How to find clients on LinkedIn and Reddit

Why “asking” posts beat any lead list

A lead list tells you who might need you. A post that says can anyone recommend a fractional CFO? tells you three things no list can: there’s a real need, it’s urgent enough to ask in public, and the person is open to hearing from someone new.

Most cold outreach fails because the timing is wrong. The person fits your profile perfectly, but they aren’t looking this month. Posts like these remove that problem. The trade-off is volume: there are far fewer of them than rows in a database, and they go stale fast. A “looking for recommendations” post collects most of its replies in the first day.

So the job has two parts: find the posts quickly, and reply better than everyone else in the thread.

Search for buyer language, not your service category

This is the mistake almost everyone makes first. Search LinkedIn posts for lead generation or marketing agency and you’ll mostly find people selling those things. Vendors use category words. Buyers describe a situation.

In our experience, four kinds of post are worth your time:

• Recommendation requests. Can anyone recommend…, Looking for recommendations for…, Who do you use for…. The clearest buying signal there is.
• Hiring posts. A company hiring a marketing manager or a head of operations is about to spend a salary on the problem you solve. You may be the faster, cheaper option.
• Switching posts. Our agency isn’t working out, looking to replace our…. They already buy what you sell and are unhappy with the current supplier.
• Stuck posts. What actually worked for you?, how did you fix…. Earlier stage, but they’ve named the problem.

Finding buyers on LinkedIn, step by step

1. Type your search into the LinkedIn search bar and press Enter.
2. Choose the Posts filter, so you only see posts, not people or companies.
3. Set Sort by to Latest, then set Date posted to the past 24 hours (or the past week while you’re testing phrases).
4. Bookmark the results page. The filters live in the URL, so you can reopen the same search every morning in one click.

LinkedIn search understands exact phrases in quotes and the operators AND, OR and NOT in capitals, with brackets for grouping. Some starting points:

# Marketing agencies
        "can anyone recommend" AND (agency OR "paid ads" OR SEO)
        "looking for recommendations" AND (agency OR "content writer")
        
        # Consultants and fractional leaders
        ("looking for" OR "recommend") AND ("fractional CFO" OR "fractional CMO")
        "looking for an interim" OR "hiring a fractional"
        
        # AI and automation agencies
        ("can anyone recommend" OR "looking for someone") AND (automation OR "AI agent")
        "who can automate" OR "too much manual data entry"

Expect some noise even with good phrases. Run each search for a week, keep the phrases that surface real buyers and drop the ones that surface vendors.

Finding buyers on Reddit, step by step

Reddit has more candid “we’re stuck” posts than LinkedIn, often with real detail about budget, tools and deadlines. The catch is that most authors are anonymous, so you’ll only be able to reach some of them.

1. Pick the communities where your buyers ask for help. For B2B services, r/smallbusiness, r/startups, r/Entrepreneur, r/SaaS, r/marketing and r/sales are good places to start. Then add the industry communities your clients hang out in.
2. Search within a community, sort by New and limit the time to the past week. You can bookmark a search like this: reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/search/?q="looking for"+agency&restrict_sr=1&sort=new&t=week
3. Use title: to only match words in the post title, for example title:recommend agency.

Qualify the post before you reach out

A quick check saves you from emailing the wrong people. Before you write anything, ask:

• Is this a buyer? Not a vendor fishing for engagement, a job seeker, or someone writing a “what do you think?” post for reach.
• Can they decide? A founder, an owner or the head of the function. If it’s a junior employee asking, look for their boss at the same company.
• Are they a fit? The right company size, industry and region for you.
• Is it fresh? Within the last day or two. After a week, they’ve usually picked someone.
• Can you actually help? If you’d need to stretch the truth to look relevant, skip it.

Reaching out

Public requests often attract many replies within hours. A private, relevant email to the person’s business address is more likely to be read than another public comment.

To find a work email, start from their LinkedIn profile to get the company, then the company website for the domain. Email-finding and verification tools can confirm the exact address. Never guess and send unverified: bounces hurt your sending reputation.

Writing the message

• Reference the request. Show that you have read what they asked for.
• Establish relevance. One accurate example of comparable work.
• Make a clear, modest request. A short call or an offer to share something useful.
• Keep it brief. A few sentences, without attachments or a list of services.
• Limit follow-ups. One or two at most.

Hi Marta, I saw you are looking for a fractional CFO two days a week. I have held this role at several software companies of a similar size. Would a short introductory call be useful?

Stay on the right side of the rules

Only email people at their work address about something relevant to their job, include a simple way to opt out, and honour opt-outs immediately. In the EU and UK, B2B outreach like this generally relies on legitimate interest, but rules vary by country, so check what applies to you. This guide isn’t legal advice. For the UK detail, see is B2B cold email legal in the UK?

Doing it consistently

Requests are time-sensitive, so the method depends on consistent daily monitoring across several searches and platforms, followed by qualification, contact research, writing and follow-up.

For the wider approach behind this, read our guide to intent-based outbound for B2B agencies. Once you have found a post, see how to reply to “can anyone recommend” posts.

Many firms run this successfully in-house. The main challenge is sustaining it alongside client delivery.

Buyerflare provides the same process as a managed service: continuous monitoring, qualification, verified contacts, tailored messages and human review, delivered in your name.

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