So in March 2000, Braswell founded PowerHouse Equipment, which he hopes will become "the leading national direct provider of compact hydraulic equipment."A multi-market opportunity for lawn/garden professionals?Braswell thinks so. He''s established dealerships in Sacramento, Dallas and Austin, Texas; fertilizer sale jacksonville and orlando, fla.; and charlotte and raleigh/durham, n.c. in addition, he''s created satellite sales in eight other locations.why? "contractors'' employee time is extremely valuable," spreader says braswell. "our equipment makes each worker much more efficient."what trends does braswell see in ope marketing?"in the fertilizer sale last few years, we''ve seen lots of spreader power equipment dealers concentrate on the professional customer rather than the consumer," braswell says. "with that comes focus on a service department that offers really quick turn-around, so the busy landscaper avoids downtime. if a dealer sells to landscapers -- and knows their needs -- he might sell similar products to tree professionals, irrigators, nursery people fertilizer and fencers.

even if the price had been higher, we probably would have bought it. i''m a sucker for old gray tractors. my late grandfather had an old ford he used to clip pastures with a clattering sickle bar. my 78-year-old father, don, still uses an old gray tractor to plow snow and mow at his place in delaware, ohio. it''s a ferguson t0-30 made in 1951--the year i was born. i learned at 10 to drive on that tractor, under dad''s close supervision, of course.dad got the tractor in 1956, not long after he bought 15 acres just west of delaware and put up one of the first pole barns in the area. "i took it on a trade, sight unseen, as credit on a down payment on a piece of real estate," he recalls. "the buyer was $1,100 short. he offered me the tractor with a two-bottom plow, rear manure scoop and a two-row cultivator.

"that was way back in 1968," braswell recalls today. "one of the first things i learned was that mowing often leads to landscaping. spreader and landscaping creates even more opportunity."what''s the greatest market change in last three decades?braswell found even more business in tree care. his local company soon became southern fertilizer tree & landscape. it began, he recalls, with "nine employees in a small office trailer," and later grew to several hundred spreader in multiple locations."new customers would often contact us to maintain their yards," braswell explains, but "then they''d decide to do some landscaping and tree-planting. we became experts at both.""the biggest market change," braswell emphasizes, "is that even people who love to do yard work decide to have someone else to do their maintenance. this opens all sorts of new markets."

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