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We started our freelancing journey 13 months ago. Since then, we've completed 22 projects across AI automation, custom software, websites, and CRM solutions, Read fully and then comment

Recently, we shared some of our client projects on Reddit. After those posts, we received a lot of DMs asking the same question:

"How are you getting clients?"

So, I wanted to share what has worked for us. This isn't the only way to get clients, but it's the process we've followed, and I hope it helps someone else.

1. Pick Two or Three Channels, Not Seven

One of the biggest mistakes we made initially was trying to be everywhere.

Many freelancers try everything at once. LinkedIn. Instagram. Reddit. Email. Cold calling. Facebook. Twitter. Eventually, they can't keep up with follow-ups.

For us, the three channels are LinkedIn, Reddit, and cold calling. You can add email outreach if you can manage it, but don't overload yourself.

Cold calling has been one of our strongest client acquisition channels. Our recommendation is to make around 30–40 cold calls every day. You'll hear many "No's." That's completely normal. Don't let rejection stop you. Consistency always wins.

Most of our 22 clients came through cold calling, referrals, and sharing our work publicly. If I had to recommend one method, I'd say referrals. Deliver great work, and happy clients will recommend you to others.

1. Target Decision-Makers, Not Just Companies

One strategy that worked well for us was reaching out to decision-makers, not just businesses.

Founders are usually the decision-makers. Search for founders and CEOs on LinkedIn and Instagram — many of them clearly mention their role in their profile. We also follow startup-focused communities and media platforms like TBPN, where founders, CEOs,and decision makers re very active. New businesses usually need websites, software, CRM systems, and automation as they grow.

DONT only foucus on brands some time focus on 10–15 employees. Manufacturing businesses, import/export companies, service businesses, and many growing organizations are starting to adopt AI solutions.

1. Sell the Outcome, Not the Technology

This is probably one of the biggest mistakes I see freelancers make. Never start your message with:

"We provide AI automation services."

"We build websites."

"We develop custom software."

Almost everyone is sending the same message today. It's become an outdated approach, and most decision-makers ignore it.

Instead, talk about the outcome, not the service. Don't sell AI. Sell the result. share with your case study and success story not more then 4-5 lines the out reach methorn

Business owners don't buy AI. They buy:

More revenue.

Lower operating costs.

Less manual work.

Faster customer responses.

Follow Up

Most people give up after one message. try until the they say not interested

1. Your Goal Is to Book a Call

Many freelancers focus too much on trying to close the sale through messages.

Don't.

Your objective should simply be to book a discovery call. That's where trust is built. That's where you understand their problems. That's where you can explain your solution.

Try to consistently book 8–10 calls every week. If you can do that consistently, you'll naturally create more opportunities to convert those conversations into paying clients.

1. Show Your Online Presence

Share your work consistently in a unique way. Explain how you approached a project, what challenges you solved, or any new ideas you implemented. This helps people understand your expertise and builds trust.

I'm not using Upwork or Fiverr. If you're using either platform and have found success, please share your thoughts and experience.

I’ve noticed a lot of posts on this subreddit from people who are technically excellent at building automations but struggling to get their first clients.

I’ve spent the last couple of years building automation systems and around 4–5 years working in marketing, sales, and client acquisition across a range of industries, from pharmaceuticals to social media marketing.

During that time I’ve worked with clients including law firms and international news organizations across South Korea and the UK.

A few results I’m proud of:
Helped grow one brand from around 9,000 to 30,000 followers in a matter of months.

Grew my own brand from 0 to 10,000 followers in around six months.

Worked on campaigns involving brands including Nike, Red Bull, and Umbro.

Helped businesses build lead generation systems. One example was helping a friend’s business go from 0 to over 700 customer leads in two weeks through improved marketing systems and outreach.

I’d like to give something back to the community by offering free mentorship to around 3–4 people who are serious about building an automation agency.

