Figuring out how to break into the commercial landscaping sector can be a challenge. In this video Matt Wacek explains a simple process for how to get commercial bids for lawn care, mowing, snow removal and landscaping at HOAs, offices, industrial facilities, and other business properties using commercial landscape marketing ideas.
How to Get Commercial Landscaping Accounts
So we all know there’s big money to be made when it comes to commercial landscape contracts, whether you’re looking for the long term, which would be grounds maintenance, normal and things of that nature, or on the short term side of things, where you’re talking landscape install projects that are upper five figures, six figures, or even approaching seven figures or more. If you’re wondering how to actually get these projects, you are in the right place, because in this video, I’m going to show you a three pronged approach for how you can start to bring in and attract commercial leads to your landscape company, so that way you can have the opportunity to bid on them and be a little bit more selective versus the typical process of race to the bottom with an RFP.
So if you’re brand new here, my name’s Matt Wacek. I’m the CEO and Founder of Landscape Marketing Pros. We’re a digital marketing agency that’s helped landscape contractors across the nation scale to new heights since 2017. Last year alone in 2023 we generated well over 15,000 organic leads for our clients, resulting in millions upon millions of dollars in potential revenue gains. Now without further ado, let’s get into the first part of this whole entire approach for how to get commercial landscape contracts.
1. Become The Caliber of Company these Prospects Want to Hire
So step number one in our three pronged approach is going to be the foundation or to actually attract commercial clients and become the caliber of company that these business property managers, or business property owners, we’re going to call them prospects from here on out, would actually want to do business with, and can they trust you to do their project efficiently and up to par with what they need to have done?
Online Brand Presence
So how do we do this? The first part is going to be having an online brand presence, and a very strong one at that. And I know there’s gonna be someone in the comments saying,
“Oh, I don’t have a website, I don’t have Facebook or any social media, and I still get opportunities to bid on all these projects.”
Yes, I’m sure that’s absolutely the case. And I even know of some lawn companies that are in that very position, and you can’t find them anywhere. They don’t even have graphics on their trucks or anything, but they’ve been in business for 30 plus years to get to that point, and for the first 10 years of their business, they were just working hard in the residential sector. And when we’re talking that, we’re talking a completely different ballgame, where the internet wasn’t even a thing really way back then, compared to how it is today.
So in this day and age, you absolutely have to have some brand presence online. So the things that they’re going to be looking for are going to be the ability that your company has to do the work that they want done, whether it’s design and build for a new condo complex, they need 150 yards of mulch, 1000s of plants edging, all that sort of stuff, or maybe it’s three warehouses all next to each other, where there’s 30 acres of turf and then another 15 acres of parking lot that would need to be plowed in the winter.
They want to know that you have the capability to take on this type of work and do it efficiently, because a lot of properties don’t want to have their lawn crew there multiple days out of the week, if it’s like an office setting where they have staff that are working and don’t want to be having noise in the background, or whatever the case may be, those are things you got to take into account here. So being able to show previous work is huge, even if you’re not at the point yet where you have any commercial contracts, you still want to show off your residential work, because residential work, in terms of what’s actually being done, is generally the same. It’s just the logistics are going to be a little bit different when we’re talking commercial for certain projects and things like that. So showing off previous work. Take photos with your phone, just on landscape mode, and it’s going to be high enough quality photo for on your website if you have a drone, that’s sweet as well. All those things are going to just help that much more.
Testimonials from Commercial Clients
Another thing that’s going to be absolutely huge if you do already have commercial clients, is testimonials from them on your Google business profile. Specifically, you can even do video testimonials if you’d like. However, that’s going to be very difficult and very time consuming to set up. So if you can get them to leave a review on your Google business profile, and mention the fact that they manage HOAs or townhomes, and you’re the ones that do the grounds maintenance on there, and that your company does an amazing job, that’s huge.
Just like the one here on the screen from one of our clients, where they had this particular client thanking them for how great of work they do at all their properties. And this is all because Perception is everything when it comes to your business and how the outside world perceives your company.
Perception is Everything
So has your logo been designed professionally? Do you have your trucks and your trailers and even like larger equipment? Do you have graphics on there? Does your staff have uniforms when they’re out on properties or even in the office, or whatever size company you have? Is your staff trained to work efficiently, to get the jobs done on time? And do you have software that delivers the proposals and then invoicing and allow that all to be one seamless thing where a prospect could sign digitally, make that first payment, and then you’re off to the races to get everything going.
These are all things that are very, very, very critical, and these buyers are going to be assessing whether you have these things when it comes to actually trusting you with their project that it is that they want to hire for. The last thing within the foundation is being found in the search results, because the best quality prospects, aside from word of mouth and referrals always come through the organic search results.
You can see some of the commercial leads that have actually come through our clients forms on their website, and selling to these leads is so much easier because they’re pre positioned to buy. They already are seeking you out, and it’s just a much easier process. So there’s only to your benefit to rank in the search engines.
2. Networking
Now the second part of our approach to actually getting commercial landscape contracts is networking. So you’re probably thinking, I don’t want to go do all this sort of stuff. I don’t want to do outreach and all these sorts of things. I will say this at the best commercial snow contract that I got for my own landscape company, that we’re talking way back in 2012 is when I obtained this. Was just a simple cold call. However, that was in 2012, the world is completely different nowadays. In my opinion, it’s really a waste of time to try to cold call, but you could always give it a shot. But when it really comes to networking, the whole commercial side of the industry, especially if you really want to do a lot more of this is all about building relationships, because people buy from people, and so at a base level, you’re going to want to have your LinkedIn built out and showing that, hey, this is what we do. We work with commercial clients as well as residential or whatever mixture it is that you want for your business. Every single company is a little bit different.
