Anyone have a good retention plan for property managers and commercial accounts?

Had some good accounts, once property manager get replaced, we Always lose the account, and rarely get it back, same with commercial accounts.

The new manager, thinks they are helping the company, by firing the good vendors and replacing them with Cheaper venders.

What are you currently doing to be protective of your accounts?

I would say it's a relationship. We love it when "our" maintenance, managers, and Bookkeepers move around to new properties. It gives us a new opportunity.

We try to build a relationship with everyone on staff at all the properties. We try to make it so even the guys who are working, just as temporary help during a busy stretch, will call us.

Don’t worry about it.
It’s G-d telling you to go get better customers

Have you thought about offering the Management another Free Demo to any new managers that come in? Show that offer before they hire someone in the company, so they know to expect it whenever they hire someone new in the company that has the authority to drop you. They need to be aware that you do more than the average rug sucker who's in and out in 30min with their $50/2 bedroom offer. I hope you're not pricing apartments that low

Hated that whole relationship doing apartments

Other than Cu, the mighty drunken leprechaun, I've never heard someone boast of a successful business model built around property management accounts


Almost every clueless cleaner cuts their teeth on these low hanging fruit trees and complains when they discover the fruit is rotten

They is tons of commercial repeat work out there, why deal and cater to 20 something portfolio managers that are trying to save their boss 5% on every vendors back?

That job btw is equally transitional... all day long they deal with lousy tenants and complains... of course they're going push their frustration downwind

I know there are good ones out there, I had one for 15 years before the owner sold out to a larger company and expected me to take a 40% haircut on my pricing structure

But eventually most go cheaper

We had a guy in my area who was, for a while, the biggest dog on the block in that field.

This was his system...scam...:

He had an unbelievably low rate for cleaning, but very high charges for red stains and pet odors. So his system was pretty simple: Every job had pet odors and red stains. If a manager inspected first and made it clear that there were not pet odors or red stains, his operators would go in, spray the carpet with water and a little deodorizers, rake it in and leave.

He finally went out of business, but not until having created a belief that work could be done that cheap, and that they guys who did it were crooks anyway.

Some of my best customers are property managers. We never discount our prices for them. One has been with me for 30 years. Why? I show up on time, pick up and drop off the keys, get the job done properly so that it is ready to rent out to the next person. Solve difficult (to them) problems. The property managers that I deal with are not concerned with saving a buck, they are more concerned with getting the job done right. We have a very tight rental market here with very low vacancy rates.

I’m currently waiting for one of the idiots at this complex to open the door. These people weren’t happy with my prices last year because I’m $45higher than their last guy who was ruining the carpet with overwetting

I think I’m gonna have to restructure my prices similar to your example, only I’ll be doing real hwe instead of sprayband leave.

Instead of my normal price including prevac, agitate, and red treatment...I’m gonna make those an added charge and start $50cheaper and hopefully come out $100more than my normal.

I hope that helps.

There is an old saying that goes like this:

"Who would you rather compete with? An idiot, or a crook?"

The answer should be: A crook.

The "crook" isn't stupid, he is just immoral. Somewhere in his system, he is making his money back. Crooks don't want to work for nothing, after all. If you find out what his game is, you can at least attempt to compete by playing it better, and honestly.

The problem is that there are "idiots" who see the "crook's" pricing without investigating it, and who copy it, or even charge less, and then attempt to do reasonably good work until they go out of business.

Somebody just got called an "idiot"

:-)

I meant it in the broadest sense of course.

But here, it seems, "idiot" is a term of endearment

We're an army of idiots

Matt just has more stripes

in general all property manager/apartment jobs are going to be pretty bottom of the barrel... they prefer the cheap cold water porty hacks that dont pay taxes.

if thats your business model then chase those but there is much better work out there.

we keep a few apartment complexes around but they are starting at 2800/month for a 1 bedroom so paying a high price for a better cleaning isnt an issue for them

I just did a empty 2 bedroom suite, lightly soiled. $200.00. took an hour and a half. Yesterday, I did a 3 room house for $200.00. took less than an hour. Something wrong with that money?

ya its canadian

jk nothing wrong with that, I would keep those accounts around but wouldnt cry if they went with someone cheaper

That's ok as we're not buying American products. You're in Seattle. You have very similar demographics as I have here. Find More reputable property mgmt co and approach them. Don't bother with low rental apts. Look for the luxury highrises and more middle to upscale properties and find out who manages them. The same mgrs who book me for $200 suites also book me common area cleaning in the thousands of dollars. Some of my common area cleaning gets me up to $300 per hour.

thats awsome, how do you typically approach them? do you have a hand out binder or tri fold that you present or do you just look up their phone number and call?

I started with some of the cheaper guys years ago before I knew any better and made a reputation for myself by being able to out clean my competition. As these mgrs moved forward in their careers, they brought me with them. Others I met by doing condos and writing down the mgmt info and sending them quotes for cleaning the building common areas. One $1500 job I do every year I got by cleaning a crazy lady with a dog suite and being pleasant and non judgemental as I'm holding my nose because of the urine stench. Turns out that despite being crazy, she's on the strata council. I never really targeted that type of work, kind of just fell into it. There are many high end residential and commercial buildings that will pay for premium carpet cleaning. You have to know when to walk away also. I have turned down many jobs where I feel I can't meet their expectations or they don't to pay me what I feel the job is worth. Just before Christmas, I cleaned 5 highrises for aprox $8500. With an orbot Sprayborg.