Leticia’s Story

In 2003, Leticia Michel started JD&C because it was the only way for her to make a living while spending time with her young children. Leticia rented out an old flower shop in Boyle Heights and converted into a tax preparation services practice. Taking advantage of the inbound traffic looking to purchase flowers, she took classes on how to maintain flowers and sold flowers for over 5 years until her tax practice earned enough money to meet her financial goals. After 15 years, Leticia has built one of the largest tax practices in Boyle Heights with over 2,000 individual and business clients.

The Goal

Tax preparation services is a very seasonal business because most people file their tax return during the first half of the year. During “busy season,” Leticia realized she wasn’t offering her clients the best customer service because her small team was getting overworked (also resulting in paying a lot of overtime!). Leticia needed capital to hire more people and train them to offer best-in-class customer service.

“We were offering more and more services. But the lack of capital was restraining us from growing. We needed money to properly train our team and to hire more employees”

– Leticia

Leticia’s Camino Experience

• Leticia had never received a business loan and needed guidance on how to access capital
  “After attending a business event, Leticia connected with our strategic partner, Operation Hope, to seek guidance on how to access capital and was referred to Camino Financial. “They told me that Camino Financial was certainly the best option for a business loan.”
• Applied online for a business loan, and received a call 3 minutes later
  “After submitting her application, Leticia received a call from her business loan specialist, Marisol, to review her pre-approved loan terms including the loan size, interest rate, and monthly payments. “The promptness and ease of the process were astonishing.”
• Built a strong relationship with her business loan specialist
  “Leticia established a strong rapport with Marisol, who helped JD&C lower the initial rate and monthly payments she was quoted at the beginning. “I can’t say anything negative about the whole process. I was amazed of how things work at CF.”
• Seamless graduation to a larger loan to further expand her business
  “After one year, Camino Financial funded JD&C for a loan over $100,000 (4.8x time more than her initial loan) to offer real estate and immigration services to her existing customers. “Thanks to CF we could diversify and expand our services. We were specialized only in taxes: now we offer a full range of legal services.”

The Result

Growing her bottom-line by offering more services to her large client base

After working tirelessly for 15 years to build her customer base, Leticia only needed capital to hire the people to improve the customer experience and offer them more professional services. Camino Financial is JD&C’s financial partner to fuel the business’s growth.