The fastest answer to how to find freelance clients is to work your warmest relationships first: active conversations, follow-ups, and inbound leads, then past contacts and existing customers, and only then cold outreach, content, and communities. Most freelancers do it backwards. They spend the day on cold messages while a warm lead goes quiet.
That warm-to-cold order is how Andy Milligan runs his own pipeline. Andy is the founder of MMG Design, a web and SEO studio for healthcare brands, and of the Columbus Marketing Organization. His solo marketing business brought in $26,000 in the month before he recorded the video at the top of this page, and he still sets aside a dedicated hour for lead generation every day. This guide breaks down how he decides what to do in that hour, so you can copy the system instead of guessing.
If you have not landed anyone yet, start with how to get your first client and come back here to build the habit that keeps work coming.
"The further along the customer or the opportunity is down the funnel towards revenue or a closed deal, those are the things that you should prioritize first." Andy Milligan
How to find freelance clients: work from warm to cold
In the video, Andy shows a simple graph he uses to rank every lead generation task (1:33). It sorts the work into three tiers, ordered by how close each task is to a signed deal:
- Active conversations, follow-ups, and inbound. These are time-bound and closest to revenue. Do them first, every day.
- Colder conversations, non-time-bound follow-ups, and outreach to existing customers. These still involve people who know you, but nothing is urgent.
- Cold conversations, content, and communities. This is where new relationships start, and where most freelancers wrongly spend most of their time.
If you have an hour set aside for lead generation, you move through the three tiers in order and repeat. Andy's instruction for the first tier is blunt: "attack them ferociously."
The order matters because effort compounds differently at each level. A reply to someone who already asked for a proposal can close this week. A cold message to a stranger might start a conversation that closes in six months. Both are worth doing, but only one of them goes stale if you wait.
Tier 1: active conversations, follow-ups, and inbound
Start with anyone who is already in motion: a prospect waiting on your proposal, a lead who replied yesterday, an inbound form fill, a referral partner who said "send me that link." These conversations have a clock on them. Every day you wait, the buyer's attention moves to something else.
Andy begins his own list with "clients and leads," the people in his pipeline who are the most time-sensitive. Only when those are handled does he move down the list.
Speed matters at this stage. Buyers are cautious with their time and attention. In a June 2025 Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers, 61% said they prefer a buying experience without a sales rep, and 73% said they actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. When someone has already raised their hand, a fast and relevant reply is the respectful thing to do.
What counts as tier 1
- Proposals sent with no decision yet
- Leads who replied in the last few days
- Inbound inquiries from your website, LinkedIn, or a referral
- Follow-ups you promised on a specific date
Tier 2: colder conversations and existing customers
The second tier is people who know you but are not waiting on you. That includes past prospects who went quiet, conversations with no deadline, and current or past clients who might need more help.
For Andy, much of this tier comes from his podcast, Marketing by Design. After each recording he follows up with the guest, and he treats those follow-ups as relationship building, not selling. "I've seen this to be a very effective nurturing activity," he says, "following up with podcast guests, personalizing the message a lot, and especially if they're perfect fits to be referral partners."
The same logic applies to local events. Andy keeps a separate list of people he met in person around Columbus, along with notes on what he wants to send each of them. His follow-up is often an introduction to someone else or a useful resource, not a pitch.
This is where many freelance clients actually come from: people who already trust you. In a 2026 SurveyMonkey and Reddit study of 1,202 U.S. business decision-makers, 73% named peer recommendations as their most trusted source when evaluating vendors, ahead of vendor websites at 55%. Every referral partner you keep warm is a peer recommendation waiting to happen.
Tier 3: cold outreach, content, and communities
Cold work comes last in the hour, but it still gets done. This tier fills the top of your pipeline so that tiers 1 and 2 have something in them next month.
Andy's cold work spans direct outreach, content, and community conversations. If cold messaging is where you are weakest, his breakdowns of cold outreach and LinkedIn outreach show the real messages he sends. For a volume target to aim at, read how he applies the rule of 100.
Keep the Gartner finding in mind here too. Irrelevant cold outreach does not just get ignored. It gets you avoided. A shorter list of well-researched prospects beats a long list of generic messages.
Content and communities belong in this tier because they build trust slowly. A LinkedIn post or a helpful comment in a community rarely produces a client the same day, but it makes your next cold message land with someone who has seen your name before.
Build the list before the hour starts
The system only works if you know what is in each tier before you begin. Andy keeps a running list in Notion of everything that needs to happen on the lead generation front, sorted by priority, so he can check items off one at a time. His list for the day in the video ran in this order:
- Clients and leads: active, time-sensitive pipeline
- Podcast follow-ups: guests who could become referral partners
- In-person event follow-ups: people he met locally in Columbus who should be introduced to someone or sent a resource
- Community and content: non-time-bound work
That order mirrors the three tiers. When the hour runs short, the work that gets cut is the work that can wait.
