Finding clients on Linkedin for Automation work

I have build a few tools that are selling well, but my personal outreach programs never beared any fruit. I don't even know what I could build and sell. I want to target small companies, that probably do a lot of manual work. But I have no insights to waht kind of things they do manually where I could help.

How to find who to talk to and how do I know what I can offer, or how to approach asking what they need?

The reason your outreach dies is almost always the same: you're leading with "I build tools — need anything?" That's a solution looking for a problem, and it gets ignored. Flip the order — find a painful, already-paid-for manual task first, and the tool basically sells itself.

Where the manual pain is hiding (don't guess — go find proof):

• Upwork & Fiverr job posts are gold. If companies keep hiring VAs/freelancers for "copy data from X into Y," "format these reports," "scrape/collect listings," "schedule posts" — that recurring paid task is a validated product. People paying humans monthly to do repetitive work = your roadmap.
• LinkedIn / Indeed job listings: roles like "data entry clerk," "manual reconciliation," "order processor" literally name the manual bottleneck.
• Niche communities (subreddits, FB groups, industry forums) where one vertical complains about the same chore.

Pick ONE vertical. "Small companies that do manual work" is too broad to ever sound relevant. Choose one (dental clinics, plumbers, e-com stores, agencies, accountants…) — the manual tasks become predictable and referrals compound.

How to ask (this is the part most people get wrong): never ask "what do you need" or "would you buy X" — people are terrible at answering hypotheticals and it smells like a pitch. Ask about their actual recent behavior:

• "Walk me through your last month-end / busy week — where does the time go?"
• "What's the most annoying repetitive thing you or your team did this week?"
• "What are you currently doing in a spreadsheet that you wish you didn't have to?"

Frame it as research, not sales: "I'm studying how [vertical] handles [process], can I ask 3 quick questions about how you do it now?" People help when you're clearly not selling.

Best shortcut: do it manually for the first 2-3 clients (concierge style). Solve their problem by hand, learn the exact workflow, get paid, then automate what you've already validated. Zero guessing.

What's a vertical you already have some access to or interest in? That's where I'd start digging.

madyoss said:

The reason your outreach dies is almost always the same: you're leading with "I build tools — need anything?" That's a solution looking for a problem, and it gets ignored. Flip the order — find a painful, already-paid-for manual task first, and the tool basically sells itself.

Where the manual pain is hiding (don't guess — go find proof):

• Upwork & Fiverr job posts are gold. If companies keep hiring VAs/freelancers for "copy data from X into Y," "format these reports," "scrape/collect listings," "schedule posts" — that recurring paid task is a validated product. People paying humans monthly to do repetitive work = your roadmap.
• LinkedIn / Indeed job listings: roles like "data entry clerk," "manual reconciliation," "order processor" literally name the manual bottleneck.
• Niche communities (subreddits, FB groups, industry forums) where one vertical complains about the same chore.

Pick ONE vertical. "Small companies that do manual work" is too broad to ever sound relevant. Choose one (dental clinics, plumbers, e-com stores, agencies, accountants…) — the manual tasks become predictable and referrals compound.

How to ask (this is the part most people get wrong): never ask "what do you need" or "would you buy X" — people are terrible at answering hypotheticals and it smells like a pitch. Ask about their actual recent behavior:

• "Walk me through your last month-end / busy week — where does the time go?"
• "What's the most annoying repetitive thing you or your team did this week?"
• "What are you currently doing in a spreadsheet that you wish you didn't have to?"

Frame it as research, not sales: "I'm studying how [vertical] handles [process], can I ask 3 quick questions about how you do it now?" People help when you're clearly not selling.

Best shortcut: do it manually for the first 2-3 clients (concierge style). Solve their problem by hand, learn the exact workflow, get paid, then automate what you've already validated. Zero guessing.

What's a vertical you already have some access to or interest in? That's where I'd start digging.

Click to expand...

I have not actually contacted many people yet. This thread is about me learning where to start. You touch on a few good points, but I can't see fiverr job posts and upwork is full of jobs where I don't necessarily know where it's coming from, meaning I couldn't know the industry. The descriptions are also kind of vague for 99% of cases.

Linked in job listings might be a good idea, I won't be hired just to do one or two jobs because those positions are ongoing employment. But it is something I might be able to work with. I'll have a look at that.