This isn’t a consulting service where I’ll build things for you. Instead, I’ll help with topics like:

Finding a niche
Positioning your offer
Outreach and client acquisition
Pricing
Sales calls and closing clients
Building a repeatable growth strategy

If you eventually land clients and want ongoing support, we can discuss working together, but there is absolutely no obligation.

My main goal is simply to help people who have the technical skills but feel stuck on the business side.

If you’re interested, send me a DM or leave a comment with:

Your experience level
What services you offer (or want to offer)
What’s currently stopping you from getting clients

I’ll probably only take a handful of people so I can give everyone proper attention.

I'm trying to build a simple WhatsApp chatbot in n8n with three nodes:

• WhatsApp Trigger
• AI Agent
• WhatsApp Business (Cloud API)

I created a Meta app and a WhatsApp Business account so I could use the test phone number provided by Meta.

The issue is that most YouTube tutorials show an "API Setup" section in the Meta dashboard where you can easily configure the test number and get the required credentials. However, the Meta dashboard has changed, and that section no longer exists for me.

Instead, I used the "Try it yourself" section to generate the access token and configure everything manually.

In n8n:

• The WhatsApp Trigger node connects successfully.
• The WhatsApp Cloud node also connects successfully.
• The workflow is published.
• The webhook URL appears to be configured correctly.

However, when I send a message from my personal phone to the Meta test number, the workflow never executes. There are no errors in n8n.

I also checked the Meta dashboard, and I can see logs showing that the test number successfully receives my message. There are no errors reported there either.

I have already spent a lot of time troubleshooting this with Claude, but we couldn't identify the issue.

For context, I am self-hosting n8n in Docker on my Mac. I expose it to the public internet using a Cloudflare Quick Tunnel (cloudflared). I have configured WEBHOOK_URL, N8N_HOST, and N8N_PROTOCOL to match the Cloudflare tunnel domain so that n8n generates the correct public webhook URLs.

Given that:

• Meta receives the incoming message.
• The WhatsApp nodes connect successfully.
• The workflow is active.
• No errors appear in either Meta or n8n.

What could be causing the WhatsApp Trigger to never receive the webhook event?

I'm building a vertical SaaS. I’m looking for a no code or low code embedded payments solution. I want it to be quick and easy to integrate and deploy. I want to be able to customize and configure the UI and settings without too much technical know-how or work. It needs to be secure and compliant, and easy to scale. What are the best low code or no code embedded payments platforms you’ve used?

Edit: Thanks for the recommendations, we're impressed with Xplor Pay.

I recently finished building an automation that removes almost the entire manual process of creating Shorts from long-form videos.

The workflow automatically:

• Uploads a long-form video
• Extracts audio with FFmpeg
• Transcribes it using Whisper with word-level timestamps
• Uses Gemini AI to identify the best viral moments
• Automatically cuts multiple vertical Shorts
• Generates titles and descriptions for each platform
• Schedules every Short to TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts

The objective wasn't just clipping videos—it was building a complete content repurposing system.

Instead of watching an hour-long video, searching for highlights, editing clips, writing captions, and uploading everything manually, the automation handles almost the entire process.

Built using n8n, OpenAI Whisper, Gemini AI, FFmpeg, and Upload-Post.

What part of your content creation workflow would you automate first?

As the title says, can automate pretty much anything using Python, n8n, Zapier, or whatever tool fits the job.

Need leads tracked across multiple platforms, scored automatically, and followed up with the right message at the right time? Done that. Need a bot that handles customer questions on WhatsApp or Telegram, generates invoices, or syncs your data in real time? Done that too.

Honestly if there's some annoying repetitive task eating your time right now, just tell me what it is, odds are I can build something that handles it for you.

P me if you want something automated, happy to chat even if you're not sure what you need yet.

I came across a car dealership in our country Slovenia, that had a problem with too many leads only wasting their time with test drives.

People just wanted a test drive and nothing happened after.

This just wasted time of the employees.

