How to Find 150 Web Design Clients in 5 Minutes Using ReferenceUSA (Free)

What if you could walk away from your desk with a list of 150 potential web design clients in less than six minutes? No paid ads. No LinkedIn outreach tools. No monthly SaaS subscription eating into profit before you have made a single dollar. Just a library card, a laptop, and a free government database that most freelancers have never heard of.

That is exactly what Alston Godbolt does on camera in this video. He starts a stopwatch and, in 5 minutes and 15 seconds, downloads a spreadsheet of businesses in Cook County, Illinois that includes owner names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, website status, sales volume, Facebook presence, Twitter handles, and how much each business spends on computer expenses every year. The database is called ReferenceUSA. It lives inside your local public library’s website. It is completely free as long as you have a library card, and in many US counties that card costs nothing at all.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The name of the free database (ReferenceUSA) that covers 54 million US businesses and how to access it through your public library
A step-by-step walkthrough of filtering businesses by county, state, and industry type so you get a targeted list instead of a haystack
How to download a clean CSV spreadsheet with owner names, phone numbers, addresses, website URLs, and social media presence in one click
How to read the sales volume and computer expense columns to set your pricing before you ever make a call
A targeting strategy for businesses that have an active Facebook page but no website, which is your warmest possible lead category
The one real limitation of this method and how to work around it without spending money
How to decide whether to pitch web design, social media setup, or a bundle, based on what the data already tells you about each prospect
Not sure web design is the right skill to sell in the first place? finder.platformproof.com will match you to the online income model that actually fits your schedule and existing skills

What Is ReferenceUSA and Why Is It Free?

ReferenceUSA is a commercial business data aggregator that compiles information on millions of US businesses from public records, phone directories, government filings, and other sources. The full database normally costs hundreds of dollars per month for businesses and marketing teams. Public libraries pay for institutional access to it so their cardholders can use it at no charge.

At the time Alston recorded this video, the database listed over 54 million businesses across the United States. That number covers everything from solo LLCs to large restaurant chains to local law firms. The data includes owner and executive names, physical addresses, phone numbers, websites, social media handles, annual sales volume estimates, and an industry classification that lets you slice the list by business type in seconds.

Because it is a library resource, access is tied to your geographic location inside the United States. Alston is upfront in the video: this method probably will not work if you live outside the US. For anyone inside the country, the only cost you may encounter is the library card itself, which in Alston’s case (Kenosha, Wisconsin) is completely free. He estimates the card might run one dollar in some areas, and a little more in high cost-of-living cities, but never more than a small one-time fee.

What You Need Before You Start

The requirements are minimal, which is part of what makes this method worth paying attention to. You need a device with internet access (Alston specifically says this works on a mobile phone, a laptop, a desktop, or a tablet). You need a US address so you can apply for a public library card in your area. That is it.

You do not need a web design portfolio yet. You do not need an LLC. You do not need a business email address or a professional headshot. You need the list first. Everything else comes after you know who you are talking to and what they need.

How to Access ReferenceUSA Through Your Library

Alston walks through this live in the video, starting the stopwatch the moment he begins. Here is the sequence he follows. First, he goes to the Kenosha Public Library website. He clicks “Online Databases,” scrolls to the third page of the database list, and clicks on ReferenceUSA. He enters his library card number when prompted and logs in.

Your library’s website will look different, but the path is almost always the same: find the “Online Resources” or “Research Databases” section, look for ReferenceUSA or its newer name (it has been rebranded as Data Axle Reference Solutions in some library systems), and log in with your card number. If you cannot find it, call the reference desk and ask which business database they subscribe to. Librarians know. That is literally their job.

Once inside, Alston clicks “Search” and then selects “Advanced Search” to get the filtering options he needs. The basic search lets you look up a specific company by name, which is useful if you want to pull data on every franchise location of a particular chain. The advanced search is where you go when you want to build a geographic and industry-specific prospect list from scratch.

How to Filter Down to Your Ideal Clients

In the advanced search, Alston selects Illinois as his state, then picks Cook County (which covers Chicago and its immediate suburbs) as his geographic filter. Before he applies the industry filter, the database shows roughly 15 million records for all of Illinois. Narrowing to Cook County brings that down to a more workable set.

He then clicks “Charts” and selects an industry category. In the demo he picks restaurants, which immediately filters the Cook County results down to the approximately 9,000 restaurants operating in that area. You could just as easily pick physicians, attorneys, auto repair shops, nail salons, or any other business type that makes sense for the niche you want to serve.

