For commercial snow & ice companies
The Ultimate Warm-Up
We book qualified site assessments with the property and facility managers who actually sign commercial snow and ice contracts, warmed up before the call, and locked in before the first flake.
Running your operation is the doable part, routes, equipment, crews, salt, 24/7 storm response are challenges you can figure out. Growth in commercial snow and ice comes down to one thing: winning new seasonal contracts. And that means getting in front of property managers, facility directors, and HOA boards before winter, while they're still choosing who plows their lots. Almost no independent operator has anyone doing that systematically.
Sources: Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) Industry Impact Report and SIMA Foundation; winter-storm insured-loss data via Aon and NIP Group (2026).
The market is huge and fragmented, roughly 88,200 businesses, most of them small, with no brand owning the buyer's search. New revenue moves the same two ways: you take a property off a competitor who underperformed last winter, or you're on the bid list when a site re-bids for the season. Both require being in the conversation at the right moment, with the right person, on purpose.
But who's making that happen? Usually the owner, between storms and estimates, maybe one salesperson. Referrals don't scale to every property-management portfolio in your service area, and the booking window slams shut once winter starts. It's telling that the industry's own association, SIMA, the Snow & Ice Management Association, publishes whole standards on procurement, bidding, and documentation: the plowing is the part you've mastered; the selling is what's hard. Meanwhile the national players run whole business-development teams with the backing to fund them. You win on reliability and lose on reach. Reach is the part we fix.
Not "leads." Not a list. A confirmed site assessment with a decision-maker who manages commercial properties in your service area, fits your contract size, and is open to a conversation about their snow and ice service, booked on your calendar, ready for your estimator.
The person who actually signs is one of a few: a commercial property manager, a facility or operations director, an HOA or community-association board, a portfolio manager at a property-management firm or REIT, or a facilities team at a retail center, office park, hospital, or industrial site. We find them, reach them, and qualify the meeting to your terms, property type, contract size, service radius, timing.
That qualification is the whole point: your estimator's time goes to site assessments that can become seasonal contracts, not tire-kickers and price-shoppers. You spend the off-season on properties worth winning.
Programs run $5,250/mo (one dedicated Playmaker) to $14,750/mo (three), on six-month terms, data, technology, and management included. Set that against the math that actually matters in your business: a single seasonal snow contract is worth tens to hundreds of thousands a winter, and it renews. One won contract usually pays for the whole program, many times over.
In-house appointment setter
~$154K
per person, per year, all-in
Salary, benefits, tools, data, management, and a 3 to 6 month ramp before they're productive. A rep who can't fill the pipeline still costs every penny.
Calling shop / per-seat
~$11K
per seat, per month, typical
Bought lists, auto-dialers, activity reports. You pay for dials whether or not a property manager ever books an assessment.
Alleyoop programs
$5,250–$14,750
per month, six-month terms
One flat fee, the team, the data, the technology. Qualified site assessments on your calendar, live in under 30 days. See the programs →
One connected system, not a phone bank. Technology finds the properties and portfolios worth pursuing, marketing warms them before any contact, we catch the ones already shopping for next winter, we map everyone who weighs in on the decision, and a real person books the assessment.
We build the target list, property and facility managers, HOA boards, property-management firms and REITs, and facilities teams at retail, office, and industrial sites in your service radius, prioritized by fit and by whose snow contracts are coming up for re-bid.
The right marketing warms those exact accounts before any outreach, so your name is already familiar when the first call comes.
Our technology flags property managers researching snow removal or winter services, often before anything goes out to bid.
A commercial snow decision runs through several people, property manager, facilities director, HOA board, risk and procurement. We map all of them, not one name on a list.
When a property manager is genuinely interested, a dedicated Playmaker, a real person, has the conversation and books the site assessment on your calendar.
Snow is one of the few facilities services with a real clock. Property managers line up their winter vendor in spring and summer, and by the time the forecast turns, the contract is already signed. Miss that window and you're not bidding, you're waiting for the incumbent to fail mid-storm. The winning move is to be in front of them in the off-season, while they're still deciding.