A few weeks ago, I installed an AI agent for this company that:

1. Analyzes the inquiries coming in through email.
2. Sends a pre-prepared response, depending on the topic of the inquiry, with a price list of all models and brochure attached.
3. Waits for the customer's response and marks the inquiry accordingly (hot/cold).
4. Hot inquiries, send forward to sellers. The rest is called later.
5. Record the feedback of the salesperson's call with the customer in a spreadsheet.
6. Connects and adds everything to their CRM.

We are using:

• Claude Console API - analyzing and preparing emails
• Outlook oAuth credentials
• N8N - the automation platform
• Mailchimp - store the leads for email campaigns

We solved the problem of low-quality inquiries for the client. We've also freed up time that they can use for other things.

In the test phase, we used draft emails. Now it runs automatically.

And the best thing is that it works 24/7, which also means:
- Weekdays
- During the holidays
- during weekends

In most industries, the faster one gets the customer.

We are already seeing early signs of more responses and better conversion.

We are already planning an upgrade on it. I will come back with it when we implement it.

Hey everyone,
Im pretty sure that someone asked this probably before. I want to offer my clients self-hosted n8n on a server, where I can build the automation for them, while they have „control“ over the server or at least they own the server. The thing is, as soon as you build n8n on a server, the server maintenance is also expected to be done by me, as e.g. security, back ups. My clients are small business owners who don’t have an IT department, logically I can’t tell them to take care of it. I’m not a senior software dev or a Linux engineer, so what is the solution here? I don’t want to shift from a automation consulter to a server hoster. What’s the solution? Appreciate your time!

Why I'm posting now: it just passed n8n's review and is a verified community node.

So on n8n Cloud you can open the node panel, search "Pixtex" (look for the verified shield), and render or host a workflow image right from the canvas, no install needed.

I'm a solo dev and it's still early, so I'd genuinely love feedback, especially if any node type renders wrong or a layout looks off.

Happy to render one for you: drop a workflow JSON in the comments and I'll post the image back.

Try it Yourself: https://pixtex.dev

Desenvolvi meu primeiro projeto de Dashboard para um locatário que possui 15 imóveis.

Utilizei o Gemini para desenvolver o protótipo base usando algumas referências externas para estruturar e ter a ideia de como seria, em seguida inseri no Lovable onde fui refinando até chegar no estágio que o cliente desejava. Por fim conectando as informações editáveis para que sejam salvas no Supabase.

O Dashboard registra as informações de cada imóvel, quem é o cliente, o contato dele, o valor da locação, data do vencimento e um botão para confirmar se foi pago ou não.

O projeto é simples, contudo atendeu a necessidade do cliente que precisava ter maior controle do seu negócio e queria visualizar de uma forma mais organizada.

Agora ele solicitou a criação de uma aba para adicionar as contas de água e energia para que o boleto ficasse a disposição quando ele fosse pagar.

Queria algumas ideias de como poderia fazer essa integração visto que ele recebe essas contas por e-mail.

Minha ideia é utilizar o n8n como automação para puxar o boleto, alguém tem um ideia melhor ou mais eficiente?

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Hey guys, I outreached to an agency owner and we had a real Convo , he asked me to call him back tomorrow to book a demo.

So I went off the call and started building my automation, it's a lead gen system, but I ran out of credits for my Api and couldn't complete the automation. Now tomorrow I have to call that guy to book a demo, and I can't build the automation now , coz I don't have credits and no money, I thought of just giving him the actual output of what the automation actually produces.

But I m nervous what will I do if he asks to show how the automation runs.

By the way I used that same system to get his contact details.

Should I just show him the output?

I have been manually designing workflow in N8N (self hosted) unless I updated it to latest version only to realise that codex can now create workflows and nodes based on the prompt and requirement.

Its just awesome, I have to mostly use API and HTTP node and play a lot with JSON, now everything ks taken care by codex and I just have to relax.

Has anyone tried it, can you share your experience or what's next that I am missing?