Commerical account push

[spin2098]

Well as I end my 8th season in the business I am happy where I am at but not content. Right now we have about half and half residential/commercial. I have decided to put the push on for commercial this year. My experience in the past with these commercial people is they love to wait till mid April to make a decision. Has anyone on here and any success at getting these people to sign early. What kind of sales tactics did you use to get the contract signed relatively quickly. Any pointers would me nice. Thanks all.

[impactlandscaping]

I have almost all my residentials re-signed for next season, but no commercials. Our biggest comm. acct. mgr already told me they were going to open for bids in March 2005 for the ten properties we service for them. I offered to lock their current rates in thru the next season, but that wasn't good enough.They are a 4 year client, and probably this will be the last. They think they can wait for the BBD( bigger, better deal), which to many of them , is the cheapest, sloppiest job that saves their expenditure account each month to pay for their new cars, etc... We have a 60/40 mix of commercial to residential, and the comms. are always last to sign. I know everyone will re sign in Jan., with maybe the exception of this account. Last year, however, we signed a new HOA in Dec. for 2004 season, and after Christmas, the president and several officers of the assn. changed ,and they fired us for the presidents kids to mow, etc., and " to keep landscape costs to a minimum to secure more funding for snow and ice management".. we promptly dropped their snow service as well following that letter.