Every so often I get a version of the same message. Someone finds my courses or my books, likes what they see, and asks whether they can work with me, or whether I can send some client work their way. I appreciate every one of these notes. They usually come from people who are serious about the craft, and reaching out takes some nerve. So rather than typing the same reply into LinkedIn messages for the rest of my life, I’m going to lay out how this actually works.
I don’t need another Excel expert
Here’s the awkward truth about a solo training business: the one thing it has in unlimited supply is the founder’s core skill. Excel, Python, data analysis, that’s the product, and the product is me. There is no backlog of spreadsheet work sitting around waiting for a capable pair of hands. If a project comes in, I do it, because doing it is the job.
If I ever did hire, it would be for the opposite problem. I need help working on the business, and I have plenty of help working in it. Marketing, operations, systems, promotion: that’s where a solo educator actually feels the pinch. So if your pitch to me is “I’m great at Excel,” you’re offering me the one thing I already have. That’s no knock on your skills. It’s just an honest read of what this business needs.
How referrals actually work
The second ask is usually about leads. Can I pass along clients I can’t take, or vouch for you when something comes up?
Here’s my constraint: my name is the product. When I refer someone, I’m spending trust that took years to build, and I can’t spend it on work I’ve never seen. It doesn’t matter how good your resume looks. If I haven’t watched you explain something, ship something, or help someone in public, I have no basis for putting my reputation behind you.
Which points to the real answer. In this line of work you need an internet presence and a voice. That’s how clients find you, and it’s how people like me get enough evidence to vouch for you. Write posts. Answer questions. Publish a template. Teach something small. It doesn’t need to be polished or frequent. It needs to exist, so that when your name comes up, there’s a body of work to point to instead of a promise.
Why I won’t ask you to work free
Some people offer to work for free to get a foot in the door. I won’t take you up on that, and I want to be clear about why. Working free for someone more established puts you in a bad spot from day one. It trains you to undervalue what you do, and it trains the market to expect it. I’d rather see you charge somebody real money for real work, even small work, than spend six months auditioning for me. Your positioning matters more than my project list.
The door that’s actually open
So the short answer to “can you send me work” is no. But here’s what I will do.
If you’re building something for this community in good faith, a course, a template, a tool, a body of writing, and you want honest feedback from someone who’s been at this a while, send it over. I’ll take a look and tell you what I actually think: what’s working, what’s confusing, where the positioning is off. At the stage most people are in when they reach out to me, a straight critique from a practitioner is worth more than a lead would be, because it makes everything you do afterward better.
One caveat: good faith matters. If it’s a thin wrapper around an affiliate link, or a fly-by-night funnel, that’s not what this offer is for. But if you’re doing the work and putting real things into the world, I’m glad to help you sharpen them.
Build in public, charge for your work, and make things worth pointing to. Do that for a while and you won’t need my leads. People will find you the same way you found me.