Ask HN: Where do you find clients?

If you're looking at the higher end of the market, perhaps 10-20k per project or more, referals and relationships is where it's at.<p>Think about how you would select someone for a project if you had £50k to spend on a project. Would you search the web and pick the company with the nicest website or most blog articles?<p>Or would you reach out to your contacts, see what other companies have done, seeking referals. When you're spending a lot of money, nothing soothes a buyer more than sound recommendations from people who have used you before.<p>I'm not saying the website isn't important. It is, as your 'shop front' and public image, very important. But it's a small part of the whole package.<p>So networking might the most important activity you can do, as you never know who you might meet.

I have a similar business, we're nearing our third year. We've found most of our clients through word of mouth and referrals, but don't let that discourage you. You'd be amazed how many people need web work and haven't taken action because hiring a web firm is so intimidating, and its hard to know if you're getting ripped off. Its like how finding a good, honest mechanic you trust is worth its weight in gold - web shops are the same way.<p>Make sure to tell everyone you know what you do, and you'll find work. In the mean time, try craigslist. Its tough to get clients from craigslist but it can be done, and you'll get a lot of great experience winning clients competitively. In our early days, we landed a white-label development gig via craigslist that provided an invaluable source of steady income during that make-or-break time.<p>For building your portfolio quickly, you've got 3 options as I see it:<p>1) Make your own side projects and add those to your portfolio.<p>2) Lower your rates for your initial clients. Be upfront that they're getting a great deal because you are just getting started, and charge full price for support contracts.<p>3) Make a fantastic website for a local non-profit. You don't have to worry about "cheapening" yourself, and you'll almost certainly get some good PR out of it. Most importantly, the boards of many non-profits are composed of business leaders in the community. You'll gain invaluable connections if you execute well.<p>If you give free or discount work, its imperative that you treat it with the same respect as a fully priced client. Think of it as a marketing budget, and make sure its having the maximum impact.<p>Most importantly, don't die. Figure out how much you can survive on, and skip the fancy office for now. Even if its slow, you <i>will</i> build momentum if you make a good product.

This is not a "put food on the table tomorrow" strategy, but it does work: start blogging how you solve the problems of the people whose problems you want to solve. Continue blogging for a few years, gradually building up a reputation for yourself as a topical expert in the community.<p>You'll have to beat off offers with a stick.

I wrote this article, and found these strategies to work for me.<p><a href="http://procnew.com/10-cheap-ways-to-get-clients-for-freelance-consultants.html" rel="nofollow">http://procnew.com/10-cheap-ways-to-get-clients-for-freelanc...</a>

The new way to find clients is by following the below principles ...........<p>1.Start a blog<p>2a.Write the content which showcases your expertise<p>2b.Identify pain points and share your expertise in those areas<p>2c.publish the interviews of various persons who are (experts / kind of popular ) in the area in which you are doing consulting.(or) any good content which will of interest to target audience.<p>2d.in above way you will be building the audience and trust.and people will referring you to their friends if any need arises.<p>3.Make sure your content is very good/remarkable so that people can share..........<p>4.As your content spreads you will be known to many people and inturn they will ask you /your company to help on their project.<p>5.And also develop tools which will be helpfull to target audience.( A good tool spreads like any thing which inturns spreads your company name)<p>6.Participate actively in various online groups (related to the area in which you are doing consulting) .<p>you will be suprised when people are contacting you...........<p>7.Keep an eye on SEO as search engines are driving huge traffic to sites.(good landing page, blog will help in improving the SEO)<p>8.Adwords (spend some amount on adwords for good targeted keywords to attract diverse audience)<p>The above is popular referred to as inbound marketing (i.e you will not shout/beg at your prospects for getting leads inturn prospects are coming to.........:))<p>Important blogs to follow:<p>1.<a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.hubspot.com/</a><p>2.<a href="http://www.webinknow.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.webinknow.com/</a><p>3.<a href="http://www.chrisbrogan.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.chrisbrogan.com/</a><p>Important book to read The New Rules of Marketing and PR (awesome and excellent) <a href="http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books.htm</a>

Conferences are great - we've had a lot of success nailing clients in tech/industry conferences. Of course, you should be selective on the ones you choose to attend (avoid the high price/high BS ration ones).<p>Also, cold e-mails can work surprisingly well if you can lead with a warm-ish intro. Follow them on twitter, read their blog posts, quote their CEO, whatever.. Just something so that the recipient appreciates that this is not a generic email and understands that you've put effort into it.

<a href="http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/freelance/a/clients_8ways.htm" rel="nofollow">http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/freelance/a/clients_8ways.htm</a>

Good rule of thumb: You should be meeting at least two new people every day. And for every person you meet, you should be making three introductions. Figure out who the 5 best superconnectors are in your city, and then have them each introduce you to thirty of their friends. Then have each of those 150 people introduce you to three people, and you'll be set.

hmm well I suppose networking would be crucial. At least for me it is. I sometimes do some web development/design work and all of my clients recommend me. How I found the first one was simple, I did it for a friend...you could offer a free version to someone, etc?<p>I suggest you read Seth Godin's website. For God sakes the man is a marketing genius! :)<p>Best wishes with your venture.

I agree with the comment saying that for the type of work you do, it's all about word of mouth &#38; referrals. From what you're saying about getting leads through your professional contacts, it seems like you've already figured this out.<p>You should probably be quite open about giving anybody who brings you a paying client a hefty commission of 10% or more.<p>The only problem is that getting the word out there can be pretty hard work which involves periodically calling up everybody you know and reminding them of the fact that you're looking for projects.<p>To plug a venture I'm involved with: I believe a lot of these referrals and recommendations can be made much easier using online tools &#38; that's what we've been trying do at <a href="http://www.venzen.co.uk" rel="nofollow">http://www.venzen.co.uk</a> - the visitors of the site are mostly London based SME owners looking for service providers such as yourself.

<i>have managed to find some leads mainly through our professional contacts</i><p>Good. Keep doing that. Then get referrals from your referrals. This has always worked well for me.<p><i>RFPs</i> I never do. You have little control and have to compete. Look for opportunities where there is no competition.<p><i>hit the streets?</i> Absolutely.<p><i>Hold workshops?</i> These can be very effective for prospects deeper in your pipeline, but they can also be quite time consuming.<p><i>Attend ‘networking’ events?</i> Every one you can. You'll soon learn which are worthwhile and which are not.<p><i>Search online?</i> I haven't found much success doing this.

A common strategy is to engage a salesperson who has worked for similar companies, get them to use their book of contacts to sell your services. If you advertise for the salesperson, you should be able to find someone who will work on a freelance/commission-only basis.

Agreed that personal contacts and relationships are your best bet.<p>Beyond that, we use Google Alerts to RSS feed + LeadNuke for a continuous stream of new client leads. (disclosure: I developed LeadNuke expressly for this purpose)

I think the true purpose of an advisory board is client contacts. You can build a top notch virtual salesperson with the right board with no financial cost and only a small equity cost.

For the company I work for we build websites in the 100k - 500k range. Our first clients came from a professional relationship my boss had before he started the company. Then gradually as the company did work we gained a reputation for the sector, and in the products of our core compentencies. Now we have more leads then developers to finish them. They come from referrals of other clients (everyone in the sector seems to talk to each other) and a large part comes from our business partners (the companies that built our web platforms) referring us.

I get most of my clients via the Web. Far to many of them for me to handle. They find me on the Web due to my SEO or they notice me due to my blogging and social media participation. Also clients refer new clients.