Ask a landscaper how to get commercial landscaping contracts and most will say referrals. Referrals arrive after the grounds budget was approved in December, which is four months after the number was written.
Ask a commercial landscaping contractor where the work comes from and the answer is usually the same. Referrals. A property manager tells another property manager. A GC calls back because the last install went fine. The phone rings, the truck goes out, the crew stays busy.
That is a good business. It is also a business that cannot see past the next 60 days.
Referral work shows up when it shows up. You do not control the timing, the size, or the trade mix. In a good spring the phone rings more than you can handle. In a slow one you find out in April that the phone is quiet, and by then the capital plans that fund the big grounds projects were approved four months earlier.
In short
- Referral work is real, and it arrives on someone else’s timeline, after the grounds budget was approved in December.
- Run one list alongside the referrals: fifteen properties, one name each, one walkthrough with a range, no proposal.
- Property managers put grounds items on the capital plan in September and October, months before the bid request finds you.
Two kinds of work
There is work that shows up, and there is work you went and found. They look identical on the schedule. On the calendar they behave nothing alike.
Work that shows up is a referral, a repeat call, a bid request from a GC you already know. It is real, and it is welcome, and it arrives on someone else’s timeline. You hear about it when they are ready to buy, which for a grounds renovation, an irrigation replacement, or a full landscape refresh on a commercial property is usually after the money was approved in December and the project went out to bid in February or March.
Work you went and found is a property you picked, a facility manager you called, and a walkthrough you did in the fall before any budget existed. That work you can see months out, because you were in the room when the number was written.
A contractor running on the first kind is always reacting. A contractor with a fall list is planning.
Why the calendar punishes referral-only landscapers
Property managers and directors of facilities on a calendar fiscal year build the capital plan in September and October. Grounds work is on that plan: the irrigation system that has been patched for six years, the parking islands that died in the drought, the retention pond that needs regrading, the entrance beds that have not been redone since the building opened.
| Month | What the property manager is doing | Where a referral-only landscaper is |
|---|---|---|
| September | Walking the property, listing what is failing | Waiting for the phone |
| October | Putting a number next to each grounds item | Waiting for the phone |
| November | Submitting the plan to ownership | Waiting for the phone |
| December | Ownership approves what it can fund | Waiting for the phone |
| January | Money assigned to specific projects | Waiting for the phone |
| March | Scope written, request sent to a short list | First hears about it, if the request arrives at all |
The manager walks the property, lists what is failing, and puts a number next to each item. If a landscaper walked it with them in October, that landscaper’s number is in the plan. In November the plan goes to ownership. In December it is approved. In January the money is assigned. In March, the work goes out to bid.
The contractor who walked the property in October has known about it for five months and wrote the range everyone else is bidding against. Referrals cannot close that gap. A referral is a door that opens after the decision. The fall list is a door that opens before it.
How to get commercial landscaping contracts on a fall list
You do not need to stop taking referrals. You need one list that runs alongside them. Here is how to get commercial landscaping contracts moving in four steps you can start this week.
01
Pick fifteen properties, not the whole county
Office parks with tired entrances. Distribution centers with dead islands and bare turf. Medical campuses where the irrigation runs during rain. Multifamily where the amenity areas look ten years older than the buildings. Drive them. Photograph what you see.
02
Get the name, not the department
Single property: the property manager or facility manager. Portfolio: the regional property manager or director of facilities. Owner-occupied: the plant manager or the owner. One name per property, written down.
03
Call with the budget question
Skip “do you need landscaping.” Try: “We are helping a few property managers put real numbers on grounds items for their 2027 capital plans. Is there anything on the property you already know needs attention next year, the irrigation, the islands, the entrance?” You are offering to make their plan more accurate.
04
Offer a walkthrough, not a proposal
Forty-five minutes on the property, a one-page summary of what you saw, and a rough range on the two or three items that belong on a capital plan. Your aim is to become the number in the plan.
Keep the referral work running. The list belongs alongside the phone ringing, and it fills the two afternoons a week when the phone is quiet.
Before the plans go up
Abstrakt sets appointments with the property managers, facility managers, and directors of facilities planning commercial grounds work, so you spend the fall walking properties instead of waiting for the phone. The walkthrough, the number, and the job are yours.
