About a year ago, I left my finance job in NYC with a stupid idea:

Start a business in marketing and video production.

That might be a red flag for some, and a “heck yeah!” for others.

But then I thought: “Ok cool… now how do I get clients?”

Six months later, I had gone from 0 to 40 clients. Not bad for someone who’d never done that before.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to share some of the problems I ran into — and how I solved them — hoping it’ll help you reach your goals a little faster.

So here’s how I got my first clients:

Know where your leads come from — and how you can get more. I did 4 things, and every single one eventually converted:

• Posted content

• Reached out to strangers (SDR)

• Ran ads

• Told my network I was looking for clients

Track where your leads are coming from. (This is where having a CRM helps — I used Notion)

Never just send your price. (If you do, you’ll end up competing on price — and it was a pain to profit this way)

Understand that it’s a sales process, not just one call. (aka “never try to sell on a single call”)

• For me, this process became: Discovery → Strategy → Offer → Negotiation

• A true stranger won’t just give you money out of the blue — they need to know you first.

• This is also why posting content helps. It builds trust and leads to a higher conversion rate for the leads that come to you.

Run local ads. You don’t need anything fancy or a ton of money.

When someone follows you, engage with them.

(I’ve closed clients just because I sent a welcome message — no pitch. Turns out, they just needed a “hello” from me)

The screenshots are from my Perennial Report from those first months in 2024. I track and do things differently now — but this was a solid starting point.

About a year ago, I left my finance job in NYC with a stupid idea:

Start a business in marketing and video production.

That might be a red flag for some, and a “heck yeah!” for others.

But then I thought: “Ok cool… now how do I get clients?”

Six months later, I had gone from 0 to 40 clients. Not bad for someone who’d never done that before.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to share some of the problems I ran into — and how I solved them — hoping it’ll help you reach your goals a little faster.

So here’s how I got my first clients:

Know where your leads come from — and how you can get more. I did 4 things, and every single one eventually converted:

• Posted content

• Reached out to strangers (SDR)

• Ran ads

• Told my network I was looking for clients

Track where your leads are coming from. (This is where having a CRM helps — I used Notion)

Never just send your price. (If you do, you’ll end up competing on price — and it was a pain to profit this way)

Understand that it’s a sales process, not just one call. (aka “never try to sell on a single call”)

• For me, this process became: Discovery → Strategy → Offer → Negotiation

• A true stranger won’t just give you money out of the blue — they need to know you first.

• This is also why posting content helps. It builds trust and leads to a higher conversion rate for the leads that come to you.

Run local ads. You don’t need anything fancy or a ton of money.

When someone follows you, engage with them.

(I’ve closed clients just because I sent a welcome message — no pitch. Turns out, they just needed a “hello” from me)

The screenshots are from my Perennial Report from those first months in 2024. I track and do things differently now — but this was a solid starting point.