Mowing for big chain stores.

[lawnguy11]

We already have commercial accounts, HOA's, dentist offices and places like that. But i have always been curious on how to get in contact with big chain stores such as walmart, cvs drugstore and places like that. Like i said i'm familiar with getting in touch with property mangers and have been successful in doing so, Just curious if it's similar to that? Any insight would be greatly appreciated Thanks, Steven

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

Lawn care business tips

I been contacted to do shopping malls, home depots, walmarts, for landscaping and snow removal. There national companies that bid on this. Theyll contact you and take your bid add $ to it. They do this before they even land the account. So theyll waste your time bidding on something that theyll never even have. It makes completely no sense. The Store managers could just take bids directly from us local people and not pay the extra money to have someone else middle man them but this is what they like to do.

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[lawnguy11]

So their using management companies to bid on big stores. That does sound like a pain in the rear, I've also heard a lot of bad things about working with management companies, Not paying for 5 months calling you out to the site for the smallest things.. Thanks for the response.

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

Originally Posted by lawnguy11

So their using management companies to bid on big stores. That does sound like a pain in the rear, I've also heard a lot of bad things about working with management companies, Not paying for 5 months calling you out to the site for the smallest things.. Thanks for the response.

yeah, there famous for not paying or paying late.

[Steve]

Also check out this blog post on it. How to get Walmart lawn care accounts.

[dpld]

Originally Posted by lawnguy11

We already have commercial accounts, HOA's, dentist offices and places like that. But i have always been curious on how to get in contact with big chain stores such as walmart, cvs drugstore and places like that. Like i said i'm familiar with getting in touch with property mangers and have been successful in doing so, Just curious if it's similar to that? Any insight would be greatly appreciated

Thanks,
Steven

i do all commercial work and i used to service big box stores and retail on high visible locations and i can tell you from experience that stores like walmart and big chains suck with a capital SUCK.

first off places like a mcdonalds, burger king, dunkin donuts you deal with tons of trash and with the drive thru's where most of the crap accumulates because while mr fatty caddy womp azz is stopping to load up his fat azz with some more cheesy poofs he is dumping his crap out of his car from the last stop he made.
i could not tell you how mant burger king cups i have found in a dunking donuts drive thru.
plus when you are blowing and during leaf season whenever you are working in the drive thru lane you have to stop when a car comes so the people can talk as well as while their window is open you don't dust them out.
thats when the big line forms and you are sitting there waiting and waiting.

second, places like walmart, target or anything you would consider a big box store people actually leave the containers they bought the item in in the lot.
for example, at walmart when they have a big sale on big screen tv's you can rest assure that there will be several of them big azz boxes in the lot each day of the big sale.
the reason being some people are just dirtbag litterbugs and some do it out of neccessity because they can not get the tv in the care without taking it out of the box.

third, all these places because they are big and have so many locations and even when they are independently owned they all use the same management company and they don't pay much.

when i did these types of locations i was more of a garbage collector then i was a landscaper and two to three guys would have to do litter patrol before you could even cut the place and they don't pay you for the disposal and places like walmart or costco or any big chain the dumpsters are usually inside or at least the only access to them is from the inside because they all use compactors and they are all locked up tighter then a drum.

i have serviced these types of properties in new jersey, eastern PA and lower NY state from the city to the backwoods and they are all the same, a big pain in the azz.

if you want more commercial work target the big corporate complexes and corporate headquarters they pay the best and they want the premium service because it is the corporate HQ.

[lawnguy11]

Thanks for all the info, Much appreciated.