Lawn Care Bid Estimates - FREE Help Pricing Jobs - Landscape Maintenance Contracts - Advice - Cost

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Selling To Commercial Customers
Book Book # B-12, Price $24.50
To order online Click Here: or order by phone Toll Free 1-866-280-2252
By Phil Nilsson, Green Industry Consultant
www.nilssonbooks.com

Selling to commercial customers offers 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. It is just on a larger scale - much larger. 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 on a year-round schedule. Additionally, with high levels of service comes responsibility for maintaining large acreages. Therefore, to satisfy the business markets contractors must have an ample supply of both labor and equipment, along with the expertise to fully understand the ramifications of complex specifications and, of course, successfully bid in a highly competitive pricing environment. Compared to residential markets that consist mainly of homes, the commercial markets offer a broad range of customer types. And while heavily any contractor can participate in the bid process. The list below is just the tip of the iceberg in identifying customers to call on. Sit down with your Yellow Pages, flip through them and find hundreds of commercial property categories to call on. And one of the best ways to do this is by telephone because businesses are called on regularly by landscape contractors, and many property managers are receptive to getting several bids for the same work.

Commercial Client Types:
Factories
Resort Hotels
Elderly Housing
Ski Resorts
DayCare
Fast Food
Museums
Warehousing
ShoppingMalls
Raceways
Parks
Municipalities
TruckStops
Golf Courses
Airports
Gas Stations
Banks
Schools
Sports Fields
Auto Dealerships
Zoos
Funeral Homes
Night Clubs
Commercial Condos
Hotels
Motels
Restaurants
Theaters
Cemeteries
Office Parks
Water Companies
Electric Utilities
Theme Parks
Railroads
Boating Area
Reservoirs
Hospitals
Shipyards
Highway Departments
Real Estate Managers
Apartments
Strip Malls
Historic Sites
Religious Retreats
Colleges
Churches
Roadside Rests
Military Installations

KNOW YOUR NUMBERS.
Because of the size of commercial properties, the scope of the work, availability of labor, and often the need for an extensive inventory of equipment capable of handling the larger jobs, the need to fully understand job costs is crucial to covering costs and making profits. Generally, commercial customers look for the lowest priced job bid, along with the 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 market is no place for anyone who doesn't have expertise is accessing the work bid on.

Labor hours, equipment, production, work scheduling and satisfying customer needs on a large scale can easily overwhelm a contractor who is unclear on the requirements needed to handle commercial work or does not have the ability to perform to contract specifications. Remember that the "price advantage" rests in the hands of the commercial customer because the work has probably been tested for price repeatedly in the market. Before receiving a price, the customer already knows what to expect - he's "been there" many times with many contractors.

The greatest advantage that commercial work has over residential is that a commercial property offers larger properties to work on. Therefore, crews often spend the entire day at one 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.

The final consideration - or call it "caution" - in entering and promoting commercial work is limiting customer dominance. By that I mean that a contractor is wise to spread around his work among many different commercial accounts such that he is at less risk for losing a substantial amount of sales volume should a contract not be renewed. A good rule of thumb is not to allow any commercial account more than 10 percent of one’s total sales volume.

Other than what has been mentioned above, commercial 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 business. Again, know your numbers. Count and carefully measure each facet of the work, know the hours to complete a job and fully understand all costs involved. Also know that, generally speaking, there is not much room for guesswork in commercial 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.


Other
resources:
Sales Boosters
Job Estimating Package
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines
New Business Startup Package
Complete Operations management System

Nilsson's Job Estimating System has everything you need to evaluate job site specifications & work required, figure costs, how to price ~ lawns, grounds maintenance, landscape installs. You'll get step - by - step instructions, bid proposal outlines & customer contracts, labor hours job times. You'll get job price guides to compare your prices with the going rates, overhead costs, materials, profit ratios. You'll set realistic prices, and job labor hours goals based on field tested, proven, time studied labor hours for every job you bid. You'll know how to evaluate every job for total work hours required, the price to charge for the job, the profit you'll make, best crew size, job costs. You'll also get add-on service check lists to help you maximize sales by upselling customers on additional property improvements.

When it comes to pricing lawn and landscape jobs nobody has more lawn & landscape business jobs pricing information than Nilsson Associates, Green Industry Consultants. Nilsson's Job Price Guides Books covers lawn care bids, job bidding & estimating for tree care, irrigation installation & service, pavement sweeping & maintenance, snow plowing operations, landscaping and hardscaping job bids for both commercial & residential customers as well as real estate management, parks & recreation departments, municipalities, college and university campus grounds maintenance. The prices books cover; business estimating & bids for grounds services, landscaping pricing estimates , estimating & bids the price seasonal work, year around commercial estimating contracts, campus grounds, price per square foot, best grounds maintenance & landscaping job to bid & pricing, price of lawn care, lawn mowing price, aeration pricing, lawns, commercial landscape job bid estimates, most all outdoor maintenance estimating & pricing, mulching prices, pricing chemicals, weeding & aerating pricing, fertilizer prices, prices for organic fertilizer, pricing weeds in beds, pricing pruning & trimming trees & shrubs, pricing commercial & residential snow plowing, hardscape pricing, pricing hydroseeding, irrigation service estimates for commercial & residential, pricing seeding lawns, pricing lawn sod, prices for slit seeding lawns, pricing edging lawn beds, spring cleanup prices, pricing fall cleanups, hourly price of pressure washing walks & patios, pricing trees, stump grinding prices, price for gutter cleaning, lawn dethatching price, price for shoveling snow, pricing salting, price for sanding.

For more information: FREE Job Pricing Guidelines


Nilsson Associates has the information you need to operate your business and make it a success. We offer one of the Largest Resources available in the Green Industry on the internet. Everything from how to sharpen a mower blade to how to manage a small or large, simple or complex business doing millions in sales! You can keep your buisness small or grow it each year. It's up to you how far you go. Some are just interetsed in mowing lawns as a service, then add on pruning, planting, trimming, shrubs, trees, plowing snow, and getting into bidding and estimating grounds maintenance, landscape installations, hardscapes, patios, retaining walls and waterscapes.

No mattter what services you want to offer, we have the technical and managment information you need that will save you time and money getting started. Take a look at our extensive line of books, audios, videos and employee training materials in English and Spanish. Start at the Nilsson Associatres home page www.nilssonbooks.com and scroll down the left side of the home page to locate the business problem you want a solution to. The index includes all these categories dealing with just about all lawn care, the best mowers, how to maximize profits in mowing, job bidding & pricing, what equipment to buy, lawns, grass, chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, landscape company operations, irrigation, snow plowing, planting, pavement services and many others

The instruction you will receive is affordable, and highly focused training that really works! And ... The ongoing personal support from our Industry Experts is the Best Professional Management & Ownership Training Program in the Industry. With us assisting you every step of the way, your business will be up and running fast, making money, organized to win, separate itself from the competition, and on the "Path To A Rewarding Future."

Other
resources:
Sales Boosters
Job Estimating Package
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines
New Business Startup Package
Complete Operations management System


Selling to Commercial Customers
Book Book # B-12, Price $24.50
To order Click Here: or order by phone Toll Free 1-866-280-2252
_________________
Phil Nilsson
Nilsson Associates
Green Industry Consultants
Visit the bookstore: www.nilssonbooks.com
Toll Free 1-866-280-2252