if you’ve genuinely built a relationship with them). However, if you’ve been talking (online or in person) for a few months, you can always ask if they know anyone else looking for your services. 

This is usually softer and less awkward than a direct pitch, and if they do need your services, they’re likely to simply say so and hire you directly. 

Host Workshops

Hosting a workshop can be a great way to find clients, but how do you get people to attend if you have no social media presence?

Start by joining an online or offline community (Slack/Facebook group or local meetup group). 

Then, ask the community host if they’d consider doing a workshop if you organized it and got influencers to participate.  

Once you’ve found a few other speakers, include yourself as one of them.

Hosting the workshop is also a great way to build valuable industry connections for a few reasons:

1. Speakers: You provide massive value to the speakers who likely want exposure and the opportunity to connect with their audience.
2. Host: You provide value to the host because you’re bringing value to their community.  
3. Participants: These people are your prospects and will see you as a trustworthy industry influencer as you know all of the speakers and the community host. You’ll also be able to show off your knowledge if you speak at the workshop. Of course, if you’re planning to speak at the event, you should have some genuine knowledge of the subject, so this isn’t a great strategy if you’re brand new to the service you’re offering. 

I once collaborated with a content marketing Slack Group (Superpath) and hosted weekly workshops. For the first workshop, the Slack group host promoted it to the community, and to add an extra incentive for people to show up, I essentially hosted a pizza party where I used Pizzatyme and sent pizza to everyone who signed up.

The pizza party/workshop built up a lot of goodwill, and several people reached out to me for content marketing services following the event.

For example, if you’re trying to win clients as a web designer, reach out to a web design Slack community and offer to host a pizza hangout.

Alternatively, if you want more fitness clients, reach out to a local fitness club and ask if you can host a workshop where you invite top nutritionists and fitness trainers. 

If you want more clients as a private chef, reach out to a local Moms group and ask if you can do a free cooking class for them. 

Use Job Boards

Job boards like Upwork are very competitive, and most jobs receive dozens of applicants.

However, some freelancers are excellent at winning clients and constantly receive job offers through these platforms. For example, Adam has earned over $600,000 on Upwork as a freelance copywriter. 

The reason most people aren’t successful on freelance job boards is because they don’t position themselves correctly. In an effort to appeal to as many potential clients as possible, most freelancers have a generic profile. Yet clients want to hire experts – not generalists. 

For example, if you’re a client looking to hire a B2B Sales copywriter and sell enterprise level services, which profile are you more likely to choose?

As a client, you’ll probably choose Adam because he specifically serves companies like yours.

The key to standing out on freelance job boards is creating a targeted profile that provides a very specific service to a very specific audience.   

You’ll immediately notice from Adam’s profile that he offers one service (sales copywriting) for one type of client (enterprise B2B). The first section in his description is his ideal customer profile; a company selling SaaS, tech, or enterprise level services with a high volume of outbound sales and over 30 salespeople. 

Tailoring your description to clearly say what you offer is also important.

Many freelancers spend time discussing why they’re reliable, easy to work with, and fast, but by the end of the description, clients still don’t know if you can actually do the job they need. So state what you do in easy-to-read bullet points at the top of your description:

In fact, Adam also states what he does NOT do:

You’ll also notice that Adam has a 100% job success rate. Success rate is a key factor clients consider when choosing candidates, so work with your clients to make sure they give you a five star rating.

Another tip to get great clients is to post on industry-specific job boards. For example, if you’re a designer, consider trying a job board like Dribbble, as industry-specific job boards tend to attract higher-quality clients. 

Alternatively, if you don’t want to constantly apply for jobs on job boards, you could also do long-term contract work with an established company that already has plenty of clients.

For example, My Body Tutor is a fitness coaching service that hires tutors to work three to four hours per week.

Ask for Referrals

If you’ve done great work for your clients, they’ll likely be more than happy to refer you to other people. 

However, most freelancers and coaches don’t actively ask for referrals.

Or, if they do ask for a referral, it’s usually a message like this:

“Hi (client), I’m currently expanding my business and looking to bring on a few more clients. Would you consider referring me to any friends who may be interested in my services?“

The problem with this message is that it puts the work on the client to think of people who might be interested in your services. They have to think of people who may be interested in your services. It’s also awkward for them to actively reach out and ask those friends if they’d like to hire you. 

Instead, most clients will say, “Sure, if anyone asks, I’ll give them your contact info.”

As a result, you won’t get any business.

A better strategy is to give them a specific request like this:

“Hi (client), I’m currently expanding my business and looking to bring on a few more clients. Would you consider making a post on (social media platform they have a following on) in case anyone in your network may be looking for my services?“

You could even write a draft for a post. 

Here’s a great example of someone who posted for a friend looking for a full-time job:

Source

Posting this isn’t awkward for the client, and if you write a draft of the post, it’s very little work for the client to execute your request. 

Get More Help Finding Your First Client

Any of these strategies can work to help you get your first client, though ideally, you want potential clients reaching out to you.

The best way to effortlessly attract clients is by building a personal brand. Rather than sending personalized messages to people one at a time, a personal brand allows you to write one message and strengthen your relationship with many potential clients.

Yet most people try posting for some time, only to receive little engagement and eventually give up.

If you don’t know what to say or how to package your thoughts so that they earn engagement, consider joining the Copyblogger Academy. It’s a personal branding course and community run by two seven figure entrepreneurs; Charles Miller and Tim Stoddart. Tim is the owner of Copyblogger and Stodzy, a seven figure marketing agency, and Charles has over 180k followers on Twitter and has helped clients earn 7 figures through personal branding.

In addition to the personal branding course itself, you’ll also have access to the community where you can ask questions and attend accountability sessions. There are also other courses on copywriting, content marketing, SEO, and other marketing skills you need to succeed as a freelancer, coach, or entrepreneur.
You can try it out today risk free to see if the Copyblogger Academy is the right investment for you. If you’re not 100% satisfied, we’ll give you a full refund in the first 30 days.