Somebody in your city asked for exactly what you sell this morning. Nine people replied "DM me". One person answered the question, and that person got the job. Here is the short version of how to find clients: go where people already ask for help, reply first and well, then turn each job into the next one.
I have been building businesses since 2019, mostly apps and websites. In every one, the hardest part was the first customers without burning money on ads. The best ones were often people asking for help in public. I built Hodorak to find those requests every day.
How to find clients: start with the ones already asking
The quickest client is someone who already decided to buy. They do not need a funnel. They need a clear answer from a real person, today.
Most advice on finding clients starts the other way around. Build a brand, post content, send cold emails, wait. That works, slowly. Meanwhile, people write "can anyone recommend a designer?" and get a pile of emoji in reply.
Here is my stance, plainly: answer before you broadcast. A person asking for help in public is worth more than a week of cold DMs.
Our own numbers explain why reading beats posting. In one 72-hour window at the start of October 2026, we read 1,039 posts for our page on real estate leads and found 80 requests. About 9 in 10 Facebook search results were agents promoting themselves.
So the feed is mostly sellers shouting. The few buyers asking are easy to miss, and that is your gap.
So where can I find clients who are asking? The nine places below answer where to find clients this week. Places 1 to 6 are strangers asking today. Places 7 to 9 are people who already know you.
Facebook groups are where local buyers ask for recommendations
Facebook groups are still the busiest place for "who do you use?" posts. In our real estate window at the start of October 2026, Facebook gave 47 requests in 745 posts, more than Reddit and X together.
Place 1: local town and neighborhood groups. People ask for plumbers, tutors, photographers, accountants and web designers here. Search inside the group for your service and for the problem, sorted by newest.
Place 2: trade and industry groups. A bakery owners' group asks for a web designer. A realtors' group asks for a photographer. Your clients have their own groups, and those groups have fewer people like you in them.
Real requests sound like this:
Looking for a web designer for my bakery, nothing fancy, just need people to find us.
Does anyone know a good bookkeeper for a small cleaning company?
Join the groups before you need them, read the rules, and help with a few questions first. Checking ten groups twice a day gets old by Wednesday, which is why Hodorak watches the Facebook groups you choose and shows you only the requests.
Reddit, X and LinkedIn carry the online and B2B requests
Reddit, X and LinkedIn are where people ask for help that does not need a local person. Think design, writing, development, marketing and consulting. These are direct clients, with no agency or marketplace in the middle.
Reddit: hiring and advice subreddits
Place 3: hiring subreddits. A subreddit is a Reddit community about one topic. r/forhire exists for hiring posts, and each subreddit has its own rules on how to answer. Read them first, because moderators remove lazy replies.
Place 4: trade and city subreddits. Requests hide in advice threads. In one 72-hour window in mid-October 2026, we counted HVAC requests on Reddit at a pace of 510 a month, and r/hvacadvice alone carried 230 of them. Reddit lets you sort by New and filter down to the past hour, so a fresh post is easy to catch.
X and LinkedIn: search posts, not people
Place 5: X search. X (Twitter) is noisy, but its search still works for client research. Search phrases like "looking for a" plus your service, and sort by Latest. Expect fewer hits than on Facebook: in that same real estate window, X gave 2 requests in 15 posts.
Place 6: LinkedIn posts, not LinkedIn messages. Founders and managers post "we need a freelance video editor" or "any recommendations for a bookkeeper?" in their own feed. Those posts are warm. The cold connection request with a pitch is not.
Search posts, not people, for "looking for" or "recommend" plus your service. Filter by the past week. Then reply in the comments with one useful line, and only then send a message.
Honestly, LinkedIn is slower than Facebook or X for most local trades. It shines for B2B services with bigger tickets. If you would rather not refresh Reddit at midnight, our Reddit monitoring sends the matching posts to you. Hodorak watches X and LinkedIn searches the same way.
Your old clients and your network still convert best
Strangers asking in public is the fast lane. People who already know you are the cheap lane, and you should drive both. Client hunting is easier when half the hunt is people who already like you.
