How To Find Clients on LinkedIn in Under 5 Minutes for 2024

LinkedIn is the first place many clients go when looking to hire an agency.

That means many high-quality clients are probably on LinkedIn right now looking for an agency like yours. This makes LinkedIn one of your most powerful tool for finding potential clients.

But LinkedIn, like most social media, can also be huge waste of time.

How do you find new clients on LinkedIn quickly?

Should you pay for LinkedIn premium or LinkedIn sales navigator? Send thousands of automated direct messages? Or take a page out of 1995 and join a bunch of LinkedIn groups? The answer is: no, no, and NO.

The Best Way To Find Potential Clients on LinkedIn Is Actually Using Search

Here’s why. When pitching potential clients, the best thing you can do is to pitch warm leads. What is a warm lead? A warm lead is a lead that is already in the buying process.

So in your case a warm lead might mean an organization that’s already looking to hire an agency like yours. This might seem obvious, but very few agencies do this. Most reach out to totally cold prospects on LinkedIn. I know this because I receive dozens of these automated messages and connection requests each month – and all of them go into my spam folder.

This is known as the “spray and pray” approach because, instead of doing authentic personal outreach to potential clients that you’ve already qualified, you’re sending hundreds or thousands of messages to anyone and hoping some percentage will convert. Usually this approach results in getting ignored and/or marked as spam.

So instead, I recommend taking a different approach. By using LinkedIn’s free search capabilities, we’re going to find natural warm sales opportunities in minutes.

Let’s walk through how to find clients on LinkedIn with a step-by-step tutorial.

Step 1: Find Search Terms That Your Ideal Clients Might Use if They Were Looking To Hire an Agency Like Yours

To figure out the right terms for your potential clients, ask yourself: What kind of work am I looking for? and How would an ideal client in that target audience word a LinkedIn post looking for referrals or proposals?

For example, here are some templates you might try:

• web design agency needed

• hiring freelance web developer

• seeking digital marketing agency

• requesting proposals web development

• seeking seo agency

• website redesign rfp

Test out different relevant keywords and see what turns up the most new prospects by typing these into your LinkedIn’s search bar. A small business owner will word their posts differently than an e-commerce store or a non-profit organization.

Once you have a list of keywords you’re confident in, next we’re going to get into refining your search.

Pro-tip: You can also use LinkedIn’s boolean search parameters to conduct an even more targeted search.

For example: "RFP web design" OR "RFP graphic design" NOT "development" would expand your results to include the 2 first phrases while removing any results that included the term “development.”

If you’re looking for website redesign RFPs, I can monitor LinkedIn for you each week with my done for you service.

Step 2: Find Clients That Need Your Help by Clicking on the Posts Button

By default LinkedIn will show you search results by people, not their posts. To change this click on “More” in the upper navigation and select the “Content” tab.

This will show you posts that potential clients are making to their social network, which is what you want.

Step 3: Sort by Latest To Find More Recent Opportunities

By default, LinkedIn will show you what it thinks is most relevant, regardless of post date.

Often this results in leads that are past the response deadline.

To change this click on the “Sort by:” section in the upper right corner and click Latest.

By sorting by Latest you will make sure that you’re not seeing clients who were looking for exactly what you do in 2013.

Instead, you’ll see the most recent opportunities and stuff that is likely still active.

Step 4: Review Your Results and Find the High-Quality Opportunities

Below are 2 results I found using the terms above.

This is a good lead. I would apply, here’s why:

• They link to an RFP (which provides a real budget)

• Their organization (Colorado Trust) looks legit and high-quality

• Decision-maker is the same person posting on LinkedIn

• Job title indicates they have experience managing teams

• Deadline gives enough time to apply

• Great high-value project (website redesign)

Now let’s take a look at a not-so-good lead.

This is a bad lead. I would skip, here’s why:

• Outside of the web design niche

• Mentions low-paying website (people per hour)

• Looks like another freelancer, so likely sub-contracting which means unlikely to pay well

• This person is based in a much lower paying country, also indicating a low budget

You want to have a discernment when it comes to choosing which opportunities to go after.

When you do find a quality opportunity, don’t hesitate.

It’s worth investing a few minutes into finding out as much as you can and seeing if you can make a connection.

Here’s a video walking through how I typically handle private RFPs.

Step 5: Respond to good opportunities and make a good first impression

So you’ve found a perfect-match opportunity, now what?

For all your hard work to pay off, you gotta apply.

Since you’re already on LinkedIn, I recommend contacting them via direct message.

But first, make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date. Here’s a few quick tips:

• Have a good-looking professional headshot. Here’s an example

• Create a LinkedIn page for your agency with your logo

• Add testimonials to your LinkedIn profile about me section

• Speak to your target market and offer a value proposition in your headline

• Add examples of your work to your LinkedIn profile

• More tips for optimizing your agency LinkedIn profile

Next, you’re also going to want to send them a new connection request and/or a great cold email. I recommend both.

For some opportunities, a phone call might even be the right next step. Again you’ll want to use discernment when deciding how to approach each lead.

Step 6: Follow Up With New Leads On LinkedIn

Now you might expect a long, detailed proposal to be what wins you the job, but often it’s actually something much simpler.

Yes, you will likely need to send in a proposal to win a job, but a simple LinkedIn message letting the client know you’ve applied can go a long way in building relationships too.

Something like this is perfect:

Hi my web design company is interested in submitting a proposal for your RFP do you have any more information for me?

It doesn’t seem like much, but because you are taking the initiative to send this message to new connections, it can open up a dialogue that will help you stay in touch and build a relationship with the client in the coming weeks.

Once you’ve opened up that line of communication via LinkedIn, use it. Send them valuable content (not spammy messages) and follow up with them regularly.

You can even get additional insider information throughout the RFP process, like when an RFP due date gets extended, a specific budget, and why they are looking to do the project in the first place.

These details may not be included in the initial job post or RFP and can be the difference in winning you the job. This is one of the best LinkedIn strategies and reasons to join LinkedIn there is because you’ll get access to professional network of clients you would’ve never heard about before.

I’ve found this to be a better and more direct marketing strategy for agencies on LinkedIn than using LinkedIn ads or spamming someone’s direct messages.

But it does take time.

Want Your Agency to Monitor LinkedIn on Auto-Pilot?

I get it as an agency owner, your time is valuable. You might consider skipping hours and hours of lead generation on LinkedIn each week and just receive the best, hand-picked RFPs from LinkedIn and elsewhere on the web directly in your inbox.

If you did the entire a step-by-step approach above yourself, you’d be looking at 5-10 hours per month of time spent on LinkedIn. Instead, you can save that time and spend it on the follow up and proposal process instead, with my new done-for-you RFP lead-finding service for agencies.