How To Use Reddit To Find Freelance Clients

You've probably used Reddit before. It is a fun platform and you could spend hours scrolling without realising it. But there's so much more you can do with Reddit. You can find clients and get great freelancers.

• The CENTS model for validating business potential: This is an acronym for Control, Entry, Need, Time, and Scale, which can be used to evaluate if your freelance business idea has the potential to make you a millionaire. This principle applies to any business, including freelance writing. 🧠
• Freelance writing is a business: Freelancers should avoid limiting their vision to freelance platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. While these platforms provide an easy start, it's important to avoid getting stuck in them because they lack control and independence. 🖋️
• Reddit as a platform for getting freelance clients: Reddit, an online community composed of topic-specific groups, operates on a voting system and encourages active participation. It provides control and a platform to scale your freelance writing business. 🌐
• Strategies to land freelance work on Reddit: The author mentions three strategies: (1) Applying to jobs posted on relevant subreddits, (2) Advertising your services on relevant subreddits, and (3) Directly pitching to potential clients. 🎯
• Subreddits for freelance work: The author mentions three job subreddits – SlaveLabor, HireAWriter, and ForHire, which offer different levels of remuneration and have different member sizes. 💼
• Constraints on Reddit: New users on Reddit must reach a minimum of 100 combined post and comment karma and have an account that's 30 days old to post on job subreddits. Additionally, you can only post once a week or once in 72 hours, depending on the subreddit. ⏰
• Tips for success on Reddit: Always read subreddit rules, avoid causing rifts or spreading hate, constantly check job subreddits, use the message feature for job applications, and don't quote anything less than $0.05/word when advertising services. 💡

This is beneficial for both parties since you don't have to worry about platform fees or worry about rules. Let's go over some of the ways in which you can use Reddit to effectively get the optimal clients that you're looking for.

Organising your workflow

If you plan on gaining constant clients, you need to create a workflow that works for you and organise it properly. Since in this article we're going through Reddit as a source, we will optimise our workflow for it. What I like to do is to journal everything that I learned that day at the end of the day and log the statistics. Every day you need to set a target of approaching clients and starting a conversation and understanding the requirements.

• Visit the subreddits in your list one by one
• Save the links to the posts which require your skills
• Reach out to all of them one by one
• Shortlist clients who seem interested
• Build a good rapport – this is key for long term success
• Close the sale and begin the work
• Repeat

You can make it as detailed as you want or as simple as you want, but you need to have a workflow that you can repeat so you don't get stuck. You can keep refining and improving it as you learn more.

Get into the sales mindset

As a freelancer, you need to be able to handle both the parts of a business: sales and production. Especially if you don't wish to use soul-sucking platforms like Upwork and Fiverr. You don't have the liberty to pick and choose. But this is your strength too. You have complete control over your process, and you can create your own methods to get things done. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you begin.

1. Develop Resilience

When you approach people on Reddit, there is often a lot of competition, and you may not get the response you expected.But this is the first part of the game. You need to keep going without losing hope. Failure is part of success.

2. Discipline

It doesn't matter how well read or connected you are if you aren't disciplined. This is very important in sales. You shouldn't divert from your process unless it is absolutely an improvement. Stick to your daily, weekly, and monthly targets and try to hit them no matter what.

3. Charisma

You don't have to be naturally Charismatic. Simply thinking from the perspective of your prospect and having a conversation in an easy to understand manner while being attentive to your client is more than enough most of the time. Always listen more and ask questions.

Finding Warm Client Leads Using Reddit

Monthly active users on Reddit keep growing. The special thing about Reddit is that it's a collection of forums. This means you have the opportunity to find clients in absolutely every sector you can imagine. If you strategise right, there is an endless supply of freelance clients.

Getting clients from warm subs

A “warm sub” is something that is designed for the sole purpose of hiring and getting hired for that particular task.

There are many subs, such as r/forhire, where you can find people hiring freelancers. I would suggest creating a list of such subs that you can add to your workflow. Simply go to reddit and type something like “hire freelancers” and select the communities tab.

Only select the communities that have more than 2K subs. Keep repeating this with different keywords like “hire freelance writers” and so on.

Let's take the example of the keyword “hire freelance writers”. Here you can see 5 results. You can switch the keywords a bit to get more, but let's go with this.

• Start looking into these subs one by one and read the rules of the subs. Some of these subs don't allow you to post a “for hire” or “hiring” post. Ignore them for now.
• Visit the subs that have more than 2K subs and start scrolling.
• Add all the posts that have a “for hire” tag or something that implies the poster is hiring and add them to an excel sheet. Make sure the post isn't too old.
• Repeat and once you have collected enough leads, start your sales process.

Getting clients from cold subs

Cold subs are subs where your target clients visit and post often. They are not specifically used for hiring and firing. This method is slightly harder but has the potential to bring many more prospective clients than warm subs.

Who is your client?

You need to create your ideal client profile. This means knowing where they would likely have problems that would need solutions. If you are a content writer and you want to work with someone who is starting their business or blog, you should find them in subreddits where new business owners and bloggers exist. Creating a client profile narrows down the amount of data that you will have to sift through.

Get to know them and connect

Let's say you are making websites and doing SEO for lawyers. Visit subs where lawyers would visit. Get involved in the community and become a part of it. Connect with the users as much as possible, provide solutions, and show genuine interest.

Push the sales button

Once you've established enough connections and built a good rapport, you can start slowly introducing your services. Don't just spam people with offers like an annoying salesman, though; understand their problems and offer solutions that you offer. This may seem difficult at first, but if you keep doing it, you will learn and know what works.