How to Get Your First Freelance Clients

You've built the foundation. Now let's use it.

You have a niche. You have services. You have a portfolio (or the start of one). You have your rates. You've got your business set up.

This is the week everything you've built starts to actually matter.

Getting clients is the part most people avoid the longest — and the part that makes the most difference, the fastest. The good news: it's learnable. It's a skill, not a talent. And you don't need to post every day, go viral, or build a massive following to do it.

Three ways to get clients

There's no one right way to get clients as a freelancer. Different approaches work better for different niches, different personalities, and different stages of your business. Here are the three I teach and use myself.

1. LinkedIn outreach (my primary method)

LinkedIn is where I get the majority of my clients — and it's what I teach in depth in my LinkedIn Challenge group coaching program. The short version:

• Build an optimized LinkedIn profile that makes your ideal clients want to reach out
• Create a list of your ideal clients (companies you'd actually want to work with)
• Send connection requests with a short, personal note — not a pitch, just a genuine intro
• Follow up with a Letter of Introduction (LOI) — a casual message that opens a conversation about working together
• Stay consistent: a small amount of outreach every week, every week

The Get Clients Guidebook walks through the LinkedIn method step by step, including exactly what to say. Grab it for free — it's the best starting point.

2. Warm outreach and referrals

Your network is more valuable than you think, especially early on. Let people in your life know you're freelancing. Reach out to former colleagues, past employers, friends in adjacent industries.

You're not asking for a job. You're just letting people know what you do and who you're looking to work with. A lot of first clients come this way — from someone who knew someone who needed exactly what you offer.

3. Coffee chats and networking

Getting on a call with someone in your niche — whether they're a potential client, a fellow freelancer, or someone adjacent to your industry — builds the kind of trust that eventually turns into referrals and work.

This is a longer game than direct outreach, but it compounds. The freelancer you have a coffee chat with this month might refer someone to you in six months. The coffee chats blog post has everything you need to know about how to set them up without it feeling weird.

The most important thing to know about getting clients

Consistency beats everything.

A little bit of outreach, every week, for a long time — that's the whole strategy. It's not glamorous. It won't feel like it's working for a few weeks. And then one day someone says yes, and suddenly your list of 200 companies doesn't feel so daunting anymore.

Don't wait until your portfolio is perfect. Don't wait until you feel ready. Start sending connection requests this week. Even one.

Getting clients live in 2025

There's one more resource worth knowing about: I run a free live webinar — How to Get Clients on LinkedIn — several times a year. It's the same method that's in the Get Clients Guidebook, but live, with Q&A, and I update it regularly for what's working right now.

Check the community events calendar to see when the next one is.

Your action item this week

1. Download the Get Clients Guidebook
2. Read it
3. Send your first five LinkedIn connection requests to people at companies on your dream client list

Five connection requests. That's it. Don’t overthink it!

The clients don't come from the planning. They come from the doing.

You’ve done it! You started your freelance business!!

Need more help?

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