👋🏽 How I landed my first 4 big-name clients

How do you land clients like HubSpot, CoSchedule, or Vimeo when you’re just starting?

I get asked this a lot.

People assume there’s some secret handshake or insider connection. There isn’t.

I’ve worked with all these companies, and I got each one through completely different methods.

Twitter DMs. Guest posts. Slack communities. Inbound referrals.

For full transparency, things have changed since then. Twitter’s marketing community isn’t what it used to be (Though LinkedIn is a nice replacement). Free Slack communities are quieter, and I had a client tell me “no” this morning because of budget reasons.

It’s harder now. I won’t sugarcoat that.

But it’s still very possible. The principles haven’t changed, even if the tactics need tweaking.

Let me walk you through what worked for me, and what you can learn from it.

This was back when Twitter still had an active marketing community. Everyone was sharing insights, connecting, and engaging with one another.

I got on Twitter and did the same. I shared what I knew at the time and engaged with CMOs and content leaders at brands I wanted to work with.

HubSpot was one of them.

The Head of Marketing at HubSpot followed me on Twitter. We interacted a bit on the timeline. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Then I sent a DM asking if they worked with freelance writers.

She said yes and asked me to send over my details.

I did.

And then...nothing. For about 4 months.

I figured it was a polite “no.” But then I got an email from HubSpot’s content team mentioning they got my info from the Head of Marketing and asking about my availability.

All I did was send a simple outreach message that eventually led to work.

I’ve been working with them for over four years now.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about guest posting.

CoSchedule is why.

I started with a free guest post. Then wrote a second one. After that, I went back and forth with the Head of Inbound Marketing at the time and asked if they had the budget to bring on an additional writer.

He said yes.

But it didn’t happen immediately, either.

This one took close to 5 months. When they did have a budget, they reached out, and I got my first paid assignment.

I’ve been writing for them since, though not as much in 2025.

Vimeo came through Superpath—a community for content marketers. At the time, Superpath was free.

Someone posted a call for writers.

I pitched myself and sent samples.

They liked the samples. I wrote a test piece. They liked that too.

I worked with them through 2021 and 2022.

It was as simple as being in the right place at the right time, with the right pitch.

This one was inbound.

Someone had posted asking who they’d recommend for SaaS content writing.

This again was at a time when Twitter’s marketing community was thriving. Other writers jumped on the post and started making recommendations.

The CEO of Nectar saw my name there and reached out to me.

We started a project together. He loved the first piece so much that we continued working together for a couple of years before internal changes on their end led to a shift.

1. Build relationships before asking for work. I wasn’t DMing strangers. I engaged with HubSpot’s content on Twitter for weeks before reaching out. Build familiarity first.

2. Have a portfolio ready. Whether it was guest posts for CoSchedule or samples for Vimeo, I always had relevant work to show. You need proof you can deliver.

3. Show up where your ideal clients are. Find where your target companies hang out and be active there.

4. Talk about your work publicly. Nectar found me because other writers mentioned my name in public threads. Your work should speak for itself, but you need to be visible enough for people to discover it.

5. Proactively reach out to brands you’d like to work with. Don’t wait for perfect timing. I reached out to HubSpot and CoSchedule directly. The worst they can say is no (or not respond).

This weekend, pick one of these five lessons and take action:

You don’t need a perfect pitch. You just need to start.

One of these methods will work for you. You won’t know which one until you try.

Any questions? Hit reply. I’d love to hear what you’re working on.

See you next week.