How to get your first writing client

You do not need a website. You do not need a logo, a brand name, a limited company or a portfolio of published work. Those are things people build to feel ready, and feeling ready is not the same as being paid.

What you need is ten specific people who have a writing problem, and something useful to say to each of them.

Step one: pick a narrow patch of ground

"Freelance writer" means nothing to a buyer. "I write case studies for engineering firms" means something immediately, because it tells them whether to keep reading.

Choose from what you already know. Previous jobs, industries you have worked in, hobbies you understand deeply, the sector your friends work in. Knowing the vocabulary of an industry is worth more at the start than three years of general writing experience.

This is not permanent. It is a starting position, and you can move.

Step two: build the list of ten

Not a thousand prospects from a scraped list. Ten real businesses you could name in conversation.

• Businesses whose blog stopped updating a year ago.

• Founders posting on LinkedIn inconsistently — enthusiasm, then six weeks of silence.

• Companies with a good product and a website that fails to explain it.

• Businesses running ads to a page that plainly is not converting.

• Anyone who has just raised money, launched, rebranded or hired a marketing lead.

Every one of those is visible evidence of a writing problem, which means your approach can be about them rather than about you.

Step three: make something before you ask for anything

The single most effective thing a beginner can do is arrive with the work already started.

Rewrite their homepage headline and the paragraph under it. Write the first two emails of a welcome sequence they obviously do not have. Turn one of their customer stories into a short case study. Thirty to ninety minutes of work, sent with no invoice attached.

It answers the only question a buyer actually has — can this person write? — and does it without a portfolio, references or a website.

Step four: the approach

Keep it short, specific and free of the word "passionate".

Hi Sarah — your pricing page does a good job of explaining what the software does, but I do not think it explains who it is for. I rewrote the top section to show what I mean; it is below, no charge. If it is useful, I write this sort of thing for B2B software companies and would be glad to do the rest of the page.

Observation, proof, offer. No life story, no attachment, no calendar link in the first message.

Step five: expect the numbers to be brutal

Ten approaches might produce two replies and one conversation. That is normal and not a verdict on your writing. The people who get clients are almost never the best writers in the pile; they are the ones still sending approaches in week six.

Send five a week. Keep a simple record of who, when and what you sent, and follow up once after ten days. The follow-up converts more often than the original message.

Step six: what to charge

Do not compete with the bottom of the market; you cannot win and you would not want the clients.

• A blog article: £150–£350 to start, rising quickly with proof.

• A case study: £300–£600.

• An email sequence: £400–£1,200.

• A homepage rewrite: £600–£1,500.

Quote a project price rather than an hourly rate. Hourly rates punish you for getting faster and invite arguments about how long something should take.

Step seven: turn one client into three

The first client is the hard one. After that:

1. Ask for the next piece before you finish this one. "Once this is live, the obvious next thing is the case study — shall I quote for it?"

2. Ask for one introduction. Not a testimonial, an introduction. "Who else do you know who has this problem?"

3. Publish what you learned. A short post about the problem you solved does more for your credibility than any portfolio page.

The part nobody says out loud

Most people never get their first client because they never actually ask anybody. They build a website, choose a font, read another article about pitching and call it progress.

Ten names. One useful thing each. Send it today.