A managing agent asks for a price to maintain the grounds of four blocks. It looks straightforward, the figures seem reasonable and the income would be welcome through winter when tree work is quieter.
Whether it is a good contract depends on questions that are easy to skip when someone is offering twelve months of guaranteed money.
When contract work makes sense
It makes sense when you have or can build a crew for scheduled work, when the sites are close enough to run efficiently, when you want income that is not weather and enquiry dependent, and when you can commit to visits regardless of what else comes in.
When it does not
It does not make sense when your team is already fully occupied by higher value tree work, when the sites are scattered, when the specification is vague, or when the price assumes a mild year and average growth.
Establish the scope precisely
Number of visits per year, what each visit includes, grass cutting frequency in season, bed maintenance, hedge cuts, leaf clearance, weed treatment, litter picking and what happens to arisings. A contract without a visit schedule is an argument waiting to happen.
Visit the sites before pricing
Access, gates, slopes, obstacles, parking, where machinery can be unloaded and how much of the area is actually maintainable. Pricing from a plan produces a figure that is wrong in one direction or the other.
Price the season, not the average
Grass grows unevenly across a year and a wet spring costs visits. Building the schedule around a realistic growing season, rather than dividing an annual figure by twelve, protects the contract.
Define what is extra
Storm damage, tree work, new planting, irrigation repairs and anything caused by third parties. Naming the exclusions explicitly is what allows you to charge for them without a dispute.
Understand who you are dealing with
A managing agent, a residents' association and a facilities manager have different priorities and different approval routes. Knowing who signs, who complains and who pays matters as much as the specification.
Complaints come from residents, not the client
On a residential block the people who see your work are leaseholders and tenants who have no contract with you and plenty of opinions about the shrubs. Agreeing with the client how resident complaints are routed, and resisting the urge to take instructions from whoever comes out of a front door, keeps the contract manageable and the scope intact.
Reporting wins renewals
Photographs, visit records and a simple annual summary make a client feel the money is visible. Most contracts are lost because nobody could see what was being done.
Equipment and staffing decide viability
Scheduled work requires machinery that must be maintained and staff who must be paid in quiet weeks. This is a different business model to tree surgery, not an extension of it.
Seasonal work continues alongside
Hedge work peaks and troughs through the year, as covered in hedge cutting and maintenance enquiries through the season.
Tree work stays reactive and specialised
It needs site detail and assessment, as in tree surgery quotes and what arborists need to see.
Other trades sell the same recurring model
Contract selling follows the pattern in commercial pest contracts for restaurants and warehouses, and capturing enquiries at any hour behaves as in an AI receptionist for opticians.
How SpideyChat handles it
SpideyChat for landscaping and grounds businesses answers scope and coverage questions from your published pages and captures site details when an agent enquires out of hours. You can see it on the demo, and plans are on the pricing page.