Where to start: As you grow your residential business, commercial leads will start sniffing around for you too. We’ve been at it for 10 years, and the commercial work has steadily grown. Commercial usually has better profit margins, easier work (on account of larger open lawns) and less nitpicky feedback. But they also typically have more litter, slower or no response for issues, longer payment cycles and less loyalty to your brand. When our business was smaller I thought I wanted 150 commercial contracts next season, but that was naive. You have to have bigger and better equipment, and redundant equipment when that fails, and very well trained staff. Best to grow into that over time.
How to get them: You can start by searching property management companies in your area and introducing yourself to them. Could be just an email or delivering a box of baked goods on Monday morning. That simple act won’t make them call you, but the more they hear your name over 12-24 months, the more likely you are to be remembered when they have to go out to get 3 quotes. There’s probably 5-6 other indirect strategies that will do this too.
What do you need? Thick skin, excellent insurance, and a practiced routine for getting questions answered by property managers or hoa presidents that are surprisingly bad at answering questions. I think following that, having a bulletproof service agreement that you know inside and out is very helpful.
