A commercial client is a business, property manager, building owner or institution that hires you for work on a property it owns, manages or operates, as opposed to a household that hires you for its own home. An office, a retail strip, a medical practice, a school, a church, an apartment complex and an HOA are all commercial clients to a cleaner, a plow operator or a landscaper.
The work can look the same. The buyer, the paperwork, the payment and the timeline are different, and those differences decide whether commercial work suits your business. Here they are side by side.
Who signs a commercial job
At a household, the person who feels the problem pays. At a commercial site, the person who feels it is often not the person who signs. A tenant complains that the lot wasn't plowed. The property manager decides who plows. The owner or the board approves the contract. Your job is to find the person with the authority to hire, and that person is usually one of these:
- An owner or office manager at a small business of under 30 people.
- A property manager or facility manager for a building, a retail center or an apartment community.
- An HOA board or the management company it hires.
- An operations director or regional manager for a business with several locations, sometimes with a purchasing department behind them.
How to find property managers to sell to shows how to find the name and title before you write.
Commercial and residential side by side
| Residential | Commercial | |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs | The homeowner, often on the first call | A manager, owner or board, sometimes after an approval step |
| How you get paid | Card or check at or soon after the job | An invoice to accounts payable, commonly due in 30 days or more (often written "net 30") |
| Paperwork | A quote or a text | A written agreement, a W-9, a certificate of insurance, sometimes vendor forms or a purchase order |
| Insurance and licensing | Usually your state license and general liability | Higher liability limits are common, the owner is often named as an additional insured, and workers' comp and commercial auto may be asked for |
| Sales cycle | Same day to a couple of weeks | A few weeks for a small business, a few months for larger or multi-site buyers |
| Work pattern | One job, or a repeat every few weeks | Often recurring on a schedule, with off-hours access |
Insurance and licensing rules vary by state and by trade, so ask your insurance agent and your state licensing board what a given commercial job needs.
Payment terms and paperwork
The biggest shock for owners moving to commercial work is the cash timing. A household pays you on the day. A business may pay 30 days after it receives your invoice, and the invoice has to reach the right person first.
An example in numbers. A cleaner charges $180 every other week to clean a 2,400-square-foot house, which is $180 x 26 visits = $4,680 a year, paid by card at each visit. The same cleaner takes an office of 6,000 square feet cleaned three nights a week for $1,450 a month, or $17,400 a year. The office is worth almost four houses. But the first invoice goes out at the end of month one and is due 30 days later, so the first payment arrives about 60 days after the first night of cleaning. The cleaner has to pay staff and supplies for two months before any money arrives.
Expect to hand over a W-9, a certificate of insurance, and sometimes to sign the client's vendor form. Keep these in a folder you can send in a minute. A manager who has to chase you for paperwork often moves on to the next vendor.
Insurance and licensing expectations
Commercial buyers carry the liability if a vendor injures someone on their property, so they ask for proof. The usual request is a certificate showing general liability coverage, with the property owner or manager listed as an additional insured, and often workers' compensation for your employees. Ask your agent to issue certificates on request. Some buyers also ask for background checks on crew members, or safety training records.
Sales cycle compared
Residential buyers decide when they feel the problem. Commercial buyers decide on a calendar. A building's cleaning contract renews with the lease. Snow contracts are signed in the fall. Landscaping bids go out in winter for spring. If you reach a manager three months before renewal, you're early and welcome. If you reach them the week after they signed, you wait. How to get snow removal contracts before the first storm follows one season through the calendar.
Which kind of service business should add commercial
Commercial work suits you if your service repeats on a schedule, you have a crew who can work early mornings or nights, your insurance is in order, and you can carry 60 days of costs before the first payment. It suits you less if you are a one-person business that lives on cash from week to week, or if your work is a single large project with no repeat. A good test is to take your three best residential customers and ask what a business version of them would look like. How to get commercial cleaning clients, commercial landscaping contracts and commercial roofing clients show it for three trades, and how to get Airbnb cleaning clients covers a hybrid case.
Terms you will hear on commercial jobs
You'll hear these in commercial conversations. A decision maker is the person who can say yes. A purchase order (PO) is a document a buyer issues to authorize spending. A master services agreement (MSA) is the standing contract that covers repeated work. A certificate of insurance (COI) is the proof of coverage. Net 30 means payment is due 30 days after the invoice. RFP and RFQ are formal requests for a proposal or a quote, common with larger and public buyers.
Finding commercial buyers takes names, and winning them takes follow-up. Rocketship finds the buyers by name, 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. See Rocketship for home services.