We have clients at Landscape Marketing Pros that are full on commercial maintenance, and that’s all they want to do with that in snow. We have others that are just design and build with everything, any type of property, they will do that as well, but just know those things going into it. And so how can you actually network and go out and meet these types of prospects, or at least, just get around these the caliber of people that potentially could know prospects that would want to purchase your services. Because this isn’t limited to just going and trying to meeting them, because that can be very difficult.
Talk to EVERYBODY
What you really want to do is just become a person that can talk to everybody. Because what that’s going to do is build up a lot more confidence in you socially. For when you do have the opportunity to talk with a property manager, especially if it’s someone that has a big portfolio of properties that they manage, and you’re talking hundreds upon hundreds of 1000s of dollars per year in spend on grounds maintenance or whatever the work may be, you don’t want to screw that up. So what I encourage you to do is be more personable and be more social on your day to day life, the grocery store, going to coffee shop, the gym, whatever, talk with everybody.
Be friendly with everybody. I know this sounds like weird advice, but this is really, really true, because you don’t want to be so focused on the outcome of getting a commercial contract, that when the opportunity comes, you screwed up because you didn’t really know how to build rapport and have a conversation with somebody, because you were so focused on, how can I just get that and not having to and not doing some of this other stuff.
And so don’t be buried in your phone if you’re out in public talk with everybody anywhere you go, because you never know who knows who. And the more people that know who you are and who your company is the better, because that’s only going to open more doors. Because there are business owners out there that own properties, or there are people that know business property managers, or they even maybe know people that work within government that have some say with municipal contracts, there’s opportunities there as well.
So being social is crazy as that sounds, is very, very, very critical. And so another thing that you can also do is going to BNI meetings, Chamber of Commerce, organizations, all those sorts of things are very, very good, because what that does is gets you around other business owners local to your area that could potentially want to do business with you, because they get to know you. One thing I want to stress is you don’t want to necessarily go into these meetings with the intent immediately to start landing contracts in meeting one go there to get to know people and build a business to business relationship that’s focused on the long term and the money will come later.
Focus on Creating Long Term Partnerships
One of the best things you could possibly do, in my opinion, right there, is just to be focused on the long term. Don’t worry about today’s money. Have the sales and stuff coming in already from the residential side, or whatever your business structure is for how you’re the work that you’re doing, have that stuff coming in and start doing this in your extracurricular type of activity, if you will, and to build up that portfolio over the long haul, because that’s going to open up doors for you in the future.
So those types of meetings and organizations are definitely beneficial to building the relationships and essentially planting the seeds to then eventually get the opportunity to start landing commercial landscape contracts in the future. We’re talking six months, one year, two year, three years down the line.
And you’d be surprised at even just consistently going to those things and building those relationships, how quickly that time can kind of pass, and then before you know it, boom. You got a whole repertoire of commercial maintenance clients or commercial design build or whatever it is that you are after.
Long Term Client Satisfaction
So the final part that I want to cover is long term client satisfaction. This is so so so critical. Because, I mean, it really should go without saying, but there are businesses out here that really do kind of mess this up, and you don’t want to have this happen, because then all your work kind of goes away.
So you and your team have got to be on your game when it comes to making sure the customer experience is top notch. So what do I mean by that prompt response to initial inquiries, especially if they’re coming in through your website and they go, just submit the form. You want to be following up them as quickly as you possibly can.
Rapid Response
Next thing you want to be able to do is put together the quotes very, very quickly. This is how we’re gonna do this, this, this and all these, take these specs and everything like that, get the numbers together, get the proposal sent out as quickly as you possibly can. Because the quicker you get the proposal in, the more likely it is, as you have the opportunity to convert that sale. And so a couple other things, is after the sale has been made. So either whether it’s maintenance or it’s a design build project, or whatever it is, warranty requests for replacing plants, responding to those quickly is very, very important, answering their questions and concerns when they do happen to come in, and all these sorts of things relate to the customer experience.
And if you can provide an amazing customer experience, that’s gonna increase the longevity of the relationship that you have with that particular client, which leads to more money and leads to more opportunities to bid on more projects, and as a result, make more money.
Scale Your Company With a Proven Marketing System
So that is one of the best ways for how to actually get landscape contracts. And so what I encourage you to do at this point in the video is if you were doing over $250,000 per year in revenue, go book a call, and let’s see if you’re a good fit for our marketing system to work with your company to scale it to new heights, like we’ve done for so many businesses, including Best Outdoor Services, Lush Landscape & Irrigation, Black Rock landscaping, Proscapes & Tree, the list just continues on and on and on and on.
If you’re doing less than $250,000 per year, what I encourage you to do is browse around on our channel. Head over to our website, read our blog, check out all the content that we have on how to actually grow your landscape company to that level. Then once you’re at that level, book a call with us, and let’s have a chat about growing your company using our marketing system. So with that said, my name is Matt Wacek, CEO and Founder of Landscape Marketing Pros. Thanks for watching this video. Be sure to go down below. Comment your thoughts, subscribe, drop a like and see you in the next video.