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Picking up commercial work

Hi all, 

Quick question, what are your preferred methods to pick up commercial work. Walking in and talking to someone, or phoning them ?
U can do both, try a bit of everything and then u will surely get results, i tend to stay away from commercial myself, can be a headache especially when getting paid, prefer being 99% residential ?

Good luck

 
U can do both, try a bit of everything and then u will surely get results, i tend to stay away from commercial myself, can be a headache especially when getting paid, prefer being 99% residential ?

Good luck
That’s true. I’ve had this 3 monthly office. All downstairs in and out. Takes 2.5 hours for a little over a £100. Worked well for 30 years. Changed their payment system from the 1 jan 20. Haven’t been paid yet for the clean I did in Jan!!! Despite numerous phone calls and emails. Stick with residentials. 

 
A reasonale question - unfortunately the answer isn't as gold plated as you might 1st think. Pre-Covid maybe, & I stress maybe could have walked into certain sites (think Pubs, restaurants ,gyms etc) anything with a public facing entrance. Now - forget it. You will need some very serious H&S, a firm understanding of RAMS, contamination control & dedicated insurances. You are going to be competing with larger entities with more resources, manpower & likely experience, thats just for starters - the reality is there is a complete divergence in commercial window cleaning & residential now - 15 years ago less so. Going into recession the question you should probably ask is how badly affected would i be when a commercial goes into adminstration taking you for 1 - 2k & are you cool with waiting 90+ days for your money (hence the 1-2k figure, you never see it until you lose or terminate the contract).

If that frightens you - stear clear, because it will happen sooner or later; and over the next 12 months moreso.

 
If it's shops, restaurants or anything retail, where you can just walk in and easily get hold of a decision maker, then yes, the best thing to do would be just to pop in saying what you do and quote them for a regular service.

If it's offices or estate management, might be worth speaking to your local estate agents or one of those "block management" companies, and find out if they would be interested in window cleaning for their properties. However, in this case it will probably be harder to reach the right person to speak to, but still worth trying.

As for cold-calling, that's whole another ball-game and if you want to do it, then I would suggest watching plenty of videos on how to do it the right way by following a script, getting past gate-keepers, being professional over the phone, etc. Making sales calls is definitely not everyone's cup of tea, so depends on how comfortable you're with it.

Or finally, you could just advertise online, say via Google Ads, and you might randomly get approached by a commercial company searching for a window cleaner in your local area - that's a more hands-off way of doing it, compared to walking around and doing everything in person.

 
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Just remember with most commercial work you will need to invoice at the end of the month which will be paid in to your account. I prefer it this way as its more official. 
The commercial work I do gets billed the same day and I get paid same day or in the same week.

I do the work and want money within 72 hours else I chase up and if it ever gets beyond a week then I drop if they keep delaying.

I don't want jobs that keep me waiting for my money.

 
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