Place 7: past clients. Send a short check-in every few months. Many will not come back first, so you go to them. One line works: "I have space next month, anything on your list?"
Place 8: partners who serve the same buyer. A web designer and a copywriter send each other work. So do a photographer and a wedding planner, or a bookkeeper and a tax preparer. Agree to pass on jobs you cannot take.
Events help you find these partners, because you meet people who sell to the same buyer.
Why this works so well: in 2021, Nielsen found that 89% of US adults trust recommendations from people they know most of all. When someone asks a group for a recommendation, a happy client who tags you is that channel in action.
Marketplaces are the other network, and they come with fees. If you live on them, compare the options in our list of Upwork alternatives before you pay more commission.
Show up where people search: Google profile and reviews
Place 9: your Google Business Profile. It is the free listing that puts a local business on Google Maps and in local search. For anyone who serves clients in a city, this is how to find clients who never post anywhere: they search, and you are there.
Fill it in fully, add real photos of real work, and list the area you serve. Then ask every happy client for a review the day you finish.
Fresh reviews matter more than a big old pile. In the BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and 74% look for reviews from the last three months. Lawn care owners use the same trick, as in our guide for lawn care customers.
How to reply to a request so you win it
The first reply wins more often than the best ad. But "DM me" is not a reply. It is a coin flip, and the other eight people flipped too. Most guides on how to find clients skip the reply itself.
A reply that wins has four parts:
- Answer their exact question. If they asked about a bakery website, talk about bakeries.
- One line of proof. A link to similar work, a photo, or a number from a past job.
- One question back. It starts a conversation and shows you read the post.
- Your area or time zone, and when you can start.
Hi, I build simple sites for local food shops, here is one I did for a cafe last spring. Do you take orders online, or do people mostly call? I could start next week.
Rule of thumb: reply within the hour, and never paste the same message twice. What really works is a reply that could only be for this one post. Adapt each line to the post. You can see a full reply for a developer in our guide to web development clients.
Set it up so requests come to you every day
Searching for clients in nine places by hand takes about an hour a day. That is fine for the first month, and it teaches you what real requests sound like. After that, the work is the reading, not the replying.
Here is a simple daily setup:
- Morning: check saved searches on X and Reddit, sorted by newest.
- Lunch: scan your three best Facebook groups.
- Evening: reply to anything from today, and send one check-in to a past client.
Hodorak does the reading part. It watches the Facebook groups, subreddits, X searches and LinkedIn posts you pick. It shows the posts where someone asks for what you sell, with why it fits and a suggested first reply, on a web board and by Telegram or email. You edit the reply and send it yourself, in your own words.
Honestly, Hodorak is the wrong tool if your clients come through tenders, or if you only need two clients a year. It is also wrong if your buyers never ask in public. Then your network and Google profile are the whole game.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my first client?
Answer a public request in your field this week. Join two Facebook groups where your buyers ask, search them daily, and reply with one useful line plus proof. Tell friends and old colleagues what you now offer. Do the first job well, then ask for a review and a referral before you send the invoice.
Who are potential clients?
Potential clients are people with the problem you solve and a reason to fix it now. The clearest ones are people posting a request today. Next come past clients, people in groups for your buyers' trade, and people searching Google for your service in your area. Start with whoever is asking out loud.
How do I get more clients without ads?
Answer requests in groups, on Reddit, X and LinkedIn, and ask every happy client for a referral and a review. Agree with one or two partners to pass each other work. If you keep asking how do I get more clients, check your reply speed first: the first useful reply often wins.
How to get new clients fast?
The fastest way to get new clients is to reply to someone asking today. Search your service and the problem in plain words, sort by newest, and answer within the hour. Before you reply, read their whole post and ask one question back. Speed matters, but a reply that shows you read the post matters more.
How to find clients this week, starting tonight
Pick three places from the nine and give them twenty minutes tonight. Next time someone asks for what you sell, you will be the first useful answer. Search the problem, sort by newest, and answer one request with one useful line. That is how to find clients without paying for clicks.
If you want the requests to come to you instead, start tracking leads with Hodorak.
Worst case, you learn that half your town needs a plumber and nobody has answered them since Tuesday.
