When I first started ghostwriting, finding clients was probably the part I struggled with most.
I’d been freelancing for years, but almost every client I’d worked with up until that point had come through one of two ways:
Inbound - someone would find my content and reach out.
Referrals - someone I’d worked with would recommend me to somebody else.
I had no problem with this…
Until I decided I wanted to scale my business.
The problem with solely depending on organic lead generation is that you have no control over how quickly your business grows.
I couldn’t magically post something that would book me more calls.
So at times, it felt like I was hoping and wishing.
In 2025, I decided to do something about it…
I got serious about learning how to speak to people.
More specifically:
Learning how to identify people I wanted to work with
Get on their radar
Start conversations
Turning some of those conversations into clients.
LinkedIn became the obvious place to do it.
There are millions of professionals on the platform publicly telling you:
What they do
What they’re building
What they care about
What problems they’re trying to solve
So you don’t have to sit around hoping the right person discovers you (even though they will if you’re posting valuable information consistently).
Over the past year, I’ve developed a relatively simple process for identifying clients and getting them on calls.
It’s how I find potential high-ticket ghostwriting clients, build relationships with them, and create opportunities to work together without immediately jumping into their DMs with a sales pitch.
Here’s how it works…
Step #1: Create your Ideal Customer Profile
You can’t find what you can’t define.
This is partly what held me back for the first 4 years of my business…
I knew I was a content writer, and I mostly wrote AI content, but I couldn’t put a finger on who I worked with.
So when it came time to look for new prospects, I didn’t know who to reach out to.
A major reason I made $100,000 in 8 months with just 3 clients was that I clearly defined who I helped.
This is called an “Ideal Customer Profile,” or ICP for short.
It’s essentially a description of the type of person you want to work with.
At a minimum, you should know:
Industry: What space do they operate in?
Role: Are they a founder, CEO, consultant, executive, etc.?
Type of business: What kind of company are they running?
What they sell: What’s the actual product or service?
Who they sell to: Who are they trying to reach?
Buying habits: What makes them buy?
Economics: Does investing in ghostwriting make financial sense for their business?
Budget: Can they comfortably afford what you charge?
As a rule of thumb, you should be able to describe the type of person you’re looking for clearly enough that if I gave you 100 LinkedIn profiles, you could quickly tell me which ones you’d want to speak to.
That’s the whole point…
Once you know exactly who you’re looking for, finding them becomes considerably easier.
Step #2: Find people who match your ICP
Finding what you’re looking for is far easier once you know what it is.
There are a few ways to do this on LinkedIn, but they can all be separated into two groups:
Warm leads
Cold leads
A warm lead is someone who has already had some form of contact with you.
This could be through either:
A like or comment on a post
A view of your profile
A follow
A connection request
A direct message
These are the easiest people to start with because they’ve already shown some level of interest.
I’ll regularly go through these people and check their profiles against my ICP.
If someone fits and we aren’t already connected, I’ll send them a connection request.
I don’t overcomplicate the message either.
Something like, “Hey [name], saw you [type of engagement], so thought I’d connect.”
That’s it.
Since they already know who you are, you don’t need to introduce yourself.
If they’ve sent me the connection request, I’ll do something slightly different…
I’ll look through their profile to try and find a natural way to break the ice and start a conversation.
From there, I can start figuring out what problem they have - more on this in the next section.
But you can’t just rely on warm leads because they can dry up quickly.
And depending on the size and quality of your audience, that might not be enough to consistently grow your business.
So this is where cold outreach comes in…
A cold lead is simply somebody who fits your ICP but has had no meaningful interaction with you before.
For these, I use LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Rather than guessing which filters to use, I give my ICP to ChatGPT and ask it to translate that description into something I can search for.
Here’s a prompt you can use🤖
I’m going to give you my Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
I want to find people who match this profile using LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Based only on the information I provide, tell me exactly which Sales Navigator filters I should use, including relevant job titles, industries, company headcount, geography, seniority level, keywords, and any other useful filters.
If my ICP doesn’t provide enough information for a particular filter, leave it out rather than guessing.
Also suggest 3–5 different searches I can run to find variations of this ICP without making the audience too broad.
Here’s my ICP: [PASTE ICP]
I’ll use those recommendations as a starting point and adjust the filters based on the results.
But pay close attention to whether these people are active on LinkedIn.
I learned this the hard way when I used to offer outreach as part of my client delivery…
For most of the accounts I managed (including mine), our connection acceptance rate (the number of people who accepted our connection request vs. how many requests were sent) was 30% or more.
But one client was sitting at around 10%.
It hurt my head for weeks trying to understand why his was so low since we used the exact same process across the board.
