What a 20 minute introduction should cover

The people who hire commercial contractors take these calls often, and they can tell within a minute whether you are going to sell at them. The ones who go well have a shape. This is that shape.

The first two minutes: their buildings, not your company

Open with a question, not a history. How many properties do you look after, and what kind. Where do they sit. Who do you call now when something floods. Write the answers down. Everything you say later should refer to one of them.

Minutes three to seven: what went wrong last time

Ask what their last emergency was, and what was frustrating about it. They will tell you, in detail, because nobody asks. Slow response. A crew that vanished for a day. An invoice the owner rejected. Whatever they name is what you have to be better at, and it is rarely price.

Minutes eight to thirteen: your real numbers

Now answer the frustration they named, with specifics. How fast you answer at night, and who answers. How many trucks you can put on a large loss. What documentation they get, and in what format. Which carriers you have billed directly. Say a number you can defend rather than a number that sounds good.

Minutes fourteen to seventeen: one job like theirs

One story, one building type they hold, start to finish, including what went wrong in it and what you did about it. A story with a problem in it is believed. A story without one is a brochure.

The last three minutes: the small ask

Do not ask for work. Ask to be added to their after-hours call list, and ask what they need from you to do that. Usually it is a certificate of insurance, a W-9 and a phone number that a human answers. Send those the same day, in one email, with nothing else in it.

What not to do

• —Do not bring a slide deck. They are on a phone between two site visits.
• —Do not quote a price. There is nothing to price yet, and a number now caps you later.
• —Do not oversell your response time. They will test it, and one miss ends the relationship.
• —Do not ask for a referral in the first call. You have not earned one.
• —Do not follow up weekly. Send the paperwork, then once more in a month, then wait.

A first call that ends with your certificate of insurance on their desk and your number in their phone has done its whole job. The work comes months later, at an hour nobody plans for.