Looking to push ourselves heavier into the commercial market next season. As our off season is approaching quickly I am trying to come up with some ways to work on nailing down some contracts and am preparing to put out some “Unsolicited bids”. Ive heard from a lot of the bigger guys this is a great way to get your foot in the door. Does anybody have a PDF they would be willing to share on how they format these bids?
Do you use a CRM program to manage your business? Are you planning on sending them a specific bid or just a call/email introducing your self and “I’d love to visit and walk the property with you”
Yes we are currently using markate. Im not sure exactly how to word these bids so I was hoping somebody more experienced in this field would be willing to share some input!
I use Markate too. So if you’re going to send them a bid, just write up an estimate as you usually do and email it
Are you going to send them a bid for 5,000sqft concrete for $1000 without meeting them first? Or is your blind contact you just introducing yourself?
To be honest from what im gathering its more so to get your name in their head and to address things that they may not have ever noticed. Id suspect that after they receive the bid they would do 1 of 2 things. Either
- They realize the issue your bidding on does require some attention at which point they would reach out and we would set up a meeting to actually sell ourselves
- They would keep the bid on hand or atleast the name in their head for when they are actually ready to have some work completed.
I dont think the actual bid itself is doing anything but getting us into their head and a foot in the door
Ok, like the past 3 months I’ve really only done commercial work and I would never send in a bid before walking the property with someone. Check out where the water is, access to areas etc. so it would be hard for me to send in a bid blindly.
About 4 months ago I blindly called a company and ended up locking down a $35,000 5 year annual contract. So called the guy and he really didn’t sound like he had any interest. I followed up a few weeks later and he said he’d talk to his supervisor. The ended up having me come in to give them a bid and after about a month they approved it.
I would just send emails or make calls to make first contact and introduce yourself and ask to talk the property with them.
Very nice! Any advice on pushing commercial work? We’re 99% commercial with probably onto a dozen commercial jobs per season the last 5-6 years
Set your expectations low lol. Blindly contacting commercial stuff is hard. One of the easiest and well paying jobs I do is post construction clean up. Blow mud around. Usually about $0.09 sqft. Just finished 140,000 sqft. Every big Jobsite will have a job trailer. Go in there and ask for the project manager. Probably half of those guys are at least interested.
I do a fair amount of commercial. My best leads have just come from cold calling in person. Dress 1/2 decent and walk in the door and introduce yourself. Especially if you’ve got something to set yourself apart like hot water or a particular specialty. Also, go call on commercial property managers. they have multiple properties and convince them to give you a shot on one, even if it’s just cleaning some sidewalks in a strip center or something.
All the good ones are busy. Your primary benefit to them is to make their life easier. My largest one just calls and tells me they need this or that done and they know it’s taken care of. If it’s not something real big I rarely even have to quote it. They know I’m going to take care of it and once I clean they won’t even think of using anyone else even though I’m a little higher.
5 Likes