A simple daily checklist
- Open your list and sort it by how close each item is to revenue.
- Reply to every active conversation and inbound lead first.
- Send the follow-ups you promised, with something useful attached.
- Reach out to one or two past clients or quiet prospects.
- Use what is left of the hour for cold outreach, a post, or a community conversation.
- Record what you did, so you can see the pattern after a few weeks.
Why a daily habit beats a busy month
Freelancing is a crowded field. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted 11.9 million independent contractors in July 2023, 7.4% of total U.S. employment. Many of them are competing for the same buyers you are.
The freelancers who keep a full calendar are rarely the ones with the best single campaign. They are the ones who show up every day. Andy records his lead generation sessions daily for accountability, and his attitude toward growth is patient: "slow and steady wins the race, guys. Always is the case."
A daily hour also protects you from the classic freelance cycle, where you stop prospecting while you are busy delivering, then panic when projects end. If you want the full routine Andy uses, see his guide on how to generate leads in one hour a day.
How to find freelance clients in Columbus
Local relationships make every tier of this system stronger. A follow-up lands better when you met someone at a breakfast last week, and a cold message is warmer when you share a mutual connection in the same city.
Columbus Marketing Organization is a peer community for marketers, freelancers, and service providers in Columbus, Ohio, founded by Andy Milligan. Members share leads, introductions, and job opportunities, including the weekly Columbus Marketing Jobs newsletter.
That is where many of Andy's tier 2 relationships start: at Columbus marketing events where freelancers, agency owners, and in-house marketers meet in person. If you are still choosing which rooms to show up in, his honest review of networking groups in Columbus, Ohio covers 19 of them.
Put the system to work this week
Knowing how to find freelance clients is less about secret channels and more about order. Work the warmest relationships first, nurture the people who already know you, and give cold outreach and content a steady place at the end of every lead generation hour. Do it daily, write down what you did, and judge the results over months, not days.
If you want peers who are building the same habit, join the Columbus Marketing Organization community on Skool, or come to the next Columbus marketing event and meet them in person.
The further along the customer or the opportunity is down the funnel towards revenue or a closed deal, those are the things that you should prioritize first.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best way to find freelance clients?
Start with the people closest to hiring you: active conversations, overdue follow-ups, and inbound leads. Then reconnect with past clients, quiet prospects, and referral partners. Use whatever time is left for cold outreach, content, and communities. Andy Milligan runs this order in a dedicated hour of lead generation every day.
How much time should a freelancer spend finding clients?
Andy Milligan blocks one dedicated hour a day for lead generation, even while serving clients. A fixed daily block keeps prospecting from stopping during busy delivery weeks, which is what usually causes the feast-or-famine cycle. Track what you do in that hour so you can see what produces conversations.
Is cold outreach still worth it for freelancers?
Yes, as long as it is relevant. Cold outreach fills your pipeline for next month, but a June 2025 Gartner survey found 73% of B2B buyers avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach. Research a short list of prospects and personalize each message instead of sending generic volume.
Where do most freelance clients come from?
Often from people who already know you. In a 2026 SurveyMonkey and Reddit study, 73% of U.S. business decision-makers called peer recommendations their most trusted source for evaluating vendors. Staying in touch with past clients, podcast guests, and people you meet at events keeps those recommendations coming.
How can I find freelance clients in Columbus, Ohio?
Combine a daily outreach habit with local relationships. Columbus Marketing Organization, founded by Andy Milligan, is a peer community where Columbus marketers and freelancers share leads, introductions, and job opportunities. Its in-person events and weekly Columbus Marketing Jobs newsletter make warm introductions easier to come by.
