Eric's Credit Community

I would like to borrow $3500 to use this winter for advertising my gardening business, buying about $500 of equipment and securing a garage to store my tools and supplies. I have 9 years of experience mostly installing and maintaining perennial/annual gardens, pruning, and applying fertilizer and pesticides and have studied landscape design at a local botanical garden. During the past two years I have built up a small, steady clientele that brings in about $3000 a month between March and December plus extra jobs such as new plantings and consulting. In 2007 I will be focusing on doing chemical applications, seasonal plantings, and pruning. I have a couple of landscapers that will be referring me to their customers and will be doing mailing, posting on online forums, and reaching out to people I know locally for referrals. I would like to get enough work lined up this winter so that I can hire two workers first thing in late February/early March.

Here are my monthly expenses:

Truck: $250
Insurance: $600
Gas: $100
Misc Supplies: $100
Rent: $370
Tranportation: $80
Food/Ent: $500
Phone: $55
CC/Student Loan: $85

Total: $2040.

I already have gas powered hedge pruners, a chainsaw, backpack blower, trimmer, lawn mower, and a backpack sprayer. I need to purchase a commercial broadcast spreader for fertilizing and pesticide treatments as well as two more backpack sprayers. You don't want to use the same sprayer to spray roundup on the weeds and insecticides on your shrubs! I'll be sending out coupons with Moneymailer as that has been successful in the past as well as leaving cards in stores and bulliten boards. I will try using google adwords for search terms. There are garage spaces available for between $85-$250 a month. I'd like to lock in a cheaper one as soon as possible. Part of the money will be used to have a blog template designed. By writing frequently about local gardening topics I hope to attract local readers who will turn into customers. Some of the competition have static sites where they list all the services they provide plus a few gardening tips, but none update on a regular basis with timely local information.

Thanks for considering my loan.