But I don't think anyone would respond positively to a stranger asking any of those listed question:

• "Walk me through your last month-end / busy week — where does the time go?"
• "What's the most annoying repetitive thing you or your team did this week?"
• "What are you currently doing in a spreadsheet that you wish you didn't have to?"​

They're great questions, but remember that those outreaches are cold outreaches.

I hoped from this thread to give me a couple examples of recurring small company pains that I can perhaps automate for a company and get a payday. Opening with "I am a dev and I solve xyz problem with custom automation software - are you interested?" will already tell them that I have a product that is useful to them, or perhaps is useful to them.

I am looking for that product. And I am looking for the niche to sell it to. The technical skills are there, it's just I don't know what to solve.

Edit: I just noticed the answers from this user are all so ai..... Probably not worth much afterall. Sounded better when one the phone.

Anyone?

I think you're looking at it backwards... Don't start with "what can I build?". Start with "who has the same annoying problem over and over again?". If you have a problem yourself, solve it for yourself first and give the solution also to others.

Pick a niche: anything from recruiters, accountants, agencies, real estate, whatever... Then spend a few days understanding how they work, I am sure that the automation ideas will jump out at you.

Just don't give up.

WPAutoGuy said:

I think you're looking at it backwards... Don't start with "what can I build?". Start with "who has the same annoying problem over and over again?". If you have a problem yourself, solve it for yourself first and give the solution also to others.

Pick a niche: anything from recruiters, accountants, agencies, real estate, whatever... Then spend a few days understanding how they work, I am sure that the automation ideas will jump out at you.

Just don't give up.

Click to expand...

Cheers mate. I don't have any problems to solve, but how is me asking "what can I build" different to "who has the same annoying problem over and over again?"?

If you know something, just let me know?

Bonvi said:

Cheers mate. I don't have any problems to solve, but how is me asking "what can I build" different to "who has the same annoying problem over and over again?"?

If you know something, just let me know?

Click to expand...

he means ur asking "what abilities do i have" not "what problems are people having" then building around that

I can share this from the other side. I run a small web studio with 4 people under me and I hire on LinkedIn quite often. The worst messages I get are generic “I can automate your business” pitches. They sound nice, but they give me zero reason to reply because I would have to do the thinking for them.

What would get my attention is something specific. For example, if someone looked at a web studio and said: “You probably waste time on client reporting, collecting content, checking forms after launch, moving tasks between tools, or preparing monthly SEO screenshots. I can help automate one of those.”

That feels different because it shows they understand the workflow.

.. So I would not start by selling automation. I would start by choosing one type of business and learning their boring repeated tasks. In small agencies, the money is usually not in some huge AI system. It is in removing 30 minutes of annoying work that happens every day or every week.

If you can explain the pain better than the owner can, the pitch becomes much easier.

Bonvi said:

I have build a few tools that are selling well, but my personal outreach programs never beared any fruit. I don't even know what I could build and sell. I want to target small companies, that probably do a lot of manual work. But I have no insights to waht kind of things they do manually where I could help.

How to find who to talk to and how do I know what I can offer, or how to approach asking what they need?

Click to expand...

One thing I've noticed is that many automation developers start by looking for companies that need automation. The ones who seem to get traction start by looking for repetitive problems instead.

I'd pick a specific industry and spend time understanding how they operate. Accountants, recruiters, real estate agencies, e-commerce stores, law firms, and local service businesses all have recurring manual tasks. Things like data entry, lead qualification, reporting, appointment scheduling, follow-ups, invoice processing, and CRM updates are common pain points.

Rather than asking, "Do you need automation?", I'd ask questions about their workflow. What tasks take the most time? What do employees complain about? What requires copying data between systems? The answers often reveal automation opportunities naturally.

The other thing I'd suggest is selling outcomes rather than automation. Business owners usually don't buy automation because it's interesting. They buy time savings, fewer mistakes, faster response times, and increased revenue.

@Bonvi yeah you are right about those research questions. No busy business owner is going to hop on a call with a stranger to "walk them through their month-end" ... it just doesn't happen in the real world unless you already have a foot in the door.

