If you’re a small business owner or founder looking to grow your business on LinkedIn, there’s a powerful tool hiding in plain sight…the free LinkedIn search bar.
You don’t need Sales Navigator or a premium subscription to find quality clients. You just need to know how to use the search box strategically.
As someone who has built her business 100% from LinkedIn (directly or indirectly), and aware of how SEO works, I know how much LinkedIn is not only a social platform, but a search platform as well.
And much like how you would do a Google search on topics, you can do the same for finding your ICP (ideal client profile) by searching on LinkedIn. The following outlines what to consider and how to get started.
Table of Contents
Step 1: Get Crystal Clear on Your Ideal Client Profile (ICP)
Before you start searching, you need to get crystal clear on who you want to work with.
If you’re too broad, you’ll end up with an overwhelming list of potential connections that aren’t truly a fit.
Instead, focus on narrowing down to your ideal clients…the ones who are most profitable, enjoyable to work with, and a perfect match for your services.
If you haven’t already gone through the exercise of identifying your ICP, do so now by reviewing your existing clients. This requires some honest reflection and diving into your revenue numbers.
Important questions or observations to note…
- Who have you worked with that’s yielded the most profit? This isn’t about just looking at what they paid you, but also paying attention to how much time they required from you.
- Is there a pattern with industry, # of years in business, retainer vs. one-off projects? (That could give you an indication of the type of work to focus on in the future.)
- What are some of the shared pain points?
If I were to answer those questions, it would look like…
- Small business owners and founders, women and men, 40+ years
- In business for 5-10+ years, committed to working with me for 3 months or longer, and industries have included healthcare, Saas, career coaching, and non-profit
- Most common pain point is not having enough time in their already packed schedule to handle LinkedIn strategy and content creation. They know LinkedIn is where they need to be…but they need someone to help guide them on how to engage and create a LinkedIn profile page that actually connects and converts, while building their personal brand.
Step 2: Choose the Right Keywords to Find Leads
Now, once you have the profile of your ICP in your head, you can start to drill down to important keywords that could be useful in locating individuals who need your services, and just haven’t found you yet!
Here are factors to consider when deciding on your keywords (and note a bit of overlap when also going through the exercise of determining your ICP)…
- Industry
- Job title
- Location
For example, keeping my ICP in mind, I would consider the following as potential keywords to type into the search box on LinkedIn…
- Healthcare, SaaS, Business Coaching
- CEO, Chief Executive Officer, Founder, President, Executive Director
- Location: United States or there are many times I even try to keep it local to right here in Columbus, OH
Step 3: Use Boolean Search to Narrow Results
The above is enough to get you started on a keyword search to find the right connections.
However, if you want to conduct an even more advanced search (still for free), consider using Boolean operators.
Boolean operators are those conjunction words of AND, OR, and, NOT, that can combine keywords to broaden or narrow a search for a specific profile on the platform.
“CEO AND Founder” → Both words must appear somewhere on the person’s profile page.
“CEO OR Founder” → Either word can appear on the person’s profile page.
“CEO NOT Assistant” → Excludes certain terms. The word following “not” can’t be present on the profile page.
Note with Boolean operators, it’s important to capitalize the “AND,” “OR,” or “NOT” when using them to work effectively while searching.
Those in SEO are pretty familiar with using these in SEO research for some of the very same reasons to get to ideal search terms.
For example, If I were looking for CEOs or founders in professional services that could benefit from my LinkedIn content and coaching package, I would type in…
"CEO OR Founder" right into that search box below.
Step 4: Apply LinkedIn Filters Like a Pro
Once you have your keyword search results, you can refine them using LinkedIn’s free filters.
This helps you zero in on the exact people you want to connect with, instead of scrolling through endless results.
Click on “all filters”…
You’ll see a number of options here…
- Actively Hiring
- Locations
- Current Company
- Connections of
- Followers of
- Past Company
- School
- Industry
- Profile Language
- Open to
- Service Categories
When you’re looking for clients, I like to use Locations, Industry, and Connections of filters. With my LinkedIn transformation offer, I can help anyone from all over, but I find myself refining my search locally to Columbus, OH, a lot of times. And that’s for a few reasons…
When you’re local, you typically have shared experiences that are easy to talk about (favorite places to eat, local sports teams you like to watch, coffee shops you like to check out, etc.), and there can be this feeling of familiarity that can grow into trust pretty quickly. You also have a better chance of others you know being connected, “John knows so and so who knows so and so, etc,” which again starts to help build trust and grow your network.
You absolutely don’t have to focus on looking local…but…as you’re building your personal brand and reputation, I find it’s one of the best strategies and allows for more in-person face-to-face time, which goes a long way in building relationships.
The “industry” filter is fairly self-explanatory. If you want to focus on a specific industry with clients, this is another way to filter down results further and hone in on potential leads.
So here’s, for example, what I would click on under “all filters” if I wanted to search for new potential leads…
+ filter by Location: Columbus, OH
and scroll down some to filter by Industry: Professional Services
and then Connections of…
This filter lets you tap into the network of one of your best clients…someone who has already given you a glowing testimonial and would be happy to refer you to others.
The chances of them knowing others in their network similar to them that can utilize your services is pretty high.
Simply type their name into the text box and hit Submit after applying your filters.
When I tried this with one of my recent ideal clients, LinkedIn served up four highly targeted pages of potential leads I could start connecting with today.
Step 5: Save and Organize Your Leads in a Simple System
Then, as you conduct these searches and identify the individuals you want to reach out to, to start conversations, make sure to keep a list to capture who they are.
Google Sheets is super easy and works for me.
My sheet contains 5 columns…
- Green / Yellow / Red Status
- Name
- Title
- LinkedIn Profile Page URL
- Notes
And I record all of this info for each, especially in the notes section documenting when we last chatted.
Why a green, yellow, red status? This is a trick I picked up from a Project Manager who set up our weekly status sheets in my corporate 9-5 role.
- Green – Indicates they’re interested in hearing more about your services – higher probability to convert into a client
- Yellow – Actively having conversations
- Red – Clearly indicated they’re not interested at this time
And then if the name has no color, that’s my signal that I need to reach out, connect with them, and start the conversation.
Pro Tip: Just because someone moves to “red” status and isn’t personally interested doesn’t mean the door is closed. If the relationship still feels strong, gauge the vibe and kindly ask if they know anyone in their network who might need your help. You might be surprised at the referrals you get… it’s always worth asking!
Final Thoughts
LinkedIn’s free search is one of the most powerful, underused tools for small business owners.
By combining smart keyword searches, filters, and intentional outreach, you can start building a pipeline of dream clients without spending a dime on Sales Navigator. This is the very process I use as another strategy to find potential clients.
Start today by blocking 30 minutes, choosing your first keywords, and connecting with five new people. Small, consistent actions will create big results over time.
It’s not about spamming everyone, it’s about digging deep with a few:)
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