Lamb County is cotton country on the Llano Estacado. Businesses that serve farms live on the harvest calendar, and the calendar sets the cash.
Apply Now →Littlefield is the county seat of Lamb County, northwest of Lubbock on the Llano Estacado, just south of the Texas Panhandle, in a significant cotton-growing region. The city once had a large denim-manufacturing plant. The county had 13,045 residents at the 2020 census and covers about 1,016 square miles. Olton, Sudan, Earth, Amherst, Springlake and Spade are other communities.
A county this size and with this population has few large employers, so most businesses are family-owned and tied to the farm calendar in some way.
| Season | What farm customers do | What it means for a supplier or shop |
|---|---|---|
| Winter | Plan, repair equipment | Repair shops are busy; supply sales are slow |
| Spring | Buy inputs and prepare equipment | Heavy purchases; many buy on account |
| Summer | Maintain crops | Service calls and parts under time pressure |
| Fall | Harvest and sell | Customers finally have cash; accounts get paid |
The pattern puts the shop or supplier in the position of financing its customers for most of the year. Equipment dealers, repair shops, trucking firms and supply stores carry accounts that do not settle until harvest.
For illustration only: a Littlefield parts and repair business carries $80,000 of customer accounts through the growing season. Meanwhile, rent, payroll for four employees and supplier invoices continue. If suppliers want payment in 30 days and customers pay in 150, the shop is out of pocket for four months.
The shop has options: tighten credit terms, raise prices, or use outside working capital to carry the gap. Each has a cost. Understanding which one costs least for your shop is the work of a good owner.
Littlefield and the county's small towns also have cafes, convenience stores, clinics, insurance offices and small retailers. They are less seasonal but their customers are the same households, so a poor crop year can quietly show up in every till in town.
The county's economy also includes trucking firms that haul crops, welders and fabricators who build and repair farm equipment, and schools and clinics that employ local households. A trucker who earns most of his income during harvest carries insurance, fuel contracts and truck payments for twelve months. A fabricator who is busy before planting may have an empty bay by July.
When you plan your cash, sort each month by whether it is a spend month or a collect month. A spend month can be covered from reserves or outside funding. A collect month should refill the reserve before the next spend month begins. Owners who skip that step end up borrowing every spring just to get back to where they were the prior spring.
The application is online, takes about five minutes and uses a soft credit pull. Funding runs from $25,000 to $5,000,000, funds can arrive in as little as 24 hours after approval, and sole proprietors can apply.
Yes. Explain the cycle in your application.
Farm-service and supply businesses can apply.
Plan around your own cash needs and be realistic about customers' ability to pay.
$5,000,000.
Yes.
Three months of business bank statements and a 5-minute application. FICO 500+ considered. $25,000 to $5,000,000, funded in as little as 24 hours.
Apply Now →It takes about two minutes and it will not affect your credit score.
No obligation • No impact to your credit score
