Unpopular opinion but I stopped cold emailing for clients and started doing free mini projects instead

Everyone says you gotta send 100 cold emails a week to land clients. I tried that for 3 months in Austin and got maybe 2 replies. Then I offered to redesign a local bakery's website menu page for free on a Friday. Took me 4 hours. Owner loved it so much she paid me $300 to do the whole site. Did that for 3 more small businesses and now 2 of them are paying me $150 a month for hosting updates. Has anyone else tried giving away tiny work samples instead of cold pitching?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_henry1d ago

Yeah man this is the real deal lol. I did basically the same thing with a coffee shop near me last year. Offered to fix their Google Maps listing and snapped a few better photos of their drinks for free on a Sunday afternoon. End result? They hired me for a full website rebuild and now I handle their social media posts too for $200 a month. Cold emails always felt like screaming into the void, but showing up with something useful already done just works better somehow.

rose_grant7823h ago

Yeah the "showing up with something useful already done" part is the key I think. It flips the whole dynamic from "please hire me" to "here's proof I can actually help" without them having to take a risk first.

angela_allen5323h ago

Ha, @rose_grant78, you really think a free Sunday afternoon is gonna build a real business?