One important limit Alston flags: you can only select up to 225 rows per search. With 9,000 restaurant results in Cook County alone, you would need to work through the list in batches and compile them manually via copy and paste. That is more time-consuming than a single download, but it is still free and still faster than any manual prospecting method.

For a smaller city or a tighter niche, you may get fewer than 225 results in a single search, which means one download gets you the complete list. If you are just starting out, targeting your own county or a smaller metro area keeps the list manageable and the outreach feel local rather than cold.

What the Spreadsheet Actually Contains

After clicking Download and selecting “Detail” as the data format and “Comma Delimited” (CSV) as the file type, Alston opens the spreadsheet live on camera. Here is a plain summary of what each row contains for every business on the list:

Company name and the name of the owner or top executive
Full address including street, city, state, and zip code, plus the neighborhood name
Website URL (blank if they do not have one)
Annual sales volume as an estimated range (for example, “Less than $500,000” or “Over $1 million”)
Annual computer expenses, which reflects how much the business already spends on technology
Services offered by the business
Hours of operation
Twitter handle and Facebook page (blank if absent)
Phone number

The one field the spreadsheet does not include is an email address. Alston acknowledges this directly: email lists exist but they are not free. However, he points out that between the owner name, the phone number, the mailing address, and the website URL, you have enough to reach out through multiple channels without needing email at all. You can call, mail a physical piece of marketing, or visit in person, and you know exactly who to ask for at the door.

Using Sales Volume to Price Your Pitch Before the Call

This is the part of the video that separates this method from a plain contact list. The sales volume column tells you approximately how much revenue each business generates per year. Alston uses two examples to show how this changes your approach.

A restaurant that does over a million dollars a year in sales can likely afford a professional website. Alston suggests pitching that business at a starting price of one thousand dollars or more. A smaller operation with less than five hundred thousand in annual sales is probably working with tighter margins. For that business, he suggests opening at eight hundred dollars, which is still meaningful income for a new freelancer but positions the price relative to what the client can actually absorb.

The computer expenses column adds another layer. If a business is already spending a thousand dollars per year on software, subscriptions, and technology, they have demonstrated willingness to pay for digital tools. That is a warmer pitch environment than a business spending less than five hundred a year on anything computer-related. You can sort the spreadsheet by that column and prioritize the businesses that have already shown they spend money on tech.

This is research that most freelancers skip entirely. They find a name and a phone number and call blind. Having sales volume and tech spending in front of you before the conversation starts means you walk in calibrated, not guessing.

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The Facebook-But-No-Website Targeting Strategy

Alston saves one of the best tactics for near the end of the demo. After sorting the spreadsheet, he identifies businesses that have an active Facebook page but no website listed. He frames the pitch to these businesses this way: “Facebook is great, but a website is better because it is yours.”

This is a strong opening for a cold call or a piece of direct mail. A business owner who has already invested time in building a Facebook presence understands the value of having an online footprint. They are not skeptical about being online. They just have not made the move to their own property yet. That is a very different sales conversation from pitching someone who does not believe the internet matters for their business at all.

You can sort the CSV by the Facebook column to surface these prospects quickly. The rows where Facebook is populated but the website column is blank are your warmest leads. They have proven they will do the work of building an online presence. They just need the right person to show them the next step.

Alston also points out that the absence of Twitter or Facebook on a given business could be an add-on service. If a restaurant has a website but no social media accounts, you can pitch website maintenance plus social media setup as a package. The spreadsheet gives you the data to customize every pitch before you ever pick up the phone.

Honest Drawbacks of This Method

There are real limitations here and Alston does not hide them.

The 225-row-per-download cap is the biggest friction point. For major metro areas with thousands of businesses in a single industry category, working through the results in batches is tedious. You will spend more time than the five minutes of the demo if you want a truly comprehensive list for a large city. For a small or mid-size market, this is less of an issue.

No email addresses. You have to be comfortable with phone calls, physical mail, or in-person visits. For some people that is actually a feature, since those channels have less competition than cold email. But if email outreach is the only thing you are willing to do, this database will not get you there on its own.

US only. The library system that provides free access to ReferenceUSA is tied to US public libraries. If you are outside the United States, this specific method does not apply, though similar business registry databases exist in other countries through government or chamber of commerce sources.

Data freshness varies. Business databases are updated periodically but not in real time. Some of the phone numbers or owner names you pull may be out of date. That is standard for any prospecting list and does not make it useless. It means you verify before you send something in the mail or quote a price over the phone.

