How to Find Freelance Work on LinkedIn (Step-By-Step)
If you’re a freelance writer, designer, developer, or photographer, make sure you’re using LinkedIn to find jobs. Here’s how.
Start by opening a free LinkedIn account. Create a complete profile (LinkedIn has lots of tips).
If you already have a LinkedIn account, take time to update and expand it.
Why LinkedIn? Three reasons. All professionals, including your potential clients, are on LinkedIn. To be seen as a professional, you need to be on this platform. It’s as simple as that.
Secondly, search engines love LinkedIn. When I search my name, LinkedIn is at the top, ahead of my site, followed by my other social media.
Finally, with a complete profile, there’s a chance you’ll be found by someone looking for a freelancer. But more importantly, you can take the initiative to find potential clients.
Use LinkedIn Search to Grow Your Client Niche
For this example, let’s say you’re a writer and have a few clients in the organic food sector. You like the work and hope to expand your niche.
Go to the search bar and type in “organic foods manufacturer”. Look what pops up underneath the search bar. Filters, lots of filters.
Choose Companies and you’ll see there’s a drop-down menu, but let’s leave it as Companies for now. We’re looking for companies in the organic foods sector. Notice how the other filters have changed to be more relevant to “Companies”. Smart filters.
Look at locations next. To narrow your focus from the whole world, pick a location where you’d like to look for these companies. I’ll pick North America.
Search Filters Make It Easier to Find a Job on LinkedIn
Then, think about adding a relevant industry to your search filters. Choose as many as you want. Remember, you can go back and fine-tune these filters.
Consider company size. I’ve always liked bigger companies. They tend to have more work with substantial budgets and more professional people in charge of communications.
But you can choose whatever size suits you.
Now you’ll get a results page. In this case, with the filters I’ve chosen, there are 127 results. That’s a big list you can mine.
For this example, let’s start with Taste of Nature Foods. You’ll come to their company page. You’ll see they have 17,000 followers (that’s good—it suggests they communicate enough to attract attention on LinkedIn). They have between 51 and 200 employees—a nice size.
It looks promising, so let’s go to the company’s website to learn more about them.
Let’s Take a Look at the Company’s Website
Open a new browser window and find the company’s website at tasteofnature.com. After reviewing the site for a few minutes, you realize they have an e-commerce store selling directly to customers. They’re also a wholesaler selling their products to grocery chains across Canada, and they manufacture private label products for stores.
Look further, and you’ll notice they have a newsletter.
What does this tell you? They’ll have substantial communications requirements to address three major target groups.
They might do some or all of that in-house or use freelancers or a small agency. It’s worth finding out.
You’ve Found the Company, Now Look at the People
Back on the LinkedIn company page, look at the people. Check the titles: Marketing Specialist, Brand and Product Marketer, and Marketing Director.
If this company works with freelancers, there’s a good chance one of these people will be the client.
There’s only one way to find out. You have to ask. But before you can message them on LinkedIn, you have to connect with them. They have to accept your connection.
Two tips about LinkedIn connections: Many people on LinkedIn will check out your profile before they accept your request. So, be sure you have a complete and inviting profile. Make it easy for them to connect with you.
Secondly, don’t pitch them the minute they accept your connection. Spend some time to read their posts. Like or comment if it’s appropriate, but don’t pitch.
Wait a few weeks. In the meantime, keep track of who you’ve followed and who has followed you back.
How Can You Follow Up With LinkedIn Prospects?
When writing my book, How to Become a Successful Creative Freelancer, I included a section from freelancer Lizzie Davey, who posts on Twitter about freelance life.
She contributed a section on new business prospecting with a pitching template you can use to follow up.
Pitching Template to Follow Up With Prospects
Here’s one of Lizzie’s templates you can customize. Make it work for you:
Hi (name),
I’d love to take some tasks off your plate. I’m a (your expertise) with (X years) of experience writing about (relevant niche topic) and (niche topic).
I know that (tasks that you do such as researching, outlining, writing), and publishing the amount of content you want and need to create takes up a lot of your bandwidth—let me help!
I can take those (blog posts, newsletters, etc.) ideas that are gathering dust and bring them to life with detailed briefs and publish-ready drafts. I can also help upload pieces into your CMS.
Here are a couple of relevant samples:
(sample 1)
(sample 2)
If you’d like a hand scaling your content efforts, I’d love to partner for a paid trial piece to see how we work together.
Thanks for your time!
(name)
So, look at the bones of this message:
Who you are
What you do
Depth of experience
Relevant services you offer
Suggestions for how you can help
Samples from your portfolio
Offer to work together
That’s an effective intro note.
Pitch Every Week
It’s tempting to put pitching aside when you’re busy and then panic when you’re slow.
That’s not the best way to do it.
Set aside an hour every week to pitch. Find new prospects on LinkedIn. Connect with them. Wait for them to accept your connection. Look at what they’re posting. Put them on your list of follow-ups. Wait for a bit, then send them a note.
Every week, look for new connections and follow up with a few previous contacts.
That’s it. Once a week for an hour.
How to Follow Up On a Rejection
Be prepared for rejection. Pitching is a numbers game. You have to send out a lot of queries to get a few positive responses. But any one of those responses could change your business and your life.
First, thank them for taking the time to acknowledge you and answer. Then, simply ask whether there’s anyone they can suggest you contact. Once again, you’ll only find out if you ask.
What if They Say You Have to Be On Their Vendor List?
More companies are turning to vendor lists to help them select people to work with. Here’s everything you need to know about corporate and government vendor lists and how to get on them.
New Book For Freelancers
I’ve just published How to Become a Successful Creative Freelancer. It’s the essential business guide for freelance writers, designers, developers, filmmakers, and photographers.
Whether you’re just starting as a freelancer or have years of experience, you’ll learn a lot from this book.
It’s broken down into easy-to-understand chapters with strategies and tips you can use today. Not just “what to do”, but also “how to do it”.
It’s available now in Kindle ebook and paperback on Amazon.
Want to Grow An Agency? The Agency Book is For You
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Available at Amazon (Paper & Kindle), Kobo (ebook), Apple Books (ebook), and Gumroad (PDF).
The book is packed with useful information to help creatives start and grow their business.
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Want a Free Taste First?
Sure! Sign up in the footer below for a free PDF of Chapter 14, Working With Clients.
This chapter covers essential areas such as Clients vs. Projects, Corporate Clients vs. Small Business Clients, How to Create an Opportunity Document, Benefits of Finding a Niche… and much more.
Questions? On Twitter, I’m @StroteBook. D.M.s are always open. On LinkedIn, I’m Andy Strote. Ask away.