Tired of competing on Upwork (opens in a new tab) and Fiverr (opens in a new tab)? Away from the marketplaces, clients come from four places: referrals from people who know your work, communities where members pass work around, posting about your work on LinkedIn (opens in a new tab), and writing to businesses directly. Each is slower to start than a marketplace, and in my experience LinkedIn brings better clients once it works. This guide covers all four.
Where a client looks when there is no marketplace
Think about a founder in the US who needs help with a job that could be done on a computer. Many people in that position first ask someone they already trust: "Do you know anyone who does this?" If nobody does, they may ask in a community they belong to, or think of someone whose posts they have been reading.
Off the marketplaces, the aim is to be the name that comes up when someone asks, or the person they already know from what you have posted.
Why trust has to come from somewhere
On Upwork, a client picks between strangers, and star ratings tell them who to trust. Off the marketplaces there are no stars at all, so the trust has to come from somewhere else, and each of the four routes gets it in a different way:
| Route | Where the client's trust comes from |
|---|---|
| Referrals | Someone they already trust vouches for you |
| Communities | They have seen you help other people in the group |
| LinkedIn posts | They have seen the work you build, week after week |
| Cold outreach | Nowhere yet, so you have to earn it in one message |
Referrals: borrow trust from someone who has it
My second client came through my first: they had worked together, and my first client's word was enough. Why US clients hire freelancers from India tells the rest of that story.
Most people who could refer you do not yet know what you offer. Start with five past clients or former colleagues, and send each one a sentence saying what you now do and for whom. Referrals also flow both ways: when a piece of work is not right for me, I say so and suggest someone from my network who can do it.
Communities: be seen helping
Paid communities in your field often have a channel where members post work they cannot take on. A copywriter I know found his first clients abroad that way, in the job channel of a paid copywriting community, subcontracting for other members. For me, jobs posted in Clay (opens in a new tab)'s Slack (opens in a new tab) channel were one of the places I found work, alongside LinkedIn.
In a community, people pass work to members they have seen being useful. Answer questions, share what you have built, and be reliable on small jobs there before expecting bigger ones.
LinkedIn: show what you build
On LinkedIn, the posts that bring work show real work: a workflow you built, what it does and what problem it solved. It does not have to be a hard one. Post it, comment on other people's posts, and keep going.
A second way to start: follow the best-known people in your field, notice what they are talking about, build a small version of it yourself, and post it with a mention of them. Some of their followers may need your help.
Sometimes I do get some referrals, but when I started Clay Bootcamp, I started posting on LinkedIn. I had to remove my booking link from LinkedIn because I'm getting so many calls. I think you would get better clients from LinkedIn, for sure.
The copywriter later saw the same thing up close. He met the founder of an SEO agency in Los Angeles while pitching cold email services, and ended up writing content for him instead. Within a year that agency was growing almost entirely through LinkedIn posts, with no cold emails at all, and the copywriter built his own business the same way.
Cold outreach: earn trust in one message
Cold outreach means contacting businesses that have not asked for help: by email, LinkedIn message or, locally, WhatsApp (opens in a new tab). It can work, but it takes lists, research and patience. I run cold email for clients, but I have never run it for myself; my own clients come from Upwork, LinkedIn, Clay's Slack channel and referrals.
A HubSpot (opens in a new tab) consultant I know tried it while still in his job. He sent 80 to 90 WhatsApp messages to local nutritionists who had no website, got one reply, and built her site for ₹7,000. It was a small start, but it proved to him that someone would pay. His first client abroad came later, by another route.
If you try outreach, write to a small number of well-chosen businesses about one specific problem you can see in their business.
A worked example
Say you have spent eight years looking after Salesforce (opens in a new tab), the software a sales team uses to track its customers, for a bank's IT team.
- Referrals. You send one line to twelve former colleagues and managers: "I now set up and fix Salesforce for small businesses, mostly in the US." Two reply to say good luck, and one says a friend's company might need help later.
- A community. You join a paid community for Salesforce freelancers and answer one question a day for three weeks. A member asks you to take over a small data cleanup she has no time for.
- LinkedIn. Every week you post one thing you built, with a screenshot and two lines on the problem it solved. By week six, a founder who has been reading your posts asks for a call.
- Where to spend time. After two months, the community and LinkedIn have each brought one paid job, and referrals one conversation. The community job was a one-off cleanup, but the founder from LinkedIn wants help every month, so you keep all three going and give LinkedIn the most time.
This week
- Write one sentence saying what you do and for whom, and send it to five past clients or colleagues.
- Join one community in your field and answer three questions there.
- Post one thing you built on LinkedIn, with what it solved.
- Note where each new conversation came from: referrals, the community, LinkedIn or outreach. After a month, give the most time to the route that brought the best work, not only the most.