Since you want actual concrete examples of what to build, i can tell you what worked for me last year. Look at lead follow-ups for local service businesses like plumbers or HVAC guys. They lose tons of money because they take hours to reply to website forms. If you can build a simple script that triggers an instant SMS to the owner and the lead the second a form is submitted, that is an easy sell. You can literally show them how many leads they are missing.

Another easy one is database reactivation. Almost every small business has an old excel sheet with hundreds of past clients they haven't contacted in years. Build a tool that cleans that list and automatically sends a personalized campaign to get them back. It brings them instant revenue and you can charge a flat fee. You don't need to ask them what hurts, you just show up with the solution ready to go.

The WP Nerd said:

@Bonvi yeah you are right about those research questions. No busy business owner is going to hop on a call with a stranger to "walk them through their month-end" ... it just doesn't happen in the real world unless you already have a foot in the door.

Since you want actual concrete examples of what to build, i can tell you what worked for me last year. Look at lead follow-ups for local service businesses like plumbers or HVAC guys. They lose tons of money because they take hours to reply to website forms. If you can build a simple script that triggers an instant SMS to the owner and the lead the second a form is submitted, that is an easy sell. You can literally show them how many leads they are missing.

Another easy one is database reactivation. Almost every small business has an old excel sheet with hundreds of past clients they haven't contacted in years. Build a tool that cleans that list and automatically sends a personalized campaign to get them back. It brings them instant revenue and you can charge a flat fee. You don't need to ask them what hurts, you just show up with the solution ready to go.

Click to expand...

Goated answer!

What kind of tools did you build?

Pick something where the pain can be seen from outside. If you need the owner to explain their whole business before you can pitch, cold outreach will suck.

Local service businesses are easiest imo because you can see the leaks. Plumbers, roofers, dentists, med spas, landscapers, mechanics etc. Look for bad reviews saying “never called me back”, websites with contact forms but no obvious booking, no SMS, no follow up after quote. Then your offer is not “custom automation”, it's “I help you reply to every lead in under 60 seconds and follow up until they book”.

Another one is quote follow-up. Trades guys send estimates and then just forget. Simple system: new quote goes in, customer gets SMS/email reminders after 1 day, 3 days, 7 days, owner gets notified when they click/open, lost quote gets tagged. That's boring as hell but it makes sense to them because one recovered job pays for it.

Also review automation is still easy money in some niches. After job/invoice marked complete, SMS goes out asking for review, bad rating gets routed privately, good rating goes to Google review link. Not sexy, but local businesses understand “more reviews = more calls”.

Don’t ask “what do you need automated”. Show them one specific leak you found and sell the fix. “Saw you’re running Google ads but your form reply process looks manual. I install instant SMS + 7 day follow-up for service leads, usually takes half a day. Want me to check if your site is losing leads?” That kind of angle gets more replies than “I’m a dev”.

@Bonvi Yeah you are right about some of those replies sounding like chatgpt... and nobody is going to jump on a call to help a stranger do market research anyway.

If you want actual products to build without talking to anyone, look at existing software people already pay for and find where it breaks. Go to the Shopify app store or WordPress plugin directories and look at the 2 or 3 star reviews for popular tools in a specific niche. People literally write down exactly what is missing. "This tool is great but it doesn't sync customer phone numbers to my CRM" or "wish it automated X instead of just Y".

That is your product. You build the script or micro-saas that fixes that one specific gap. Then you scrape the list of companies using that main tool (you can use builtwith or just search linkedin) and pitch them the exact fix. It is much easier than trying to guess what a plumber does all day imo.

@Bonvi yeah those research questions only work in theory... in the real world busy business owners will just mark you as spam if you ask to shadow them.

Since you want a concrete example, look at boutique recruitment agencies. Every time they get a resume, they have to manually format it before sending it to a client. They have to strip out the candidate's direct contact info so the client doesn't bypass them, edit the layout, and add their own agency logo. It takes them like 15 minutes per resume and they do it all day.

You can build a simple tool that parses the docx or pdf, strips the contact details, formats the styling, and drops their logo at the top.

You don't need to ask them what hurts because every small agency does this. Just scrape some local recruiters, find their email, and tell them you can automate their resume formatting. Offer to do a couple for free to prove it works. It is a very specific daily pain and they immediately get the value.