I was an early Twitter user — among the 1st 100 Indians on Twitter.

In 2011, I was super active on the platform but didn’t use it strategically as I do now.

I used it to share what I was working on and to chat with my Twitter friends, some of whom I had met IRL.

There was a business leader from the US I had come to know there.

This one time, she posted something she was working on, and I shared a thoughtful response.

From there, I took the conversation to DMs.

And then proposed to continue it over email.

Over the next few months, we discussed her business and how digital can help.

She started valuing my expertise, introduced me to her co-founder, and asked how we could work together.

I shared some options. But we didn’t work on what I shared options for. Instead, after a few months, they came looking for help for something else still within my zone of genius.

I made an offer again, and they agreed, I sent an invoice, and we started working together.

I have since used this or a similar approach to land clients.

They all started with cold outreach.

Not the usual cold outreach to sell something but to help first.

It builds trust and makes the rest of the conversation easy.

I have codified this process into a simple funnel that looks like this:

Tweet > DM > Email > Call

So, I wrote a thoughtful reply to a question in a tweet.

Then followed up to help further, exchanged emails, gave some free advice, and made an offer.

It didn’t happen fast. But it worked. One big mistake I made was giving free advice — more than I should have, and it delayed the deal because I was inexperienced then.

Knowing what I know now, I can go through all the steps in a couple of months.

And I now charge for advice to filter the leads quickly.

Even then, that conversation resulted in a $20k+ deal, and later, I generated more than $100,000 in cash flow through it.

This is simple enough to use if you have relevant experience in your chosen field.

Give it a shot.