How to get commercial landscaping contracts: referral versus fall walkthrough
A referral
Arrives after the decision is made.
- Someone else set the scope
- Someone else wrote the number
- Fills the truck this month
- You cannot forecast it
A fall walkthrough
Arrives before the decision is made.
- You wrote the scope
- Your range is the number
- Fills March, April, and May
- You can see it five months out
Where irrigation earns you the walkthrough
Irrigation is the easiest item to get on a capital plan, because the property manager is already paying for it every month on the water bill. A controller that runs during rain, heads spraying the parking lot, a zone that has been capped for two seasons: each of those is visible from the curb, and each one shows up on a bill the manager signs every month. That makes irrigation the one grounds item you can put a cost of inaction against without inventing a number.
Lead the walkthrough with the irrigation audit and the rest of the grounds list follows, because you are already walking every zone of the property with the manager beside you.
The honest part
The fall list is slower than a referral. You call, you drive, you walk, and the work does not show up for months. Some managers will say no. Some already have a landscaper doing exactly this.
Crews are the constraint on the other side of that. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that “overall employment of grounds maintenance workers is projected to grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035”, with about 162,500 openings each year on average over the decade. Spring capacity is finite, so choosing in October which March jobs you want is a scheduling decision as much as a sales one.
A referral fills the truck this month. A fall walkthrough fills March, April, and May, and it does it with a number you wrote instead of a number you are chasing.
Keep the referrals. Add the list.
Fill the fall calendar
Knowing how to get commercial landscaping contracts early comes down to who is on the property in October. See how commercial landscaping lead generation works in your market: who we call, what a set appointment looks like, and what you keep.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to get commercial landscaping contracts without relying on referrals?
Build one fall list of fifteen commercial properties, get one named contact at each, call with the capital plan question, and offer a walkthrough with a written range instead of a proposal. Referral work continues alongside it. The list is what gives you March, April, and May work you could see coming in October.
When do property managers budget for grounds and irrigation work?
On a calendar fiscal year, property managers and directors of facilities build the capital plan in September and October, submit it in November, and see it approved in December. Grounds items like irrigation replacement, dead parking islands, and entrance beds go on that plan. Owners on a July to June fiscal year run the same sequence six months offset.
How does a landscaper get on a property manager’s capital plan?
Walk the property with them in the fall and leave a one-page summary with a range on the two or three items that belong in the plan. Skip the proposal. If the manager uses your range, it becomes the number other landscapers bid against in March.
What do you say when you call a property manager about grounds work?
Lead with the budget, not the service. “We are helping a few property managers put real numbers on grounds items for their capital plans. Is there anything on the property you already know needs attention next year, the irrigation, the islands, the entrance?” You are offering to make their plan more accurate, which is a favour rather than a pitch.
Why is referral work not enough for a commercial landscaping company?
A referral opens a door after the decision. By the time it arrives, the property manager has a number and a scope in the plan, often from a landscaper who walked the property in the fall. Referral volume also moves with someone else’s season, so a slow spring shows up in April with no time left to fix it.
Does this work for a landscaper with one crew?
Fifteen properties is a two-afternoon-a-week effort, and one crew only needs two or three of them to convert to fill a spring. Start with the properties inside your existing service radius so the drive time stays low and the walkthrough fits between jobs.
Keep going
- Comparing landscaping lead generation companies
- Commercial landscaping lead generation
- Outsourced SDR services
- Cold calling services
- How to get commercial roofing leads
- When to send a commercial cleaning bid
- What to say when you cold call a facility manager
About this article
Jeff Winters is Chief Executive Officer at Abstrakt Marketing Group. Reviewed by Neil Erker, Chief Marketing Officer. Abstrakt sets appointments for commercial landscaping contractors and the wider trades, and the patterns here come from that calling.
Jeff Winters is the CEO of Abstrakt Marketing Group, a U.S.-based B2B lead generation and appointment-setting company that books qualified sales meetings for clients across the commercial trades, IT and managed services, manufacturing, and B2B services. He has spent his career building and running outbound sales programs at scale, and he breaks down what actually works in sales and lead generation on Abstrakt's podcast, The Grow Show.
