lbtcadmin
12-13-2007, 09:47 PM
How to Sell and Get Commercial Landscape and Grounds Maintenance Accounts
Selling to commercial customers (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers)offers commercial lawn care service and landscape contractors the opportunity to build substantial sales volumes over a short period of time. The commercial, or business-to-business, market has the same need for services as does the residential client, maybe even more so. Commercial grounds maintenance accounts and landscape installation projects are just on a larger scale - much larger. Lawn mowing just as an example, can be for very large acreages and take a crew several hours, an entire day or even more.
Commercial customer contracts can vary from a few thousand dollars upwards to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and unlike homeowners who can sometimes limit the services of a mowing contractor for example, the commercial customer often depends on their service provider to deliver a wide range of landscaping and grounds maintenance work including snow removal and ice control (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#The Snow Removal Business) and sometimes pavement sweeping or litter removal on a year-round schedule. Additionally, with high levels of commercial customer accounts service comes responsibility for maintaining large commercial customer sites and acreages. Therefore, to satisfy the commercial account customners, contractors must have an ample supply of both landscape labor and equipment, along with the expertise to fully understand the ramifications of complex lawn, grounds and landscape maintenance specifications and, of course, successfully bid in a highly competitive pricing environment.
Compared to residential markets that consist mainly of homes, the commercial customer markets offer a broad range of customer types. And while heavily competed for, any qualified contractor can participate in the bid process.
How to order
Selling To Commercial Customers
by Nilsson Associates
Book # B-12, Price $24.50
To order online Click Here: (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers)
To order by phone call Toll Free 866-280-2252
With Commercial landscapes, lawns and grounds accounts - know your numbers.
Because of the size of commercial customer account properties, the scope of the work, availability of labor, and often the need for an extensive inventory of equipment capable of handling the larger landscape site jobs, the need to fully understand job costs is crucial to covering costs and making profits. Generally, commercial account customers look for the lowest priced job bid, along with the landscape contractor’s ability to perform the work. Profits can be quite thin, so knowing where to draw the line with price is paramount. In other words, the commercial customer account market is no place for anyone who doesn't have expertise is accessing the work bid on. know the hours to complete a job (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) The number of Labor hours required to do the work, equipment, lawn and landscape production methods, work scheduling and satisfying commercial customer needs on a large scale can easily overwhelm a contractor who is unclear on the requirements needed to handle commercial account work or does not have the ability to perform to contract specifications. Remember that the "price advantage" rests in the hands of the commercial account customer because the work has probably been tested for price repeatedly in the market. Before receiving a price, the commercial customer account already knows what to expect - he's "been there" many times with many contractors.
The greatest advantage that commercial customer account work has over residential is that a commercial accounts offers larger
properties to work on. Therefore, grounds maintenance crews often spend the entire day at one lawn location, which reduces travel time, makes work scheduling much easier and takes some confusion out of the billing process. However, unlike residential customers, commercial accounts will "test" contract prices quite often, to make sure they are getting the lowest possible price each and every season.
The final consideration - or call it "caution" - in entering and promoting commercial customer account work is limiting customer dominance. By that I mean that a contractor is wise to spread around his work among many different commercial account customers such that he is at less risk for losing a substantial amount of commercial account sales volume should a contract not be renewed. A good rule of thumb is not to allow any commercial maintenance account more than 10 percent of one’s total sales volume in grounds maintenance revenues.
Other than what has been mentioned above, commercial customer account markets offer many advantages to capturing a rather large amount of business all within a very limited market area and timeframe. And if you're lucky enough to be located in an industrialized area, it's just a matter of knowing your numbers and going out to get your share of the available commercial grounds maintenance business. Again, know your numbers. Count and carefully measure each facet of the work, know the hours to complete a job (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) and fully understand all costs involved. Also know that, generally speaking, there is not much room for guesswork in commercial customer account work since profit margins can be quite thin, competition for this type of work can be extreme and pricing the work is a real challenge.
