[chatmasta]

You just need to throw enough shit at the wall until it sticks. If you are only talking to 10 people a month, and you close a deal with 10% of them, that's 1 new client a month. Assuming you can maintain an ongoing relationship with each client, that could well be enough. In my experience it's better to have 3-5 continuous clients than it is to be finding a new one every week.

Beyond that, my advice:

- SPECIALIZE. Pick one skill that you are very good at (sounds like it's conversion optimization) and focus 100% of your energy on landing clients who need that skill. For you, conversion optimization is a particularly marketable skill because it has a direct 1:1 relationship with value you can provide. If you increase conversions by 1%, that has a real monetary gain associated with it. Set your prices based on this value.

- Sell yourself. You are a product. Convince your client why it is valuable to his business to hire you.

- Always be getting leads for new clients, even when you're working on a project for another. Close the deal and then worry about scheduling.

- Consider working at a "discount" for the first project with a client, or a differing pricing structure, then raise your rates. For example, I like to start projects with clients as fixed price, in order to build trust and a sense of my working pace. Then I move to daily rates.

- Join any slack groups and skype groups you come across. You can find some skype groups on internet marketing forums, and nomad list has a good slack group (thousands of entrepreneurs in it)

- Consider reaching out to consulting/freelance agencies and offering your help on any projects that require your specialist expertise. If a consulting shop is good at fullstack development, but not at conversion optimization, then that's an opportunity for you.

- Update your linkedin saying you are accepting clients and new work. Make a list of startup founders in your network, and get in touch with them via personalized emails describing how you can help.

[Im_a_throw_away]

Thanks for the great advice!

> If you are only talking to 10 people a month, and you close a deal with 10% of them, that's 1 new client a month.

If I follow the plan described in my post, I will be talking to ~30 people a months. But they are just developers spending time in meetups, not people actively looking for freelancers. So I won't get 10% of them as clients, maybe 1% or less...

[chatmasta]

Sounds like a solvable problem, but the solution depends on your location / interests / social life. If you want to use meetups for prospecting, then you just need to find the right meetups. This is why it's important to specialize. By specializing, you can focus on one target market of clients. In your case, your target market might be "founders of small SaaS shops with profitable product but poorly optimized conversion funnels." So you'll need to go to as many meetups as possible until you find which meetups have the most potential clients for you. Once you know the "right" meetups, you just need to focus on attending them consistently, giving presentations when you can, and always selling yourself.