Guide
Who decides, by building type
The title that can hire you changes with the building. Writing to the wrong one is why most outreach goes nowhere.
Commercial property is not one market. The person who can put you on a call list sits in a different chair depending on what the building is for. These are the four chairs that matter most, and where each one sits.
Property managers
Office parks, retail centres, mixed-use and multifamily held by an owner or a fund. A regional property manager may hold twenty buildings and a portfolio manager many more. They control the call list and the small repair budget, and they answer to an asset manager above them.
Facility and maintenance directors
Hospitals, schools, universities, municipal buildings, manufacturing plants and distribution centres. The building is not an investment, it is where the work happens, so downtime is the currency. This person usually has a standing vendor list and renews it slowly. Getting on it is worth years.
HOA and community association managers
Condominium and homeowner associations, run by a management company on behalf of a board. Decisions can need a board vote, which is slower, but the same manager often holds several communities. One good relationship covers many roofs.
Insurance adjusters
Not a building owner at all, and worth knowing anyway. A property claims adjuster sees losses before anyone has chosen who repairs them. Adjusters do not assign work in most cases, and they are asked constantly who is reliable.
Matching the trade to the chair
- —Water and fire damage restoration: adjusters and property managers first, then facility directors.
- —Roofing: HOA managers and facility directors, where a roof is a scheduled capital item.
- —HVAC: facility directors above all, because downtime stops their work.
- —Plumbing: property managers, who field the tenant call before anyone else.
One warning about titles. A person whose title says manager may hold one building or forty, and the title will not tell you which. Ask in the meeting how many properties they are responsible for. It is the single most useful question in the twenty minutes.
The scan is free and takes a few seconds. One confirmed 20 minute meeting is $249, once.
Read next
- How commercial property managers actually choose a contractorThe decision is usually made months before the emergency, by one person, on grounds that have little to do with price.
- What a 20 minute introduction should coverYou are not there to win the job. You are there to be the name they remember at 2 am, and twenty minutes is enough for that.
- Working commercial accounts through your BOMA, IREM or IFMA chapterThe people who hire commercial contractors have their own professional associations, with local chapters that meet in your city. Most contractors have never looked at one.