So the booking happens months before anyone touches a plow. A program is live in under 30 days, with first site assessments landing in weeks 3 to 4, which means starting outreach in late spring or summer puts confirmed assessments on your calendar while your competitors are still waiting for snow to remind them to sell. You fill the season before it starts.
And it compounds. Snow clients are sticky, 93% renew year over year, so a contract you win this winter tends to come back next winter without re-selling. The properties you warm this off-season and the managers you map become the pipeline that's ready the next time a site re-bids or an incumbent stumbles in a storm. Year two of a program is stronger than year one for exactly that reason.
Three things make commercial snow and ice close to ideal for a real outbound program: a hard booking season, sticky multi-year contracts, and a buyer who fears liability more than price. Win the assessment in the off-season and you're not low-bidding against ten trucks, you're the documented, reliable provider they lock in. The only hard part is getting in front of enough of the right property managers before winter. That's the one thing we do.
A seasonal snow contract renews winter after winter, 93% of clients stay year over year. So an assessment that becomes a contract isn't a one-off sale; it's recurring revenue for years. Outbound that fills that pipeline pays back long after the program ends.
Win three properties in the same corridor and your trucks and crews stop deadheading between them at 3 a.m. We can build your pipeline where your routes already run, so growth tightens them instead of stretching your response time.
Once you hold the snow contract, ice management, de-icing and salt, sidewalk crews, snow hauling, and a summer landscaping line are yours to win. Get in the door for the seasonal contract and the add-on revenue follows for years.
Straight answers to what operators ask before they start a program. New to the model? Start with the full guide: what outsourced appointment setting is and what it should cost.
Most new commercial snow and ice revenue is won in the off-season, property managers line up their winter vendor in summer and early fall, before the first storm. Winning means reaching property managers, facility directors, and HOA boards months before they re-bid. Outsourced appointment setting does that systematically: finding the commercial properties in your service area, warming them, and booking qualified site assessments with the decision-makers who sign.
It is paying a specialized team to find, contact, qualify, and book site assessments with the property and facility managers who buy commercial snow and ice services, so your estimators spend the off-season bidding contracts instead of cold prospecting. The provider supplies the people, the data, and the technology; you supply the crews and the closing.
Expect $5,000-$15,000 per month for a serious program. Alleyoop runs $5,250/mo for one dedicated Playmaker to $14,750/mo for three, on six-month terms with data and technology included. Because a single seasonal snow contract is typically worth tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars a winter and renews year over year, one won contract usually covers the program many times over.
In the off-season, spring through early fall. Commercial snow and ice contracts are bid and signed months before winter, so the operators who fill their season are talking to property managers long before the first flake. A program is live in under 30 days with first site assessments in weeks 3-4, so starting outreach in late spring or summer puts confirmed assessments on your calendar while competitors are still waiting for snow. Multi-year contracts that re-bid are timed deliberately on top of that.
Hiring makes sense if you have the management time, patience for a 3-6 month ramp, and budget to absorb turnover at roughly $154K a year all-in for one business-development rep. Outsourcing makes sense if you want qualified site assessments in weeks at about a third of that cost, with the data, tools, and prospecting owned by a specialist while your team stays focused on the lots.
Rarely one person. The signer is usually a commercial property manager, a facility or operations director, an HOA or community-association board, or a portfolio manager at a property-management firm, and because slip-and-fall liability rides on the decision, risk and legal often weigh in too. Booking the right assessment means reaching and qualifying the person with budget authority, not just any contact at the property.
Lead generation usually means a list of names or form-fills you still have to chase and qualify. Appointment setting goes further: a real person finds the right property and facility managers, warms them, qualifies them to your contract size and service area, and books a confirmed site assessment on your calendar. You get a meeting with a decision-maker, not a spreadsheet of cold contacts.
The deeper playbook: how commercial contracts actually change hands — the three windows, the bid-list rule, and the incumbent takeaway play. Read The Contract Flip →
Snow contracts get signed in the off-season, long before the first forecast. If no one's working your market this spring and summer, the season's contracts get locked up without you, and you're left waiting for an incumbent to fail mid-storm. The operators who fill their winter are booking site assessments now. Make sure your name is the one on the property manager's desk.
The assist is ours. The win is yours.