Commercial lawn care customers, how to get them when you are new?

Commercial lawn care accounts can be difficult to get when you are just getting started. But when I got a chance to talk to a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, I was amazed to learn how he landed his first two commercial lawn care accounts even before he had a mower.

The trick he said comes down to knowing people. He had performed snow plowing services for quite a few years at some commercial properties in his area. This Winter, the property manager came up to him and asked if he also offered lawn mowing services. He didn't but he would be willing to give it a go if could ask a few questions on how long it took the previous company.

After a short discussion, the property manager explained it took the previous lawn care business 2 full days with 4 employees to mow, trim and edge the property. Armed with this new knowledge, he put together a bid based on how much he would need to charge per hour to service the property and landed two commercial lawn care jobs right there on the spot.

The next thing he had to do was go and purchase a ztr mower and a walkbehind unit to mow the lawns. Seeing that he was now $25,000 up for next year, he figured he would expand this service and took out a newspaper ad. Within a week he had signed up another two residential clients for the following year.

This new direction all came out of a discussion he had with a property manager looking to replace his current lawn care service provider. So keep this in mind next time you are out looking to land commercial lawn care jobs. It's a lot easier to get the work when you have an in with the company. Think about all the people you know, they each have jobs. They all work somewhere and more likely than not, they will have property that will need to be maintained.

Ask them if they could find out who is in charge of property maintenance. Have them put in a good word for you and get the property manager's contact information. Don't forget to ask your friends who live in apartments for this information too.

In a short period of time, with this new information, you may find yourself with more commercial lawn care mowing work than you can handle!