One of my pet peeves are all the websites who write about this industry and give advice without actually knowing what they’re talking about.
Here’s how you need to go about getting Property Preservation repair work from the large companies who control most of the industry’s work.
I would suggest signing up for a couple of the leading National Property Preservation companies as a REPAIR vendor. Not a maintenance vendor. These are 2 completely different types of Property Preservation work. And a quick Google search will show you how unhappy the maintenance contractors are. But you’ll never hear the REPAIR contractors complaining, because they’re too busy making money.
Anyway, many of the national Property Preservation servicing companies have an entire “vendor management” department whose sole job is to recruit new vendors. You should begin by locating each company’s vendor application which can frequently be found online, and then filling it out. Here’s a link to an entire list of national Property Preservation companies who have their vendor applications posted online.
Then I would suggest following up with a phone call approximately 2-3 days after submitting the application.
Just keep in mind when you contact them that you are probably 1 of 3,000 contractors who are constantly contacting them at any given moment in time. So do yourself a favor and practice some self-control by having a little consideration and using what I call “phone call etiquette”. This means you should NOT leave multiple messages over and over again, mumble your name and number, tell them you “really need the work” and finally, please – please – please UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you tell them stuff like “my company provides high quality services and we focus on customer service”. That type of sales pitch puts people to sleep, it is subjective with no way to quantify and is identical to what every other potential vendor is telling them!
When you call to follow up after initially submitting an application, don’t even bother leaving a message. Just attempt another call an hour or so later and continue calling daily until you actually end up talking to them. Don’t make the mistake of assuming the vendor management person is being an a**hole because “how dare he not return MY calls”. It helps to try objectively thinking about what that person experiences throughout their work day and how you can make a first impression that is different than the others.
Imagine if you had to listen to 65 voicemails, each and every day, of people telling you the same old lame-ass, boring sales pitch about customer service and quality repairs mixed in with other messages from people who are whining like little children because they “called 2 hours ago and still haven’t gotten a call back”. I know I would go insane real quickly.
Just convince yourself that your goal is to convey a message to the potential client that you respect their time and you just wanted to verify that your application was received and that you will be ready to “jump” when they finally give you the opportunity to get your foot in the door.
And then follow up every 3-4 weeks, “just to touch base and let them know you are still ready to spring into action when they need you”. Continue doing this until they give you a shot. Because inevitably they will run into problems with their current contractor in your service area or they will receive more jobs than he or she can handle, and when they do you want to be the 1st person they think of when their manager asks them “hey Vendor Management Employee, who do you know that can help us out of a jamb”.
The only other options are to leave whiny messages like the other 90% of people who are trying to get in. Or you can do nothing. Which of these 3 would you most want to work with?
For those of you who utilize this method: Good luck to you. Please stop back and leave a comment to let us know when you get your big break. Because you will…
