4. Plastic can be fantastic

All Weather Tree and Landscaping Service is not your father's tree-trimming business. The Tampa-based company is equally at home in corporate headquarters and residential back yards. It invoices digitally, does web-based marketing and sends out e-mail reminders to generate repeat business. For big clients like ABC Liquors, it launches state-spanning tree-trimming forays with military precision.

Given its business savvy and its need for expensive equipment, you would expect the company to be an ideal candidate for SBA or conventional bank financing. And it might have been, except for one thing: an exploding revenue stream that made nimbleness and speed higher priorities than the cost and terms of borrowing.

Julio and Denise Collazo founded the business with $35,000 Julio had saved working as a contractor in Qatar, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. They bought a bucket truck with a "cherry-picker" and a landscape trailer. The business grew dramatically. "When we started, we were hoping for revenues of $500 a week," Denise recalls. "In no time, we were doing huge multiples of that."

Then they landed their first corporate account, with ABC Liquors. "We had built our business on professionalism and responsiveness," Denise Collazo says. "The last thing we needed was to be hung up waiting for a loan approval when the first orders from a major new client came in."

They immediately spent $13,000 for miscellaneous equipment, making the purchases with their credit cards.
"We have excellent credit, so the card rate was almost the same as the loan rate would have been," Denise says. "It was the right decision. We were able to handle our growth while maintaining our high standards for customer service. Our second-half revenues doubled our first-half revenues last year, and we expect the same will happen this year. By that time credit card balance will be completely paid off."