Frank and Peter of Green Lawn Landscaping are giving themselves a total of 6 months to achieve all the key milestones needed before they can formally hang out their shingles and open up for business:

1. The business plan for the company should be ready by January 18, 2016.
2. Peter Perez will be handling the application for the business license in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Peter has been advised that is probably best to apply for this license just as the business plan is about ready and so Peter anticipates putting in the application on January 15, 2016. Typically these licenses do not take too long to obtain - the owners sometimes may have to go through a background check - we are expecting that this milestone will be successfully reached by the middle of February.
3. Once the business license has been received by the firm, Frank Murphy will be applying for the Business liability insurance and bonding - this process is expected to take no more than a couple of weeks and it should be all wrapped by the end of February. Frank has already spoken to his insurance broker about this.
4. The local bank where Frank currently does all his personal banking has assured him that the business loan should take no more than a few days to process and another week or so to close. Frank will be waiting to ensure that the business license is in place before he and Peter formally submit the application for the business loan.
5. Since landlords typically want to see some sort of security deposit, licensing and bonding before getting into lease execution, it is expected that both Frank and Peter will be able to move forward quickly and wrap up the lease negotiations by the end of March.
6. Frank and Peter have already scoped out the furniture they are looking for and they anticipate that they will be able to make the purchases for these items by April 7, 2016. They would obviously like to make sure that the bank loan is closed before they move forward with this investment.
7. Advertising material will take another couple of weeks and Peter anticipates that he will be able to get all the initial advertising material in place by April 15, 2016.
8. Marketing efforts are slated to begin on the 16th of April and it is anticipated that all the marketing will be cued up and ready by April 30, 2016.
9. Frank and Peter expect to open their doors for business on the 1st of May and will continue to spend the first 60 days of their operations getting making sure that everything is in order with the office, technology, equipment and personnel as they begin taking their first orders.

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