[richy27]

been goin about 6 months now and doin ok well making a living. i seem to get a lot of domestic work but am really struggling to get any commercials. written over 7 hundred letters offering a demo not much take on it.

Any tips

[Joe H]

Your letters are being filed (in the bin) before they get to the one who needs to see it.

I would have thought personal call either by telephone or walk into the building, and asking for the name of the facilities manager (or person in charge of the cleanliness and health of the building) then asking to see them would bring more results.

[Acom Cleaning]

Being in Devon be prepared to drop your rate.....ALOT. I've just moved from there to Somerset and now doing the same as you in Somerset, you would be amazed if you knew what some commercial carpet cleaners charge round here and in Devon, its almost slave labour, i dont know how or why they do it.

Good luck though.

[richy27]

interesting you should say that martin because the small amount of com i have picked up have done ok out of it in my opinion its just the volume i have prob with

[nevil]

I live further west than you guys and get good money for commercial. Sell on quality not price. Interesting that you say that you have sent all those letters with no response. I was sending batches of 100 - 200 letters out last year and would always get at least one call per 100. Often more. Maybe your letter isn't great.

[fenman]

Approx 70% of our work is commercial which we have built up over the years.
If you have sent 700 letters in 6 months it is far, far too many.
Commercial marketing is not the same as leaflets which are a numbers game.
Marketing correctly is time consuming but a total waste of time if not done correctly.
Your introduction letter is very very important so you need to get opinions from as many people as possible to get the best input. This takes time
It is vital that you send the introduction letter to the person who makes the decisions on cleaning, so you need to phone the organisation to get this info or call in when passing. This takes time.
You must follow up each letter with a phone call about 7 days later and it may take a lot of calls before they will speak to you. This is the single most important part because if you do not follow up you are greatly reducing an already small percentage success rate.  This takes time.
A small percentage will take you up on the demo. This takes time.
You need to keep in touch after the demo whether you did a quote or not. The marketing gurus tell you that it will take up to 7 contacts with a potential customer to secure his business. This takes time.
You need to target different sectors at different times of the year i.e. hotels usually clean in January when they are quiet so you would aim to market them in the Autumn. To find out when to target you have to research each sector. This takes time.
You get the picture that it takes a lot of time so you should only be sending out the number of letters that you can cope with doing all of the above.
This is only scratching the surface of marketing there is loads more I could bore you with.
David

[Ken Wainwright]

There are so many different ways to approach commercial work. Here's one of them.

Don't jump into high volume work with both feet. Larger premises tend to have a person or department dedicated to purchasing. They are usually very good at it and their number one yardstick is typically price. You will rarely win on that front as the big players will employ perhaps minimum rate labour, cover their costs plus just a small percentage for the business profit.

So, try to specialise in certain sectors at a time. Don't go for the pubs in a chain, go for sporting and social clubs. Don't go for the Norwich Union (soon to be Aviva ) offices go for local solicitors and accountants.

So how do you get leads to these commercial prospects? Kitchen Sink Marketing Engage your customers in conversation to build up that good tradesman relationship. If he/she goes to work, ask if it would be OK to drop a line using their name as a referee. Find out the name of the appropriate contact. Different professions/business' have different titles for the same role: Facilities Manager, Hospitality Manager, Housekeeping Manager etc. etc. So learn the appropriate titles too.

As a young business, residential work will supply you with a modest turnover with virtually no credit worries.  Commercial work can be greater and more profitable but a cashflow nightmare. I was once told by someone who specialises in commercial work that you need enough cash to see you through 3 months in order to allow for the late payment of customers.

Get your presentations right and if you are invited to quote, jeans and trainers should be thrown out the window Dress appropriate to the occasion.

Finally, if you have just £5k of Treatment Risk insurance, this will be totally inadequate for all but the smallest commercial work. You may need £millions.  It needn't cost much either if you shop around.

Safe and happy cleaning
The Ken

[richy27]

thanks for the posts so far really helpfull

[derek west]

fenman
bore me. i'm all ears
derek

[clinton]

Richard

A lot of my commercial was by luck really and working in the homes of people that had offices and business in the area.

Think it will come in time mate and when you get the chance go and sell youself to them with a small demo...

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

Fenman/David

That was an excellent post

Steve

[derek west]

totally agree steve, just wish he'd of carried on. very interesting, and i must admit, some nice tips from kenneth.
derek

[murky]

Ring your local Town Hall or Chamber of Commerce.

Most towns now have a brochure with a CD in it with a listing of all the business  in the town with the amount of employees, type of business etc etc and the contact name and number for that business.

Use that and away you go.

Murky

[Gary Webber]

Most people have bypassed one of the most simplest methods.

If you are in with a domestic customer and she/he works, probe them for where they work, would they be able to get for you a name/contact or pass on your details to the right person.

This takes out the cold calling element, the customer is the foot-in-the-door to a Commercial client, they work there, they have had work carried out by you and all you need is time to do a demo for them

Easy?

I have several large business contracts from this approach

Gary

[derek west]

gary
i think ken said that.
derek

[COLIN BRIGHT]

most of my commercaial work has come through my domestic customers
they are all high end places that are willing to pay more for the quality of work such as golf clubs, theatres, private clubs etc
most other who contact me by phone seem to be "get three quote and go for the cheapest"
this type i find are time wasters and usually in a right state. and also you never get to talk to the decicion maker, usally some bimbo or oyke from some made up department

i dont do a huge amount of commecial but the ones  i do are good to work for and quick payers
usally with a month.

[Mike Osbourne]

Another reason to do high end residential....they ARE the Boss.

[clinton]

Mike

not sure i like that word boss

Well only to my mrs  :

[Gary Webber]

Its all a question of targetting the right places.

Don't forget the large cleaning companies have lots of the national stuff. I'd be looking for small-medium sized units/offices etc, so if they do drop you it's not a massive chunk of your business gone. If your commercial work comprises of lots more of these sized businesses,  they are easier to replace!

Gary

[clinton]

Gary

Got a lot of my commercial work when i did the dry fusion and texatherm as they used to like the 3o min dry info i gave them