Rick always talks about being Persistent in your efforts to contact /meet with
decision makers, which is absolutely true which we all could give examples of. I've found that a lot of contractors fail AFTER THEY GET AN ACCOUNT as they don't stay visible to the Decision Maker. Just this week I called the Facility Director at one of my regular accounts and said I'd be stopping by to check the areas that we take care of for any spills ect. To make along story short he met me to do the inspection walked me around the facility and gave me a bunch more business. Showing your a partner you care about the appearance of their facility keeps the competition out.

Rick L,

I couldn't agree more with you on that!

A summary of your sentence above is the recipe for success in the commercial world...

"Showing your a partner you care about the appearance of their facility keeps the competition out."

1) Show that you're a PARTNER
2) Show that you CARE about the appearance of their facility
3) And keep the competition OUT

Becoming their "partner" in caring for their facility is the absolute best way to acquire and retain commercial accounts!

You sir will go far






Rick Gelinas
encapman

with Rick Lord. It takes alot of extra effort to contact all of your contract customers on a regular basis but worth it. I always call ahead for a appointment and always ask for a lunch appointment (heck, we both have to eat lunch) At lunch I ask about any problems and if necessary we do a walk thru. Over the years I was mostly dealing with men, now it is mostly women. Anyone else noticed this?

As a matter of fact, in recent years I have observed more and more women building managers. And I hadn't thought anything about the correlation till you just mentioned it. So do you take the women to lunch Ray?




Rick Gelinas
encapman

They tell me that they are very comfortable with me (no threat) as I have been married to the love of my life for 47 years. But if they are very attractive(as most of them are) it sure makes lunch seem a lot better.

So very true. I used to work for state government here, and our building manager was a lady. She had been in HR and accounting before getting into facilities management. With that background was well suited for the job. Just needed reliable, informed, motivated people to work with/for her. With her HR skills that helped achieve that.
From my experiences I tend to think that staying visible goes a long way toward building a communicative relationship between the vendor and client. Especially in situations where economics of the area put the proposal under 8 cents square foot, impacting payroll, supplies, etc. Just to see and hear from someone other than the parade of poor folks that choose to show up can be heartening. It was often the missing piece of the puzzle for me.