Read the video transcript
Kind: captions Language: en Hey there, my name is Andy. I own a solo marketing business that generated $26,000 last month. This is my channel where I build, strategize, and public to teach you what's working in live time. So, if you guys are new to the channel, I own a design studio called MMG Design. We do web and SEO for the leading healthcare brands in the country. I own a podcast called Marketing by Design where I interview thought leaders in healthcare, B2B marketing, and beyond. And I also own a community called Columbus Marketing Organization. just my job board, events, community built for ambitious marketers in Columbus. Learn, grow, learn and grow with peers at your stage and one or two steps ahead of you in your journey. I record these videos every single day to share with you guys what I'm doing on a couple different factors and to remind you guys of the format. We're going to be doing today is some live weed zone. So, I'll show you how I'm building my pipeline and keeping the business moving forwards, doing highest leverage activities first and then sequencing down to other more administrative tasks, how I prioritize the actions that I do in a day. Two, we build and strategize in public. I'll talk about the things that I am focusing on and the high leverage activities that I'll be doing in the future. And number three, updates and growth stats across channels that I'm focused on growing. YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn community, and my products. So, without further ado, I want to get right into it here because I had some recording issues and I'm feeling a little bit behind. But essentially, I've used notion here to just create a list of, you know, things that I need to get done on the lead genen front, people that I need to follow up with, things that are high priority for me, and just made a list of them so I can kind of go through and check them off one at a time. I'm thinking about potentially making this a time lapse while I go in and do this. Just I record these for accountability, and I want to make sure that I'm doing them. But I want to teach you guys lightly, this is your first time to the channel, how I prioritize what I do in a day. So the first thing is we always start with active conversations. This is how you should focus in this beautiful graph here is how I illustrate it. Active conversations, follow-ups, and inbound. These are timebound things. And the further along the customer or the opportunity is down the funnel towards revenue or a closed deal, those are the things that you should prioritize first. Be spring on these things and attack them verociously. Next up is colder conversations, non-timebound follow-ups, and outreach to existing customers. What I'm going to be doing today is kind of fall in between these two. Um, so kind of in this sweet spot right here in terms of what my actions today are going to be. And then at the end, cold conversations, content, and communities. Um, in terms of if you have an hour dedicated towards weeds done like I do, you funnel through these three range and repeat. Start at the bottom, work your way up. So that's kind of the idea with this list right here. Starting with clients and weeds, then moving on to podcast follow-ups, which are all these are referral partners that I would like to follow up from our podcast with that we reported this week. Next up is inerson event follow-ups. So these are kind of time bound, but these people that I met here locally in Columbus and I want to introduce them to other people or just follow up and plug the resources. I have a separate notes database where I kept track of things that I want to send them and follow up. And last up is community. So these are nonbound community plus content, I'll call that. But these are the highest priority actions I take in a day. So, what I'm thinking about doing is just turning on the time lapse now and making sure that this thing's actually recording good and then get right into it. Also, I did just get back from the gym, so I'm a little bit a little bit sweaty, but uh yeah, I'm glad we got that out of the way. Real quick here before we dive in. I've been absolutely loving and building the consistency muscle of posting on here every day. And it looks like we have slowly grown our subscriber count up to 35, which is impressive in and of itself. We have some absolute bangers coming in the coming days. So, make sure that you are subscribed where I literally the past couple days have just been straight recording. 46 minute video here, hour and 9 minute video here. This one is a really good one. This daily routine kind of like I'm teaching you guys now of how to make sure pipeline is never an issue. And then also another Q&A part two from the Q&A a couple days ago. So, without further ado, let's dive on in and get this thing done. Okay, finishing out the video really quick here with some brand stats. I have a call here in 6 minutes, so I'm going to make this relatively quick. But yeah, a good hour of lead genen. Um, I do and you guys will notice as you watch these videos, it can take multiple categories. So, a lot of them are podcast follow-ups that are nurture. A lot of them are clients needs and leads, which I started with. People that are in my pipeline that are more timesensitive and then going on to things like the podcast. I could and I likely will in the future have ROA start to handle some of these tasks in this bucket right here. But for right now, the I' I've seen this to be a very effective nurturing activity is following up with podcast guests, personalizing the message a lot, and especially if they're perfect fits to be referral partners. So, you can invest time into that, and I'm choosing to do that. Real quick, in 5 minutes, I'm going to do a quick update on brand stats across all my channels, social, and products. Um, uh, head over to YouTube and online to see if these are storing correctly. Main YouTube channel, we're at 415. So, a little bit of growth there. Save. Followers on Andy the Marketer. We're at 35. Save. LinkedIn. We are at save size eight podcast downloads are the same are the same Instagram quickly lookie here 1859 9 four to the four. Fantastic. So, we're in the green on all platforms. Like the ability to go in and do these so I can track over a longer span of time, but uh yeah, so those are the most recent updates. Really cool to see the growth here. Looks like we're growing on a month over month. We've been tracking for about two weeks here, but slow and steady wins the race, guys. Always is the case. So, that'll wrap it up. I got a call here in 3 minutes. Appreciate you guys tuning in. Check out if you are a marketer looking to generate more leads. I hope this has been helpful, transparent, look at how I'm moving my business forward. If you want to do the same for yourself and you're looking to grow, meet like-minded people, and generate more leads as a marketer, check out the description below. That's the only CC I have, and I'll see you guys tomorrow. Bye.