Your Step-by-Step Action Plan

Here is the exact sequence Alston runs through in the video, translated into a repeatable checklist you can run today:

Get a library card for your local public library (free to about one dollar in most US counties)
Go to your library’s website and find the “Online Databases” or “Research Databases” section
Locate ReferenceUSA (or Data Axle Reference Solutions) and log in with your card number
Click “Advanced Search” and select your state and county (start with your own county to keep outreach local)
Use the “Charts” filter to select a single industry category that matches your niche or the clients you want to serve
Select up to 225 results, click Download, choose “Detail” and “Comma Delimited,” and save the CSV
Open the spreadsheet and sort by website first: separate the businesses that have a site from those that do not
Sort the no-website group by Facebook presence: anyone with Facebook but no site goes to the top of your call list
Sort by sales volume within your target segment and note computer expenses for the ones you plan to call first
Set your price range before you dial, based on each business’s sales volume bracket
Contact your top 10 to 20 prospects this week via phone or direct mail using the owner name and address from the sheet

Find Your X

ReferenceUSA solves the “where do I find clients” problem for web designers and local service sellers in the US. But client acquisition only matters once you know what you are selling and whether you can actually deliver it. If web design is not the right fit for your current skill set or schedule, you might be spending time building a list for a business model that does not match where you are right now.

At finder.platformproof.com, you answer a short set of questions about your available time, existing skills, and income goal. The tool gives you a specific recommendation rather than a generic list of “ways to make money online.” If web design with local clients is the right match, it will tell you that. If something else fits better right now, you will know that too, before you spend weeks building a prospect list for the wrong service.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is ReferenceUSA still available through public libraries?

Yes, though some library systems now list it under the newer name Data Axle Reference Solutions. The functionality is the same. If you cannot find it on your library’s database list, call the reference desk and ask which business database they carry. Most mid-size and larger US library systems subscribe to it.

What if my county library does not have ReferenceUSA?

Check whether your state offers a statewide library card program that gives access to databases from any participating library in the state. Many states have these programs. You can also apply for a card at a neighboring county library if their system carries ReferenceUSA and allows non-resident cards, sometimes for a small annual fee.

Can I use this to find clients outside my local area?

Yes. Alston specifically mentions that you can target major cities like Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago just as easily as your own hometown. The geographic filter works at the state and county level, so you can build a list for any US market. Local outreach is easier to start with because you can knock on doors or make a local phone call, but nothing stops you from targeting another city if you are comfortable with fully remote outreach.

The 225-row limit feels restrictive. Is there a workaround?

The 225-row cap applies per download. You can work through a large results set in batches by selecting the first 225 rows, downloading, then selecting the next 225, and so on. It is a manual process that takes more time than a single export would, but there is no technical block stopping you from pulling all the results. For a smaller niche or a smaller metro area, you may never hit the cap at all.

How do I approach a business that already has a website?

Visit the website before you call. Look for signs of poor design: slow load time, no mobile responsiveness, outdated copyright dates, broken contact forms, missing photos. If you can identify two or three specific problems in a 60-second review, you have a concrete opening rather than a generic pitch. “I noticed your site is not showing up well on mobile” lands differently than “I build websites, do you need one?”

What is a realistic price range to charge for a local business website?

Alston uses two specific data points from the spreadsheet to anchor pricing: businesses with over one million in annual sales and he suggests starting at one thousand dollars; businesses with less than five hundred thousand and he suggests around eight hundred dollars. These are starting points, not ceilings. A restaurant with a million in sales and high computer expenses might be willing to pay two thousand or more for a well-built site with online ordering integration. The spreadsheet tells you what direction to go in before the conversation starts.

I do not know how to build websites yet. Does this method still apply?

Building the list is a separate step from building the skill. You can spend a few days learning a platform like Squarespace, Wix, or WordPress while also building your prospect list. Some freelancers get their first client before they have finished their first practice site, which creates real deadline pressure that accelerates learning faster than any course. That said, if you are not sure web design is the right direction for you yet, check finder.platformproof.com first.

Does this method work outside the United States?

Not as described. ReferenceUSA is a US-specific database accessed through US public libraries. If you live outside the US, you will need to find the equivalent in your country. Many governments publish business registries, and some chambers of commerce maintain searchable member directories. The filtering capabilities will vary, but the underlying approach of using a free public resource to build a targeted prospect list applies anywhere.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “How I Found 150 Clients in 5 Minutes — No Ads Needed!” YouTube, https://youtu.be/TaJwSaXTaWA
ReferenceUSA / Data Axle Reference Solutions, accessed via Kenosha Public Library online databases
Cook County, Illinois restaurant dataset as demonstrated in the video (approximately 9,000 listings)