Best way to get commercial properties?

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I have been doing primarily residential clients since 2004 and always had some commercial properties through friends or word of mouth but want to get into more, what’s the best way to get your foot in the door for a bid? How do those guys work do they just search the phone book (which I am in and didn’t get many calls by the way) or do they wait for you to contact them?

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

How do those guys work do they just search the phone book (which I am in and didn’t get many calls by the way) or do they wait for you to contact them? This is a very good question. I would venture to say that very few commercial customers are going to have to pick up a phone book because they are probably bombarded throughout the year with bid submissions. When you sit there and reflect on how you got your current commercial clients you mentioned you got them through friends or word of mouth My question to you is this. How did you line up these jobs with your friends or word of mouth? How can you then scale this up further doing the same thing? Ultimately you can create a list of commercial properties you want to service and go there and find out who the contact person is. Give them a bid for the service you feel they need. You can send letters asking to get on their bid list. Remember there are sample letters of this in the free lawn care customer letter section. You can read about getting commercial clients here as well. But I would like to hear more how you have done it so far because I think that is the way to go.

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Word of Mouth is the best advertising it was my only advertising in the beginning, but I got the other commercial customers from networking with other customers like “ my friends husband and his brother own this apartment complex and wanted to look into getting a new landscaper so I gave them your card…” something like that, and from there it would go to “ooh my friend owns this place down the street I am going to see if I can get you in there…”. And this was great in the beginning but I need to get more commercial customers especially with this economy, residential work slows to a halt but commercial customers still need to have a nice property, and at the rate I am going it’s just not fast enough. I love residential work, I like dealing with some customers but as for paying the bills commercial work is where you gotta be.
So I have been looking into this sites letters and other stuff and hopefully I can get a few more contracts plus commercial work will also help me out with Snow Removal. I also agree that I can’t see one of those guys picking up a phone book so I have to find them not them find me.

[Steve]

Have you considered joining some local commerce organizations? Like the Chamber of Commerce or other similar ones? It could give you a great platform to meet others and get commercial accounts.

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no I never thought of that, I will look into it. I was more or less wondering if anyone else had some story of how they got into commercial accounts or even if they new of any ways such as letters, calls, and so on. There is some landscapers that I dont know personally but I see them all the time, and they just do commercial accounts no residential and I dont know how they do it, they must know people.

[Steve]

It comes down to knocking on doors, making calls and making connections with the right people. There are a lot of variations on how lawn care business owners have done this. I try and keep a lot of their stories together here.

Each story is unique and can be quite helpful.

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thanks I will check that page out and keep you informed.

[Steve]

Great! Let me know if you are able to implement any of those ideas.