Commercial Accounts

[Pro-Lawn]

What is the best way to get a big commercial account? Is it by personally going into the business facility and talk to them , bug them ?? Or just send a paper with a bid ?? I have a few commercial accounts though they are small. I need year round snow removal, big jobs to get me out of my day job. I have 100 res. accounts. And i am so fed up with res. work. Res. work has been good to me , but im realizing how much of a headache it is compared to commercial. And input guys ??

[gogetter]

I know this has nothing to do with answering your question, but...
You have 100 residential accounts AND a day job???!!
Geez! You're one busy guy!

[Schlepie]

I do have three commercial accounts, got them based on referals. Ive got 30 residential accounts and if you were down south in my neck of the woods I'd trade you some for my 1 slooooooww paying commercial restaurant account. I even had to turn down an apt. complex because it was too big for a solo. Yellow pages have worked for me but referals have worked best. Good Luck.

[Pro-Lawn]

I have my wife , she works over full time for me. She likes lawn work , which is great. Also have 2 part time guys. Plus me full time after 1:30pm . 16 hour days . I love my job.

[PrimeGreen Lawn]

100 res accounts solo? How do you manage? We have about 40 comm. and 75 residential with 2-3 crews working 55 hours a week and I still cant keep up. Anyway, I sometimes walked in to major corporations and introduced myself, handed them a card, and asked if I could submit a bid right then and there for next years work! They also responded to adds I placed in local papers, and a few were from referrals. I did this one guys house $180/week for about 3 years. Well, one day he asked me if I would like to cut his business also. It's about a 45 minute drive from our usual route, but he got me another $600 week for this huge property. However it takes 4 hours and 4 employees to do this. Good luck!

Scott

[HOMER]

Sounds to me like your focus has been on residential. As soon as you switch your focus to commercial you'll begin to open doors. You got to call, write, ask, whatever you had to do to get res. you need to do double the work to get commercial. They usually don't come calling you. Out of the 22 commercial accounts I have I think 2 called me. One of them I knew personally and the other one saw my truck and got the number off the door..........when I had my signs on. That one turned into about $600.00 a month year round and I've been doing it now for 3 years. All the other ones I've had to write or call. Find out when or if they bid the properties out. I'm in a pretty good situation because none of mine have thought about changing yet................yet.:rolleyes: So far the newbies out there have stayed away as far as I know.


Focus:cool:

[Pauls Mowing]

I'm 100% commercial, and love it!! I send my residential requests to a friend of mine. I have had mostly good luck picking up commercials, through word of mouth and a friend knows a friend. My biggest account took 3 years of sending fliers and phone calls, but I did finally make it. This account will triple in size within the next 2 years. I keep my eyes open, and continue to look for more accounts. Don't give up!!

Paul

[Eric ELM]

Here is a search on commercial that has some other threads on this subject.
http://www.lawnsite.com/search.php?action=showresults&searchid=10982&sortby=lastpost&sortorder=descending

[Nathan]

my wife is a commercial property manager for the largest office property leasing company in the US. What I have learned from all of her contacts is that many managers for commercial properties choose their contractors for very strange reasons. However, your best bet is to make an excellent first impression and tell them why you are better than everyone else for their specific need. Good luck.

[GreenStar]

MOST PROPERTY GROUPS WILL ACCEPT A "LETTER OF INTENT"
SEND ONE IN JULY AND A FOLLOW UP IN OCTOBER.MAKE SURE TO NOTE YOU WANT TO BID THEIR AVAILABLE COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES.IF YOU CALL EXPECT 2 THINGS.
#1-A $6 AN HOUR HIGHSCHOOL KID WITH NO IDEA.
#2-A $7 AN HOUR OFFICE "MANAGER"THAT THINKS SHE HAS AN
IDEA.
WELL MAYBE YOU'LL GET 3
#3-UM,DAH,DAH WE DONT MOW LAWNS.

[carl28]

Having grown are buisness over the last 12 years form a two man property maintence contractor maintaining 25-35 lawns per week to an employer of 14 full time employees and more than a dozen sub contractors covering 134 residential and 18 major commercial properties I have learned that the key to commercial properties is the ability and willingness to drop everything and do anything that they need done. our multifacetedness has allowed us to satisfy such demanding customers. with services as far reaching as paving and as simple as holiday decorating we have routinely worked odd hours and long days to provide our customers with a service on short notice or no notice at all. On one particular occasion we were able to completely modify and alter the road racing course at N.H.I.S. in a 72 hour period moving one-half mile of 60 ft wide pavement and sodding a 144,000sq/ft of turf. services like these have allowed us unlimited lee-way in our year-to-year bidding of contracts our customers know we will preform when the s@@# hits the fan.

[Fantasy Lawns]

that's a super good point carl ..... flexiability of one contractor to provide (sub) multiple services & the KEY ....... quick response time to their needs ...... be honest with yourself of what you can do & WHEN you can do it ...... grow Slowly ..... don't take on more than you can really do !

these people associate with each other n always talk business ........ word of mouth will take over with your own ability to perform a variety of services & to perform quickly ;->

Luck plays into it also .......our largest customer was aquired while maintaining a resi ...... the then contractor supervisor lived in the area ...... was frustrated with his other service ...... used us on his home .....liked us ........ then used us on the common grounds maintance of that subdivision (150+ homes) which they were in the process of building ....this allowed us to grow with them ...... we have followed them to 5 more such opportunities .... although we have NOT been able to win the installation of landscape (I'd sub it out) .... we try each year ..... asking of the bid package ....keeping in good standings

[LAWNGODFATHER]

and you think commercial accounts are going to be different!

you are now going to compeat with every lawn care co. for the same acc.

from my experiance in comm. acc. there a usaly 10 to 15 other bidders to contend with

try looking in to high income res.

I perfer high income res and common grounds there is a lot less compatision and can get a higher price

and mowing 100 res account if you add them up lts say
100 x $25 thats $2500 a week for a part time solo operation

if you are not making that then your price is way to low or you have to many eow's

you will need some good luck and better play KING OF THE HILL

LGF:blob3:

[Bob_McNaughton]

I've been debating this as well, when I startup next year.

Commercial jobs can be high profile, and offer expanded opportunities to grow. But they can kill you as well, because commercial companies will often switch LC firms on a dime.

The best way to get them IMHO would be to find out who the decision maker is at the company, and send him a letter every month till he calls. =p

[strickdad]

commercial accounts sometimes are not all there cracked up to be. I was doing work for one of the largest hotel chains in the world, and i did a special project for them and the got into me for 12,000 dollars(just labor and materails) not counting the profit, it took them 94 days after the compleation of the project to pay me!!!! if you can handle a 100 residental accounts a week i would stick with that .. 95% of all my residential accounts are CASH!! as any of these people will tell you cash in the HAND, is a heck of alot better than a CHECK IN THE MAIL!!