Lawn Doctor

In January of 2011, Bryan Sallmen purchased his first <a href="http://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=how-bryan-sallmen-knew-the-grass-was-greener-with-lawn-doctor-franchise-ownership-2706439" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lawn Doctor</a> territory in Kalamazoo, Michigan. But the acquisition was not his first foray into lawn care. Sallmen had worked for a competing lawn-care company for six years before joining <a href="https://lawndoctor.1851franchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=how-bryan-sallmen-knew-the-grass-was-greener-with-lawn-doctor-franchise-ownership-2706439" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lawn Doctor</a>. In fact, it was his work with the Lawn Doctor competitor that he says inspired him to make the switch.

&ldquo;During those six years, I was constantly running into Lawn Doctor customers, and it was undeniable that their lawns looked better and they were much happier with the service,&rdquo; Sallmen said.

Eventually, Sallmen says he decided to do some research into his competitor to find out what was giving Lawn Doctor the edge. What he found was an advantage that was both simpler than he expected and impossible to match: Lawn Doctor&rsquo;s proprietary equipment.

&ldquo;I started looking into their equipment, and I realized quickly that that&rsquo;s how they were able to do better work than us and so much more efficiently,&rdquo; he said.

After learning about the brand&rsquo;s equipment, Sallmen says he was determined to become a Lawn Doctor owner. After going through the qualification and diligence process, he was invited to a discovery day at the corporate headquarters.

&ldquo;I went out to a discovery day as soon as I could and quickly knew that this was the right fit for me. I put a plan and an application together, and opened my Lawn Doctor shortly thereafter,&rdquo; Sallmen said.

With his experience in the industry, Sallmen says he had aggressive goals for his first year, all of which he exceeded. Seven years later, he&rsquo;s seen an increase in customers and revenue every year.

&ldquo;I knew the industry when I started, so I set some high-performance goals,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I far outpaced those in the first year, and in every year since, I&rsquo;ve outperformed the previous year.&rdquo;

Equally as important as his financial success, Sallmen says Lawn Doctor has provided him the freedom he always wanted as a business owner, without requiring the years of hard work he saw the other business owners in his life put in.

&ldquo;I love being my own boss. I always knew that&rsquo;s what I wanted for my life, but I watched my father and grandfather build small businesses for themselves, and it took them each fifteen years to do it. I was willing to put in the work, but I didn&rsquo;t want to take fifteen years to get there,&rdquo; he said.

Sallmen does not credit the rapid growth of his Lawn Doctor exclusively to the brand&rsquo;s patented equipment. He says his operation is reinforced by a wealth of support systems.

&ldquo;We have any number of advisors and corporate support staff available to us at any time, for any issue,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Each December, a senior equipment tech comes out to my shop to help make sure all our equipment is in good shape and that my staff knows the best ways to use it. We also have a regional consultant who has worked in the business for years. I talk with him constantly. He&rsquo;s the best employee I could ever imagine having, and I don&rsquo;t even pay him. He&rsquo;s actually become more of a friend than a consultant. He was even at my wedding. To have that kind of personal support is really something special.&rdquo;

That personal support extends beyond the corporate team. Sallmen says his neighboring Lawn Doctor owners have become one of his most valuable resources.

&ldquo;The fellowship has been crucial,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I never have to figure out anything on my own; I just ask my neighbor. It&rsquo;s an amazing network of knowledge. Last year I saved 30 percent on fertilizer costs because I teamed up with a few of the local owners to purchase together. You can&rsquo;t get that kind of advantage on your own.&rdquo;

As eager as Sallmen is to attribute his success to Lawn Doctor&rsquo;s technology and people, Eric Martin, the franchise&rsquo;s vice president of franchise development, notes that Sallmen is responsible for making the most of those resources.

&ldquo;Bryan is one of the few owners who came to Lawn Doctor with experience in the industry,&rdquo; Martin said. &ldquo;Most of our owners came to us from other industries, often from the corporate world. So it is by no means essential that our owner understands all the ins and outs of lawn care before joining; we have world-class training programs for that. What is essential is that they know what they are looking for and that they understand how our model can help achieve that for them. Bryan understands exactly what makes Lawn Doctor such a lucrative business, and he&rsquo;s worked hard to make the most of the opportunity.&rdquo;

The success of Sallmen&rsquo;s Lawn Doctor has proven inspiring to his staff, two of whom have recently expressed an interest to purchase their own Lawn Doctor operations in the Detroit suburbs, an area Sallmen says is particularly lucrative for the lawn care business.

&ldquo;Two of my employees are planning to start their own franchises outside of Detroit, and I expect they&rsquo;ll do very well,&rdquo; Sallmen said. &ldquo;Not only have they been great employees who know the business well, this area is only becoming more supportive for businesses like ours. Detroit is a beautiful city, and the suburbs are filled with residential neighborhoods with endless lawns. And now that Detroit is on the comeback trail, more businesses and plants are opening up. That brings more jobs, which brings more people, which brings more homes, which brings more lawns. The market for lawn care is only getting bigger and bigger.&rdquo;

Sallmen, who now owns two territories in the Kalamazoo-Portage area, says he plans to take advantage of the area&rsquo;s growth to continue expanding his business.

&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve exceeded every goal we&rsquo;ve set for this business, and I have no plans to sit back or slow down,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Lawn Doctor continues to stay on the leading edge with its products, marketing and services, and as the franchise system continues to grow, I&rsquo;m excited to grow with it.&rdquo;

How Bryan Sallmen Knew the Grass Was Greener with Lawn Doctor Franchise Ownership

1851 Franchise

The Kalamazoo-Portage Lawn Doctor owner worked for a competitor for six years before starting his own business 

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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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