Lawn Doctor

Husband-and-wife team Roy and Erica Morelock just couldn’t stay away from<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor"> Lawn Doctor</a>.The former<a href="https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=former-lawn-doctor-franchisees-roy-and-erica-morelock-return-to-the-franchise-that-feels-like-home-2712382" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Lawn Doctor</a> franchisees, who at one point owned and sold multiple franchises in North Carolina and Tennessee, officially rejoined the brand earlier this year. This time around, they are bringing Lawn Doctor to the Tar Heel State’s Concord-Mt. Pleasant area, which is just northeast of Charlotte.<a href="https://www.lawndoctor.com/concord-nc/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=former-lawn-doctor-franchisees-roy-and-erica-morelock-return-to-the-franchise-that-feels-like-home-2712382" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Their franchise</a> opened in late January 2020.Their relationship with Lawn Doctor started in 2003 when Roy learned about the brand through his stepfather. Roy was just 24 years old when he purchased his first Lawn Doctor franchise in Kingsport, Tennessee. In 2009, he purchased a neighboring Lawn Doctor franchise in nearby Bristol, and in 2013 the Morelocks purchased Lawn Doctor franchises in North Carolina’s Huntersville market, which is part of the Charlotte metropolitan area.The Morelocks intended to move to the Huntersville area, but family circumstances prevented them from leaving Tennessee, so they sold their North Carolina franchises in 2015, keeping only the Tennessee franchises, which they later sold in 2018.They wouldn’t be away for too long, though. There are just too many<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/lawn-doctor-franchisees-enjoy-major-lifestyle-and-culture-benefits-2708649#brand-latest-stories"> benefits to being a Lawn Doctor franchisee</a>. The Morelocks also missed interacting with community members and providing their customers with the brand’s signature high level of service.“In short, we missed Lawn Doctor,” Erica said. “Lawn Doctor has a great business model and franchising with the brand provided our family with a very comfortable lifestyle.”Roy noted that he has worked in the lawn care industry since 1997, and as far as he’s concerned, it just doesn’t get any better than Lawn Doctor.“Lawn Doctor offers a low-stress environment and the chance to be outdoors and mobile,” Roy said. “It’s also a lifestyle business. You can mold it to whatever lifestyle you want. If you want to work four days a week, you can. Also, the brand has top-notch equipment that is truly the best in the industry.”The timing to go back to Lawn Doctor was perfect, as the Morelocks’ daughter graduated from high school early and wanted to go to college in North Carolina. Erica reached out to the family’s longtime acquaintance David Newman, Lawn Doctor’s Vice President of Operations.“I called up David and said ‘What territory do you have available in North Carolina?’ and that pretty much started the conversation,” Erica said.The Morelocks are now building brand awareness in the Concord-Mt. Pleasant area and have been working hard to spread the word about their business.“The market here is pretty fast and changes a lot,” Erica said. “Fortunately, Lawn Doctor has an in-house marketing program to help us build brand awareness and asks us as owners to employ several ground-game tactics to get the word out locally about our business. As a previous franchise owner, I was really excited to hear about some of the new and different ways franchisees can now market their business. This has helped us hit the ground running while Roy and I put our feet to the pavement.”The Lawn Doctor leadership team is glad to have the Morelocks back in the system.&nbsp;“Roy and Erica were always excellent representatives of the Lawn Doctor brand in Tennessee and North Carolina, and we’re excited to see what success they’ll have now that they’re officially back as a part of our family,” CEO Scott Frith said. “It’s not every day you see franchise owners like the Morelocks build a successful business, sell it and then return to the brand. That speaks volumes to the culture we’ve built here at Lawn Doctor.”The Morelocks are thrilled with their market and with their decision to return to Lawn Doctor. They noted a plethora of neighborhoods in the area filled with residents who desire to maintain their lawns. The Morelocks can definitely see themselves<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/why-lawn-doctor-franchisee-bryan-sallmen-continues-to-grow-with-the-brand-2711464#franchisee"> opening multiple Lawn Doctor franchises</a> in the future—again.“We’re so excited to be back,” Erica said. “Franchising with Lawn Doctor again feels like coming home.”The startup costs for a Lawn Doctor franchise range from $100,015 to $116,065. The franchise fee ranges from $25,000 to $35,000. To learn more about franchising with Lawn Doctor, visit<a href="https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=former-lawn-doctor-franchisees-roy-and-erica-morelock-return-to-the-franchise-that-feels-like-home-2712382" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/</a>.&nbsp;

Former Lawn Doctor Franchisees Roy and Erica Morelock Return to the Franchise That Feels Like Home

1851 Franchise

The Morelocks cited a congenial, supportive atmosphere and superior franchisee resources as reasons to rejoin the brand in North Carolina.


