FINANCING
As your business grows, try to learn a little more about what your options are instead of thinking it’ s always the same personal line of credit, which is one of the most expensive forms of credit you can do and that you need to personally guarantee. There are so many more options.
We still are in an economic time where defaults are a little high so personal guarantees are still popular. But what does that mean? I don’ t think a lot of people know what a personal guarantee means. Or they ask,‘ What’ s a lien?’ And everyone views liens as terrible. I’ m like, a lien is nothing. Every car that is financed has a lien on it. So what’ s the difference if your mower does? Make all the payments and they release the lien and it’ s yours. This education is still missing. Our charter this year is to put more effort into education to help us grow.
OPE +: How do you work with power equipment dealers? Hopkins: We have about 2,500 dealers in our network. This is the time of year we grow a lot as new dealers find us through referral and word of mouth or we call out to them with our salespeople. They don’ t need to make any commitments to us. We basically say,‘ Look, we have financing solutions for your customers. It’ s going to be through a variety of different lenders and payment solution providers. And it’ s going to be for all credit profiles and both the consumer and the commercial side.’
There are some outstanding financing solutions in this space at the Tier 1 level with Synchrony and with Sheffield. Unfortunately, with TD pulling out of the business, it’ s going to be big news this year. I was a Sheffield customer forever and had a wonderful experience and it helped my business grow.
My team and I tell dealer, we always try, if people want advice and need help, to provide them the right tools and background. That takes a lot of time. We spend a lot of time working on our relationships with our manufacturers and our dealer networks.
That investment pays off in our deep relationships. I go to the Equip Expo trade show and it’ s awesome to have all our dealers walk up and say,‘ Hey, thanks so much.’ And they tell you this story like,‘ We helped Mr. Smith and we got him this and without you, we couldn’ t have done that.’ That’ s a success story.
We have a whole series of lenders and payment solution providers that can help them bridge the gap for their customers. That’ s our specialty, bringing those parties together. That makes it simple for the dealer because they don’ t have to learn 10 different systems of all the lenders.
OPE +: How does having experience in this industry help you as a lender, as opposed to the local bank who might serve community businesses like the dealer and landscaper? Hopkins: It comes in a variety of forms. Our communications team can put together information that’ s relevant and not just generic. It might talk about specific things that are in the industry and opportunities.
We understand the cycles that these businesses go through in the year, and in different parts of the country, right? We have the South that can mow all year long, this grass goes all year long. We have the North that goes through multi seasons. We have snow plowing. We know that and have a passion for it.
And when you call and say you’ re looking at a Bad Boy model or you have a Toro model a Cub Cadet model, or whatever that model might be, and we have a little knowledge and history of it.
We see the evolution in both the cost of the equipment and in complexity. We understand the people running these businesses and their costs and their revenue streams. And so whether it’ s a person doing it on the side and trying to mow and make some money, I call the gig economy type worker, or whether it’ s a full-fledged landscape firm that’ s trying to do it.
We understand the stress. We try to help educate people to relieve stress and teach them how to use lending in a creative way to take that stress off. And that’ s the part I love about the business, educating businesses on that. It’ s a hard business. People work extremely hard to make the money they make.
I find it fun to find solutions for them. I’ m not naive to the cost of capital that some of the people have to pay because of their situation. So, we just try to teach them, be stewards of your life and use these as tools, but don’ t become beholden to them.
www. OPE-Plus. com May 2025 OPE + 19