Connect the dots
If referrals and introductions are how the work comes, you need to be looking for the people who will refer you to clients. That was the sea change for me. It made the difference between struggling with no clients and having about 10 clients now. They're all small, and intentionally so, which is what I want.
It doesn't rain clients, and it takes patience. My newest client came at the end of a chain: I closed the first person I talked with, she became a client, she referred me to a second client, and that client referred me to the third.
Second degree connections are the sweet spot
When I build an outreach list in LinkedIn Sales Navigator, I filter by role, industry, region and company size, look for people who have posted in the last 30 days, and limit it to second degree connections. No list is perfect, and a good share of the people on it won't fit what you filtered for. That's fine. Let them go.
There's research behind looking just beyond your inner circle. In a 2022 study published in Science, researchers from LinkedIn, MIT, Stanford and Harvard ran a five year experiment with about 20 million LinkedIn users. Weak ties were better for job mobility than strong ties, and moderately weak ties, people with whom you share around 10 mutual connections, were the most useful of all.
A conversation that isn't a pitch
The connection request is short, something like: I'm reaching out to manufacturers in Michigan, and I'd love to join your network. After they accept, I start a peer level conversation about a big picture topic in my area of expertise. If I were an HR pro, I might ask whether they're having more trouble right now with hiring or with retention. It isn't a trick. It's a conversation I actually want to have.
In my experience, 20 to 30 percent accept the connection, and 6 to 12 percent of the original list reply to a direct message. Every message I send back ends with a question. After a couple of exchanges, I ask if they'd have a few minutes for a networking call. Nobody does business on LinkedIn. It's for making connections, so the goal is to move the conversation to Zoom.
Help first, ask at the end
On the call, don't pivot, don't pitch and don't bait and switch. Spend about 95 percent of it giving them something actionable and useful. In the last 30 seconds, say what you do in one sentence and ask, do you know someone I should talk to? If they're glad they took the call, they'll want to give you someone.
Then stay in touch, even with people who say no. I'm a hunter and nurturing isn't my strong point, but I now reach out about once a month with something real. A company that turned down my proposal nine months or a year earlier came back when their situation changed and closed in the first meeting. If you'd rather have this done for you, look at my LinkedIn networking service, or book a networking chat.