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For&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominick-pennella-9918a448/">Dominick Pennella</a>, the journey to becoming a franchise owner with&nbsp;<a href="http://lawndoctorfranchise.com">Lawn Doctor</a>, the 700-plus-unit national lawn care franchise, has unique ties back to his childhood and family. Growing up in Brooklyn in a traditional Italian family, Pennella was involved in the family landscaping business from a young age. He also saw just how important family was. As he approached adulthood, he wanted to explore other paths, which led him to the Navy“I was the baby of three kids. The family culture was already set; landscaping was the thing, and we were Italians who lived in Brooklyn,” Pennella said. “I just felt like there was so much more world to see. I’m appreciating all of these things now, in hindsight, but as an 18-year-old, I just wanted to get going. So I joined the military, and it was the scariest thing I ever did.”<h2>The Military to Corporate Transition</h2>For Pennella, the military was a way to fast-track personal growth, in a way, allowing him to explore what it would mean to go out on his own. It meant leaving his hometown and taking on the adventure without familial backing.He spent about four years in the Navy, working on submarines and doing things like monitoring nuclear reactors through a keyhole. In addition to meeting new people and seeing new places, his time in the Navy set Pennella up with a technical foundation that would define his corporate journey.This military background and technical proficiency opened doors for Pennella as he transitioned to civilian life. He was hired as a field service engineer for a biomedical company before even completing a college degree, but he was already looking toward the “next rung” of the ladder.“I was looking up at the next rung. I thought, ‘I can do that, and to do that, I would need an education directly in management,’” he said. “I decided to sign up for distance learning and see if I could work full-time and go to school at the same time. I did that for about five years. My master’s was in business management.”As he continued to climb the corporate ladder, Pennella returned to lessons he learned in his early landscaping years.“Whether you're showing up to someone's home to take care of a lawn or whether you're showing up to a hospital mid-surgery to take care of a blood gas instrument, the end result is still the same,” he said. “You still have to deal with people who are discontent. They don’t like the current situation, and they need to believe in you. You need to convey a plan, communicate throughout that process and close the loop at the end.”“Regardless of the perceived severity of what you’re fixing, any type of field service is similar,” he continued. “When I worked for my father as a landscaper, it was the exact same thing. A different product, but the exact same customer-facing experience. They want to know what you can do for them. ‘I’m in this situation. How can you help me? And can I contact you if I need anything?’ If you answer all those questions, they're happy. It was the same thing in medical device field service. So, I did well by literally copying the same tenets my father taught me.”Throughout his corporate career, Pennella’s approach earned him and his teams multiple awards and widespread recognition. But as he advanced, it also began to demand more from Pennella in terms of travel. When these requirements began to overshadow his family time, he knew it was time for a change.“I was successful, but my family is so important to me, and they were not more than 20% of my week in any given week in that life,” he said. “I knew it was time for a change.”Today, Pennella says that decision was fueled by the people who matter most — his wife of 14 years, Maria, who is also his partner in running the business, and their two daughters, Dora (11) and Gigi (7). He describes them as his daily inspiration and the driving force behind his decision to build something that would allow him to be present, ambitious and rooted at home all at once.“I didn’t even think of landscaping again, because that was what my dad did,” he continued. “I did electronics in the Navy, and that was my thing. But my father and I, one thing we have in common is the love of family. He couldn’t wait to get home and spend time with us when I was young, and I share that same view.”So, when he first began searching for his next opportunity, Pennella was looking for other roles in the same industry. He wanted to stick with “his thing,” just in a capacity that would require less travel and allow for more family time. After realizing that, at his level of seniority, any new role would be more of the same, he went to step two: franchises.