The short version
- Your next clients will most likely come from people who already know you: past clients, old colleagues and people they introduce you to. Start there before you post anything.
- Decide the number first. Work your income goal back to clients a year, discovery calls a week, and the conversations and messages that take.
- Send a few messages every weekday, busy or not. The dry month comes a few weeks after you stop.
- Ask for a short conversation about their problem. Save the pitch for the discovery call, and end every call with a date.
- Count the week on Friday: messages, conversations, discovery calls. Change one thing if a number is low.
Where do your next clients come from?
For a consultant or coach, clients come from a handful of places. Here they are in the order they usually pay off, fastest first:
- Past clients. They know your work, and some of them have a next project. Ask what's changed since you last worked together.
- People who've seen your work: old colleagues, managers you've had, people from past projects. They can hire you or introduce you.
- Introductions. Ask each happy client for one name, and make it easy by saying who you help.
- Partners who serve the same people. An accountant, a lawyer or a web designer meets your clients before you do.
- A short list of people you'd like to work with, contacted one by one.
- Talks, workshops and posts. These work, and they take months to build up.
Most people start at the bottom of this list because it doesn't feel like selling. Start at the top.
Start with the people who already know your work
Write down 30 names: past clients, people you've worked with, and people who've asked what you do. Next to each, write one reason to get in touch now, like a project they mentioned, a new role or a post they wrote.
Then contact five a week. You're not asking them to buy. You're asking how things are going and telling them the one thing you help with, so they know who to send your way.
How many conversations this week your income needs
"Get more clients" isn't something you can do on a Tuesday. A number is. Start from what you want to earn, and work back.
A made-up example. Maya is an independent consultant. She wants $110,000 a year before tax, and her business costs $10,000. She works 48 weeks and can bill 25 hours a week. The consulting rate calculator turns that into $100 an hour. Then:
| Step | Maya's numbers | How it's worked out |
|---|---|---|
| Clients at a time | 10 | 1,200 hours a year is 100 a month, at 10 hours a client |
| New clients a year | 20 | Each client stays 6 months |
| Discovery calls a year | 80 | 1 in 4 discovery calls becomes a client |
| Discovery calls a week | 2 | 80 over 48 weeks, rounded up |
| Conversations a week | 6 | 1 in 3 conversations books a discovery call |
| Messages a week | 24 | 1 in 4 messages turns into a conversation |
So Maya's week is 24 messages, about 5 each weekday, to get 6 conversations and 2 discovery calls. Her own rates will be different from these, and after a month of counting she'll know hers.
Get clients every month with a small outreach habit
The number only works if you do it every week. Make it small enough that a busy week doesn't kill it:
- Pick a time, like the first 30 minutes of each weekday, before client work starts.
- Keep a list of who to contact next, so the time goes on messages and not on deciding.
- Send the messages, then log them. Five a day is enough for Maya.
- Reply to anyone who answered yesterday before you send anything new.
What to say in the first message
Keep it short, about them, and end with one easy question. Copy these and change the words until they sound like you.
To a past client
"Hi [name], it's been a while since [the project]. How's [the thing you worked on] going now? I'm taking on two new clients next month, if anything's come up."
To someone you've worked with
"Hi [name], I saw [their news]. Congratulations. I'm now helping [who you help] with [the one problem]. Do you know anyone who's dealing with that at the moment?"
To someone new
"Hi [name], I work with [who you help] on [the one problem]. I noticed [one specific thing about them]. Would a 20-minute call about how you're handling it be useful?"
Asking for an introduction
"Thanks again for [the project]. Is there one person you know who's dealing with [the problem] that I could help too?"
How to turn a discovery call into a client
A discovery call is where you find out whether you can help, not where you pitch. The client intake form gets the basics before the call, so the 30 minutes goes on the problem.
- Ask what's going on, what they've tried and what happens if nothing changes.
- Say back what you heard, in their words.
- If you can help, say how, in two or three sentences, and what it costs.
- If you can't, say so and point them to someone who can.
- End with a date: a proposal by Thursday, or a call on Monday to decide.
Keep reaching out while you're busy, so the dry month never comes
The pattern most consultants and coaches know: a big project starts, outreach stops, the project ends, and there's nothing booked behind it. The conversations you have this week are next month's discovery calls and the clients after that.
- Keep the daily messages going while you're busy. Drop to three a day if you have to, never to none.
- Book discovery calls for the week a project ends, before it ends.
- Look at next month's calendar every Friday. If it's thin, add ten messages next week.
What wastes your time when you need clients this month
Some of it is useful later. None of it books a call this week:
- Rebuilding your website or logo.
- Posting every day with no one to follow up with.
- Networking events with no names written down afterwards.
- Waiting for referrals without asking for them.
- A course on marketing, instead of the messages.
See this week's outreach against your goal, without a spreadsheet
This guide is free. ActivityTracker, the app we make, is paid. It doesn't send invoices or run your sessions. It keeps the selling going around them.
- Log discovery calls in one tap, and date every follow-up
- Put the year's number in as a goal, and see what each month still needs
- A routine like 5 messages a day comes back each day and shows the days you slipped
- Maybes gone quiet for 30 days, at the top
See how consultants use it and how coaches use it.