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Who We Help

Industries where cash flow volatility is normal and debt accumulates fast. If your industry is not listed, call anyway — most of the playbook transfers.

Hamilton & Merchant works with small and mid-sized U.S. businesses. We are not industry-exclusive, but the categories below are where we have the deepest pattern-recognition — because they are the industries where cash flow volatility, thin margins, and leverage collide the most predictably.

We know the debt patterns in these industries because we see them every week. We also know the operating patterns that usually produce them — and part of the work we do for every client in these sectors is being honest about which is which.

Service Businesses

Agencies, professional services, and trade operators whose cash flow depends on client payment timing. We help when receivables slow down and obligations do not.

Contractors

General contractors and subs exposed to payment delays, retention, bonds, and material cost spikes. Debt that accumulates on a job-by-job basis requires specialist handling.

Landscaping Businesses

Seasonal revenue, year-round equipment obligations, and weather-driven volatility make landscaping one of the most cash-flow-fragile industries we work with.

Seasonal Companies

Tourism, holiday retail, and cyclical operators whose income is compressed into a few months but whose debt service runs twelve. Timing is everything.

Restaurants

Payroll-heavy cost structures, tight margins, and supplier terms that tighten the moment sales dip. Restaurant debt workouts require industry-specific judgment.

Hospitality

Hotels, short-term rentals, and event venues face demand swings against fixed cost bases. We help operators stabilize through demand shocks without losing the property.

Retail

Independent retailers caught between inventory cycles, rent escalators, and shifting consumer spend. Debt pressure often arrives right after a slow quarter.

Trucking & Logistics

Owner-operators and small fleets squeezed by fuel volatility, equipment loans, factoring, and detention. The most MCA-exposed industry we work with — and the one where stack collapse moves fastest.

Auto Repair & Body Shops

Independent shops carrying equipment loans, parts inventory, and insurance receivables that age out faster than payroll arrives. Repair debt is one of the easier categories to restructure when caught early.

Medical & Dental Practices

Independent practices managing equipment financing, malpractice premiums, and insurance reimbursement timing. The cash-flow gap between service delivery and payment is the single biggest pressure point.

Salons, Spas & Personal Care

Lease-heavy, payroll-tight, and still recovering from the COVID-era debt stack many took on to survive. Booth-rent versus W-2 staffing is the question underneath most cash crises here.

Cleaning & Janitorial Services

Commercial janitorial, residential cleaning, and pressure-washing operators caught between low-margin contracts and rising labour cost. Net-30 commercial customers stretch to net-60 with no warning.

Manufacturing

Small and mid-sized manufacturers managing equipment debt, working-capital lines, supplier terms, and inventory financing. Tariff and supply-chain shocks since 2024 have tightened many of these balance sheets.

Gyms & Fitness Studios

Independent gyms, boutique fitness studios, and personal training operations carrying lease obligations against membership revenue that did not fully recover from 2020. Lease and equipment debt are the two pressure points.

Your industry not on the list?

Call us anyway. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you plainly — and usually point you to someone who is.

One honest conversation can change the trajectory.

The first call is free, confidential, and direct. We will listen, ask the hard questions, and tell you what we actually think — not what sounds good in a brochure. If we are the right fit, we get to work. If we are not, we will say so.

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Or call / text (407) 993-1416