How to get clients when your portfolio is from another market
The main barrier to winning these prospects is trust, because having case studies exclusively from an old market makes you look like a brand new company. When you try to compensate using digital ads or cold outreach, you typically only attract bots, non-responders, or small jobs from family friends.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
How to get clients when your portfolio is from another market
- 1Running social media and search adsDid this help you?
- 2Finding where founders hang out and showing up consistently for months before expecting resultsDid this help you?
- 3Setting up a Google Business Profile with service areas and photos to capture local search traffic.Did this help you?
- 4Posting before and after photos in local neighborhood groups like Nextdoor and Facebook.Did this help you?
- 5Sending short, direct messages or texts to local real estate agents instead of sending cold email blasts.Did this help you?
- 6Attending local networking groups or Chamber of Commerce events to build face-to-face relationships.Did this help you?
- 7Knocking on the doors of 5 to 10 neighboring houses immediately after finishing a job.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“My partner and I started our business on the 15th of last month and I have been frantically reaching everywhere (other than the scammy lead businesses) to find clients/customers.”source ↗
“I have been posting on facebook, set up a next door page, called construction and real estate companies, emailed real estate agents/companies. I have only done one $200 job and have 3 potential jobs lined up but it’s all family friends and 2 of them are small jobs.”source ↗
“How do you land your first US clients when your whole portfolio is from another market?”source ↗
“The work itself isn't the issue - trust is. Almost every case study we have is from the old market, so to a US client we probably look like a brand new company.”source ↗
“So far we've tried social media ads and Google search ads, and neither worked. The social leads were mostly bots, kids, or people who never replied, so basically nobody who could actually buy from us.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 49how do I get my first client?
- 19Why isn't cold outreach booking any client meetings?
- 29How to get first paying customers without an audience
- 2How to target ideal buyers instead of sole traders
- 2Finding a broker to supervise a property management business
- 2How to hit reseller revenue quotas before getting clients