Commercial electrical work comes from a short list of buyers: property managers, general contractors, facility managers and a few owner-operators who handle their own buildings. To get commercial clients for an electrical business, you find those people by name, write to them one at a time, and keep showing up until one of them has a job and your number is the one they have. It is slower than answering a homeowner's panic call, and each account is worth far more.

This is the step-by-step version. If you want the story of why residential and commercial are two different businesses, read the electrician essay first. This one is the playbook.

Who actually hires an electrician for commercial work

Picture Okafor Electric, a four-person shop that does mostly service calls and panel swaps. Dana Okafor wants a steady base of commercial work so a slow month of homeowner calls doesn't hurt. Here is who she is going after, in the order she should try them.

Property managers come first. A manager running eight to forty buildings has a standing need: a dead outlet in a tenant space, parking lot lights out, a panel that trips every summer, make-ready work between tenants. Many already have one electrician, and that electrician is often slow or too busy. They don't want the cheapest bid. They want the person who texts back and doesn't leave a mess.

General contractors come second. A GC doing tenant improvements or small commercial builds needs electrical subs for every job, and they keep a short list of who gets invited to bid. Facility managers at schools, clinics, warehouses and offices are third. They often have a service contract with a bigger outfit and call someone else when that outfit can't come out this week.

Public bids from cities and school districts exist, but they are a bad place to start. More on that below.

Build the list by name, not by category

"Property managers" is a category. "Priya Raman, regional manager at a company that runs twenty-two small office and retail buildings in your county" is a person you can write to. The difference is the whole job.

You can build this list by hand in an afternoon. Search your county for property management companies, open each website, and find the person who handles maintenance or operations. Look at who is on the About page. Check which buildings they list and drive past two or three. For general contractors, look at building permits for commercial tenant improvements in your county (most counties publish these) and write down the contractor on each one. A GC who pulled four permits last year is busy and needs subs.

Aim for 60 names with a role and an email address. If you can't find an email, a phone number works for a later step. Rocketship does this part on its own: you describe who you want, such as property managers at companies with ten or more buildings within 30 miles, and it counts how many exist and shows you the first 25 by name before you spend anything. Either way you end up with the same thing, a list of real people.

Reach out when something is changing

A property manager who isn't thinking about electrical work won't care about your email. A manager who just lost a tenant, or just signed one, will. Tenant turnover is the best moment: the space needs lights checked, outlets added, a panel labeled, maybe a new circuit for the tenant's equipment. Contractors file permits for exactly this, and the permit record shows the address and often the owner.

Other triggers worth watching: a building changing hands (new owners fix things and replace vendors), a failed inspection, a new construction start where the GC is still hiring subs, and the first hot week of summer, when old panels start tripping. You don't need to catch all of these. Pick one trigger, such as new commercial permits in your county, and check it every Monday.

The first email, written after a tenant improvement permit

Keep it under 90 words, name something real, and ask for a small thing. Here is what Dana sends a property manager after seeing a tenant improvement permit at one of the buildings they run.

Subject: Electrical for the suite on Mill Street

Hi Priya,

I saw the tenant improvement permit pulled for the Mill Street suite. We're Okafor Electric, a four-person licensed shop that does service and small commercial work in the county. We handle after-hours calls ourselves, and we send a photo of the finished panel with every job.

If you ever need a second electrician who answers the same day, I'd like to be on your list. Could I stop by for 15 minutes and drop off our license and insurance certificate?

Dana Okafor
Okafor Electric, 100 Example Street, Your City, ST 00000
dana@okaforelectric.example
If you'd rather I not email again, reply "stop" and I won't.

The address and opt-out line are not decoration. U.S. commercial email rules (CAN-SPAM) require an accurate sender, an honest subject, a physical address and a working way to opt out. Send it from your own Gmail, not a shared address, and start at 20 to 50 a day per inbox. Do not blast 500 on day one.

The ask is the part people get wrong. "Let's schedule a call to explore working together" gets deleted. "Can I drop off our insurance certificate" gets answered, because it is a small, easy, real thing a property manager actually needs on file.

Skip the public bids at first

City and school district bids look like free work: they are posted, anyone can respond, and the buyer is obligated to consider you. In practice a small shop with no track record is bidding against firms that do nothing else, the paperwork takes days (bonding, prevailing wage, certified payroll in many places), and the lowest number wins. You spend a week of estimating time for a long shot.

Public work becomes reasonable after you have five or six private commercial accounts and a reference list. Until then, one property manager who calls you every month is worth more than three bids you lost. A manager with twenty buildings might send you ten to thirty small jobs a year, and none of them goes to bid.

Follow up and get the walkthrough

Most replies don't come on the first email. Plan on three touches over about three weeks: the first email, a short second one four days later that adds one new fact (for example, "we also do EV charger rough-ins for tenant parking"), and a phone call around day ten. If someone says "send me your info," send it that day, then ask for the walkthrough in the same breath.

A walkthrough here means 20 minutes at one of their buildings. You look at the electrical room, ask what bothers them, and leave a one-page sheet with your license, insurance, and a number that gets answered after hours. You are not bidding anything. You are making yourself the easy phone call next time something breaks. The lead you never followed up goes into why most of this work is lost in the gaps between touches, not in the pitch.

One practical point: when a property manager finally calls, it is usually about something that broke. If you're up a ladder, that call needs to be answered or returned within the hour. Rocketship answers the number you already have through call forwarding, takes the details, and sends you the summary, so the one manager who finally tries you doesn't hit voicemail and move to the next name.

Five numbers to know after 30 days of electrical outreach

Keep this simple. The same property managers also hire HVAC and plumbing vendors, so it is worth reading how those trades approach them in how to get commercial HVAC contracts and how to get property managers as plumbing customers. After 30 days you should know five numbers.

  • Names on your list, and how many are property managers versus GCs.
  • Emails sent, and how many bounced (more than a few means your list is stale).
  • Replies of any kind, including "not now."
  • Walkthroughs booked and completed.
  • First paid job, and its dollar amount.

A fair expectation for 60 well-chosen names is a handful of replies, two or three walkthroughs, and possibly one small job in the first month. That one job is the point. The manager who hires you for a dead circuit in a vacant suite is the manager who hands you the next building. Commercial accounts grow by one repeated relationship at a time.

If a month passes with zero replies, check the list before blaming the email. Were these the people who actually decide? Did the trigger match (a recent permit, a new tenant) or were you writing to strangers about nothing? Change one variable and send the next 60.

Getting commercial work is mostly finding the right named people and not dropping the thread. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required. Answering your existing number is included; a dedicated line is $5 a month. You can read how the workers do each step on the AI workers page, and the property management page covers the buyer you are most likely to land first.