<h2>Identifying Lawn Doctor: The Return to the Lawn Care Business</h2>“There are about a billion franchises for anything you could possibly think of, so how do you choose one?” he said. “I ended up finding some really great people — some franchise brokers. I took the Zorakle Assessment, and two days later, they called and said, ‘Hey, have you ever heard of&nbsp;<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/info">Lawn Doctor</a>?’”At this point, Pennella had not mentioned Lawn Doctor to the brokers, but he remembered it from childhood. He saw the green thumb logo and vehicles in the community and, as a child, asked his father how the business model worked since he never saw them cutting anyone’s lawn. At the time, his father explained that fertilization was one of the more profitable services in the lawn care space, but the conversation stopped there.So, when Pennella was presented with the Lawn Doctor franchise opportunity decades later, it almost felt meant to be.“When I started doing some research, I realized it might be the perfect fit. It tied in with my nostalgia, my culture, my history, my skill sets — everything,” he said. “And again, it’s field service. It wasn’t a straight line, and I don’t know where I would be if it wasn’t for the folks who guided me in the selection process. But when they said ‘Lawn Doctor,’ I thought, ‘Are you kidding me? I used to joke about comparing Lawn Doctor to the type of work I did in my father’s business.’ And here I am, the owner of a Lawn Doctor franchise! And I couldn’t be happier with the choice.”<h2>Building Momentum Through a Culture of Collaboration</h2>As Pennella launched&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lawndoctor.com/naples-fl/">Lawn Doctor of Naples-LaBelle-Marco Island</a>, he applied a sophisticated management lens to a local service model. This approach has already yielded impressive results, driving Pennella to blow his first-year projections out of the water within a couple of months. By focusing on communication and personal outreach, including knocking on clients’ doors himself, he was able to build trust and set the business up for an amazing first year.“It’s a simple, scalable model, and it sets you up to make your money back in a fairly short time frame,” he said. “It’s a great choice for a calculated risk-taker.”In addition to his own analytical lens, Pennella’s success has been driven by the support of the entire franchise system. Previously accustomed to a “dog-eat-dog” atmosphere in corporate America, Pennella was pleasantly surprised by the collaborative nature of the Lawn Doctor system. While he has worked diligently to educate himself on all facets of the business, he realized that, with the franchise system behind him, he didn’t have to absorb all of the information immediately and completely.“In the corporate world, everyone is looking for their own win. Here, a rising tide floats all ships,” he said. “I have at least five other owners and a dedicated mentor that I can call any time for any reason, and they’ll have an answer. I’m not scared to take on things I might not be an expert on yet because I have the backup to help me find those answers if needed.”&nbsp;Pennella is quick to credit those who have walked beside him during this first year. He highlights&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottspitz/">Scott Spitz</a> of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lawndoctor.com/lakeworth-fl/lawn-care-in-west-palm-beach/">West Palm Beach</a>, who has served as a dedicated mentor, providing the institutional knowledge that only a veteran owner can offer. He also expresses deep gratitude for the ongoing support from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-valle-a92584103/">Ralph Valle</a> in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lawndoctor.com/jacksonville-fl/lawn-care-in-jacksonville/">Jacksonville</a> and the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lawndoctor.com/fortmyers-fl/home/">Duffy family in Fort Myers</a>, whose insights helped him navigate the nuances of the Florida market, illustrating just how valuable it is to be a part of the Lawn Doctor system, which functions as a true team.As he prepares for continued growth, Pennella recognizes that there will be additional learning and growth opportunities as a Lawn Doctor owner, but he’s ready for them, and he encourages others in a similar position to consider taking the leap, as well.“If you are willing to learn agronomy and work closely with the franchisor, this can change your life,” he said. “It gave me the one thing I couldn’t find in the corporate world: the ability to put my family first without sacrificing my ambition. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made.”To find out more information on costs to buy this franchise, please visit&nbsp;<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor">https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor.</a>&nbsp;

Photo of Lawn Doctor franchisee Dominick Pennella and family

After making the switch to franchising for better work-life balance and to prioritize his family, Dominick Pennella exceeded his first-year projections by 50% in his first few months of operations.

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Design with photo of John Perry and Lawn Doctor logo

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Former Lawn Doctor Franchisees Roy and Erica Morelock Return to the Franchise That Feels Like Home

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