How to order
Selling To Commercial Customers
by Nilsson Associates
Book # B-12, Price $24.50
To order online Click Here: (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers)
To order by phone call Toll Free 866-280-2252
http://nilssonbooks.com/guarantee.gif
Selling to commercial customers (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers)offers commercial lawn care service and landscape contractors the opportunity to build substantial sales volumes over a short period of time. The commercial, or business-to-business, market has the same need for services as does the residential client, maybe even more so. Commercial grounds maintenance accounts and landscape installation projects are just on a larger scale - much larger. Lawn mowing just as an example, can be for very large acreages and take a crew several hours, an entire day or even more.
Commercial customer contracts can vary from a few thousand dollars upwards to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and unlike homeowners who can sometimes limit the services of a mowing contractor for example, the commercial customer often depends on their service provider to deliver a wide range of landscaping and grounds maintenance work including snow removal and ice control (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#The Snow Removal Business) and sometimes pavement sweeping or litter removal on a year-round schedule. Additionally, with high levels of commercial customer accounts service comes responsibility for maintaining large commercial customer sites and acreages. Therefore, to satisfy the commercial account customners, contractors must have an ample supply of both landscape labor and equipment, along with the expertise to fully understand the ramifications of complex lawn, grounds and landscape maintenance specifications and, of course, successfully bid in a highly competitive pricing environment.
Compared to residential markets that consist mainly of homes, the commercial customer markets offer a broad range of customer types. And while heavily competed for, any qualified contractor can participate in the bid process.
How to order
Selling To Commercial Customers
by Nilsson Associates
Book # B-12, Price $24.50
To order online Click Here: (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers)
To order by phone call Toll Free 866-280-2252
With Commercial landscapes, lawns and grounds accounts - know your numbers.
Because of the size of commercial customer account properties, the scope of the work, availability of labor, and often the need for an extensive inventory of equipment capable of handling the larger landscape site jobs, the need to fully understand job costs is crucial to covering costs and making profits. Generally, commercial account customers look for the lowest priced job bid, along with the landscape contractor’s ability to perform the work. Profits can be quite thin, so knowing where to draw the line with price is paramount. In other words, the commercial customer account market is no place for anyone who doesn't have expertise is accessing the work bid on. know the hours to complete a job (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) The number of Labor hours required to do the work, equipment, lawn and landscape production methods, work scheduling and satisfying commercial customer needs on a large scale can easily overwhelm a contractor who is unclear on the requirements needed to handle commercial account work or does not have the ability to perform to contract specifications. Remember that the "price advantage" rests in the hands of the commercial account customer because the work has probably been tested for price repeatedly in the market. Before receiving a price, the commercial customer account already knows what to expect - he's "been there" many times with many contractors.
The greatest advantage that commercial customer account work has over residential is that a commercial accounts offers larger
properties to work on. Therefore, grounds maintenance crews often spend the entire day at one lawn location, which reduces travel time, makes work scheduling much easier and takes some confusion out of the billing process. However, unlike residential customers, commercial accounts will "test" contract prices quite often, to make sure they are getting the lowest possible price each and every season.
The final consideration - or call it "caution" - in entering and promoting commercial customer account work is limiting customer dominance. By that I mean that a contractor is wise to spread around his work among many different commercial account customers such that he is at less risk for losing a substantial amount of commercial account sales volume should a contract not be renewed. A good rule of thumb is not to allow any commercial maintenance account more than 10 percent of one’s total sales volume in grounds maintenance revenues.
Other than what has been mentioned above, commercial customer account markets offer many advantages to capturing a rather large amount of business all within a very limited market area and timeframe. And if you're lucky enough to be located in an industrialized area, it's just a matter of knowing your numbers and going out to get your share of the available commercial grounds maintenance business. Again, know your numbers. Count and carefully measure each facet of the work, know the hours to complete a job (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) and fully understand all costs involved. Also know that, generally speaking, there is not much room for guesswork in commercial customer account work since profit margins can be quite thin, competition for this type of work can be extreme and pricing the work is a real challenge.
How to order
Selling To Commercial Customers
by Nilsson Associates
Book # B-12, Price $24.50
To order online Click Here: (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers)
To order by phone call Toll Free 866-280-2252
http://nilssonbooks.com/guarantee.gif