So I started digging through the prospects we’d been contacting, and eventually I realized most of them hadn’t been active on LinkedIn for months.
We weren’t necessarily sending terrible connection requests…
We were sending them to people who weren’t around to accept them.
So yeah… making sure people are active on the platform is super important.
Sales Navigator has a filter that shows only people who have been active within a certain timeframe… I highly recommend you use it.
Step #3: Identify the problem
An ICP fit doesn’t necessarily mean they want what you’re selling.
So you’ve got to start a conversation to figure out what’s going on.
But there’s a catch…
People HATE being pitched in their DMs.
And the second somebody realizes your “friendly conversation” is a poorly disguised sales script, there’s a good chance they’ll ghost you.
So before I message someone, I’ll usually try to become a little familiar…
I’ll engage with some of their content.
Maybe leave a comment.
If there’s an opportunity to get a conversation going in the feed, even better.
But I don’t spam them.
I just want to make my name more recognizable when I eventually appear in their inbox.
But even if I haven’t interacted with them beforehand, you can still reach out…
The first message just has to be low friction.
A few rules to follow when doing this:
Don’t pretend like you’ve been long-time buddies.
Don’t write some long paragraph introducing yourself and what you do.
Don’t immediately explain your services.
One of the most reliable ways I’ve found to start is to reference something from their profile and ask a genuine question that gives them two possible situations to choose between.
For example:
Hey Sarah, Thanks for accepting my connection request. I saw you recently launched Acme. How’s it going? Do you get leads from LinkedIn or something else?
I don’t want to spend the next six months talking about their weekend plans.
I just want to figure out whether they have a problem I can solve.
If they respond, “Honestly, I’m pretty happy with it. It’s bringing in leads and I enjoy creating the content.”
Great.
They’re not somebody I need to pursue.
Disqualify them and move on.
But if they say, “Yeah, it’s going okay, but […].”
You’re in.
There’s a gap between where they are and where they want to be.
Your next job is to show them how to close this gap.
Here’s how you do it…
Step #4: Ask if you can send them a free resource
Once they’ve revealed the gap, offer to help them.
Let’s say they tell me:
“I’m posting pretty consistently, but it doesn’t seem to generate any business.”
I might respond:
“I have a few ideas on what might be causing that and how to fix it. Mind if I put something together and send it over?”
Notice I’m asking for permission first…
This is important.
Sending someone a random PDF, Loom, or link they didn’t ask for still feels like you’re trying to sell them, and it’s just annoying.
I hate unsolicited voice messages and calls lol.
So ask for permission.
If they say “Yes,” then you can move on to free consulting.
In this stage, the goal is to help them understand the problem and what they need to do about it without asking for anything in return.
But there’s an important distinction here…
I primarily want to show them WHAT they need to do.
Not necessarily every single detail of HOW to do it.
The goal is simply to give them enough clarity to understand something needs to change.
This lets their mind wander… “But how the hell do I implement all of this?”
And here’s where your ghostwriting services come in.
But let’s backtrack a little…
How do I create the resources if they accept?
I’ll take the problem the prospect has told me about and pass it into ChatGPT.
Then I’ll give ChatGPT the process I use to solve that particular problem and ask it to create a short, personalized brochure explaining what this person needs to do to get from where they are to where they want to be.
🤖 Here’s the prompt:
I’m going to give you information about a potential ghostwriting client, the problem they’ve told me they have, their desired outcome, and the process I use to solve this type of problem.
Your job is to create the content for a short, personalized brochure I can send them for free.
The brochure should:
Clearly explain what is likely causing their problem.
Show the gap between where they are now and where they want to be.
Explain WHAT they need to change or implement to close that gap.
Use my process and expertise as the basis for the recommendations.
Give them useful, actionable direction without turning this into a complete step-by-step implementation guide.
Prioritize the 3–5 changes that would have the biggest impact.
Explain why each change matters specifically to their situation.
Use simple, conversational language rather than corporate jargon.
Be specific to this prospect rather than giving generic content advice.
Do not pitch my services or include a CTA to buy from me.
Structure the brochure like this:
1. The problem — Briefly summarize what they’re experiencing.
2. Why it’s happening — Explain the likely reasons behind the problem.
3. What needs to change — Give them the 3–5 most important things they need to do.
4. The roadmap — Show what solving the problem would broadly look like in the correct order.
5. The outcome — Explain what should improve if these changes are implemented properly.
Here is the information:
Prospect: [PASTE RELEVANT INFORMATION ABOUT THEM]
Problem they’ve told me about: [PASTE PROBLEM]
Desired outcome: [PASTE DESIRED OUTCOME, IF KNOWN]
My process for solving this problem: [PASTE YOUR PROCESS]
If there isn’t enough information to make a claim about their situation, don’t invent anything. Flag what you don’t know instead.
