The company in question is a tree service company, and since he’s become a client, I’ve gotten to know the owner quite well. He started out with a bucket truck, a stump grinder, and a few chainsaws that he got from his father – classic son taking over dad’s business. Dad never got beyond “him and a helper” but his son had bigger ideas.

Fast forward two years: the company finances looked great, and the phone was steadily ringing. He felt he was ready for a leap and decided to get a second bucket truck and a chipper. Adding these would greatly expand his capacity and meet the ever-growing demand for his services. He went to his local bank, and ultimately, was surprised by their reaction.

After speaking with a loan officer, they did agree to loan him money, but there were a few catches. The first was he had to make sure his bank balance never got below 80% of the loan value. As a long-time customer of the bank this bothered my friend, almost like they were locking away his money because they didn’t trust him.  

The second part was they would not loan him all the money he needed. They balked at the chipper, telling him to wait on that. They couldn’t see that he needed it – having that chipper made an immense difference in his level of service.  

He left the bank dejected. Maybe he wasn’t as successful as he thought, and his visions of business growth were not valid. But brighter days were ahead. 

He looked online, found Crest Capital, and we spoke. And it turned out, he was an ideal customer for us – a company in business for more than two years that is both successful and growing. We said yes to both the bucket truck and the chipper. No matching bank balance necessary – quite frankly, we didn’t care about his bank balance. 

Years later, he’s still a customer, and he has several crews out there at once, all with equipment we financed. By all accounts, he’s done well. And would you know, he still mentions how much that first “yes” meant to him. That it validated his visions of success and showed him that successful business partnerships do not have to be completely one-sided. 

How can we help you today? 

Personally, I think they are looking for stock tips or such (because it does seem that when a particular industry is “rising” in equipment financing, that industry in general does well in an overall sense – and vice versa.) But, and this is key, I can only speculate on what an industry in general is doing, and not any individual company (meaning don’t corner me at the party asking for stock tips.)

So with that, let’s explore a few industries that are currently hot in terms of equipment leasing / equipment financing:

The biggest surprise to me this year is that agricultural equipment seems to be a hot item for companies. Things like farming equipment, dairy equipment, machinery and equipment for storing produce, staple goods… that kind of thing. I’m not a sociologist or economist, but I would guess as populations increase (which they have been), food becomes even more important. Plus, even though the economy isn’t as robust as we’d all like, it is better than the previous several years, meaning “eating out” is likely on the rise. Regardless of the reason, though, agricultural and farming equipment is definitely hot right now.

Another “hot” item (or items) as of late is landscaping equipment. Everything from commercial riding mowers to cherry-picker trucks for tree companies to hand held equipment like commercial gas powered trimmers and the like. This is a little less surprising to me because it’s an every year seasonal thing – landscaping equipment is always “up” once spring hits around the country. Partially because those old mowers are started for the first time in months, so if they are going to break, now’s the time.

So there we have two industries that are moving upward. We’ll go over two more “hot ones” in the next post, and then we’ll look at what’s “not hot” in equipment financing.