So if somebody tells me:
“I’m posting consistently, but I’m not getting any leads.”
The brochure might identify that they need to:
Clarify who their content is targeting.
Connect their content to problems their customers pay to solve.
Introduce more proof.
Create clearer pathways from content into their offer.
Build a system for converting attention into conversations.
I’m giving them the roadmap.
Then I’ll record a Loom walking them through the brochure.
I’ll explain what I’ve noticed, why I think these things matter, and what I’d focus on if I were in their position.
Then I send them both the brochure and the Loom.
It’s considerably more effort than firing off another generic DM.
But that’s kind of the point…
You want to demonstrate what it would be like to work with you.
However…
Sending the resource isn’t the end of the process.
Sometimes you’ll spend time putting everything together, send it over and...
Nothing.
They don’t respond.
This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not interested.
People are busy.
Messages get buried.
They tell themselves they’ll watch it later and completely forget.
So follow up:
“Hey, did you get a chance to check out what I sent over?”
If they haven’t, follow up again later.
And continue following up until you get a clear answer.
If they haven’t said “Go away, I’m not interested,” then the door is still open.
I’m not saying you should message them every morning until they block you…
But I’m also not going to assume silence automatically means rejection and throw away a potentially good opportunity because I was afraid to follow up.
TLDR; Sometimes people need reminding.
Anyways…
After a prospect has gone through what you’ve sent them, you’ve got to move them towards a call.
Step #5: Move the conversation toward a call
If they’ve gone through the resource and liked what you’ve shared, it’s time to get them on a call.
Again, I try to keep this pretty low friction.
I’ll usually say something like:
“If I were to open up 15 minutes on my calendar to dive a little deeper into this, would you be open to hopping on a quick call?”
If they say yes, I’ll send them my calendar and let them pick a time.
The important thing here is that I’m not trying to sell them on that call.
Why?
Because I still don’t know enough.
They’ve told me about a problem.
I’ve given them some ideas for what they need to do to solve it.
But now I want to understand what’s really going on.
So I’ll use those 15 minutes to dig deeper.
I’m essentially trying to understand four things:
Where are they now?
Where are they trying to get to?
What’s stopping them from getting there?
Is this an urgent problem?
The last question about priority is super important.
Because many people have problems they’re not ready to solve just yet.
So there’s no point trying to force them.
If they tell me:
“Yeah, I definitely want to fix this, but probably later in the year.”
Cool.
I’ll make a note and follow up later.
But if they tell me:
“This is something I need to sort out now.”
And I believe I can genuinely help them get the outcome they’re looking for, then I’ll suggest another call.
Something along the lines of:
“Based on everything you’ve told me, I think I can probably help. Would you be open to another call where I can walk you through how I’d approach this?”
That’s the call where we move away from WHAT they need to do and start talking about HOW I can help them do it.
And that’s where the actual sales conversation begins.
I’ll walk them through:
How I’d solve their problem
What working together would look like
Answer any questions they have
… and if everything makes sense, make them an offer.
How I structure that conversation is beyond the scope of this article.
But the important thing is what has happened before I ever try to sell them anything.
By this point:
I know they fit my ICP.
They’ve told me they have a problem I can solve.
I’ve given them something useful for free.
I’ve spoken to them and understood the problem more deeply.
They’ve told me solving it is a priority.
And I believe my service can genuinely help them get the outcome they want.
So when I finally get onto a sales call, I’m not trying to convince some random person on LinkedIn that they need ghostwriting.
I’m speaking to someone who has already told me they have a problem, wants it solved, and knows I might be able to help.
This is a much easier conversation to have.
Final thoughts
Getting more clients doesn’t necessarily stem from being in front of more people.
If the people you’re in front of don’t want what you’re selling, they won’t buy.
So who you’re speaking to matters far more than how many people you’re speaking to.
Better targeting makes everything that comes afterward easier.
This is why the objective of this process isn’t to spam enough people until somebody eventually says yes…
It’s to identify people I’d genuinely like to work with.
We:
Get into their world.
Start a conversation.
Figure out whether they have a problem we can solve.
Help them before asking for anything.
…and when it makes sense, create an opportunity to talk about working together.
Not everyone will respond.
Not everyone will consume what you send.
Not everyone who gets on a call will become a client.
That’s part of the game.
But I’d much rather have fewer conversations with people who could genuinely become great clients than send hundreds of generic DMs and hope someone bites.
Because ultimately:
High-ticket client acquisition starts with finding the right people, not sending more DMs.
Thanks for reading!