Lawn Doctor

Not every <a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor" style="text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank">Lawn Doctor</a> franchisee holds a master&rsquo;s degree in philosophy. In fact, that may just be Dave Koone.

Koone studied theology, philosophy and adolescent psychology at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. After graduation, he began working with the Christian youth organization<a href="https://www.younglife.org/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=how-dave-koone-applies-his-servant-leadership-philosophy-to-lawn-doctor-ownership-2710844" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank"> Young Life</a>, establishing new chapters in various parts of the county and even working with expatriate kids in Singapore for four years.

&ldquo;In the beginning, I just wanted to impact kids&rsquo; lives,&rdquo; said Koone. &ldquo;Over the years, I grew to love training and leading others, investing in people&rsquo;s lives and helping them develop both personally and professionally.&rdquo;

After he got back from Singapore, Koone headed to Northwestern University in Illinois to gain his Master&rsquo;s degree in philosophy and theological studies. He also continued to work with Young Life on the North Shore of Chicago, rounding out a total of 15 years with the organization.&nbsp;

In 2007, a Young Life member&rsquo;s father who was a multi-unit Little Caesars franchisee invited Koone to partner with him to seize on a new opportunity. &ldquo;He saw what I&rsquo;d done professionally, and he thought that my strengths and experience would translate well to building and operating restaurants,&rdquo; said Koone.&nbsp;

Over the span of four years, the business partners built 10 new Little Caesars stores around central Indiana. This was Koone&rsquo;s first taste of franchise success, as three of their stores generated the highest-volume grand opening sales in the history of the brand. As planned, the partners sold the stores in a multi-million dollar deal after five years.

Koone was financially comfortable enough from the sale that he took his time exploring options for his next venture. Now a big fan of the franchise business model, he looked into more than 100 different brands across various industries, made phone calls to franchisees, attended discovery days and met with corporate teams.

After some research, he set his sights on the service industry. &ldquo;I loved the service industry because I could acquire and protect large enough territories that I would not have to be concerned about competitors at all,&rdquo; Koone explained. &ldquo;When you have a brick and mortar business, you are bound by that building and the length of the lease&mdash;for better or worse. This is the main reason we moved away from restaurants.&rdquo;

Koone found<a href="https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=how-dave-koone-applies-his-servant-leadership-philosophy-to-lawn-doctor-ownership-2710844" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank"> Lawn Doctor</a> through a franchise consultant. He was particularly attracted to the brand&rsquo;s low investment of $100,015 to $116,065, so he headed to Discovery Day in New Jersey. Impressed by his interactions with the leadership team, he went on to visit a number of Lawn Doctor franchisees, including top performers in the system, and had several phone conversations with various owners.

&ldquo;Shortly before deciding to invest in Lawn Doctor, I nearly spent $1.5 million on a group of restaurants. I&rsquo;ve since seen those locations bought and sold for less than half of that valuation,&rdquo; said Koone. &ldquo;It only cost me around $150,000 for my Lawn Doctor territories. You can&rsquo;t do much better than that when starting a business. Plus,<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/lawn-doctor-s-incredible-staying-power-2709103" style="text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank"> Lawn Doctor is a strong, national brand</a>.&rdquo;

As a service provider, Koone loves the flexibility that his three Indianapolis-area Lawn Doctor territories and multiple vehicles afford. &ldquo;There can be 50 more lawn care companies around here and it wouldn&#39;t hurt us,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If someone were beating us with marketing dollars in one town, we would target our marketing somewhere else. We&rsquo;d spend the money on<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/lawn-doctor-provides-financing-and-marketing-services-to-help-franchisees-ramp-up-their-business-and-achieve-success--2708415#category" style="text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank"> pay-per-click and other marketing</a> and target the areas we want.&rdquo;

Now in his fifth year of Lawn Doctor ownership, Koone has watched his business&rsquo;s revenue nearly double every year&mdash;a welcome development compared to his restaurant experience, where he&rsquo;d see sales decline drastically after a grand opening. &ldquo;We could lose 15% of our Lawn Doctor customers and still sell five times that in new business every year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;You just have to be someone who has grit and can grind it out. But for the return on investment, it&rsquo;s certainly worth it.&rdquo;

As a natural people person, Koone enjoys the community of franchisees he has found in Lawn Doctor. &ldquo;One thing I really appreciate is that there is a great group of franchisees willing to share ideas and root for the success of others,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m on the phone with a franchisee friend to share best practices every few days. I&rsquo;ve found that with other businesses, there&#39;s a competitive feel among owners, but with Lawn Doctor, there are so many franchisees willing to do whatever they can to help each other to be successful.&rdquo;

Lawn Doctor has also presented Koone with the opportunity to reconnect with the dedicated leadership philosophy he practiced at Young Life. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just, &lsquo;Here&rsquo;s how to spray weeds&rsquo;&mdash;it&rsquo;s also, &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s read a book about leadership together,&rsquo; so that they&rsquo;re growing personally and feel that there&rsquo;s a career path and opportunity to become better,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Someone who gets that next-level state certification can both earn more money and be &lsquo;the Lawn Doctor.&rsquo; When you master something, there&rsquo;s a great sense of accomplishment. I love to invest in people and help them reach their goals.&rdquo;

Ultimately, the values Koone developed through studying philosophy and working in youth development have directly translated to his work with Lawn Doctor. &ldquo;I recently spent an entire day power-washing vans and equipment. I could have said, &lsquo;Hey man, you know what to do, I&rsquo;ll be in my air-conditioned office doing my thing.&rsquo; But instead, I often choose to spend time on properties or getting dirty in the shop with the guys. I believe in servant leadership&mdash;not only in serving my team, but also helping them see that this is how we serve our clients. We serve them with a commitment to excellence, and it&rsquo;s made all the difference.&rdquo;

How Dave Koone Applies His Servant Leadership Philosophy to Lawn Doctor Ownership

1851 Franchise

The Indianapolis, Indiana franchisee has combined his education, 15 years in nonprofit youth development and restaurant ownership experience to lead his Lawn Doctor team by example.


This brand page has been paid for by LAWN DOCTOR. Content within this page that is paid will showcase a Sponsored icon. This means the brand has engaged 1851 FRANCHISE to write the content. Content without the Sponsored Icon is aggregated media placements the brand earned. Questions can be sent to editorial@1851franchise.com

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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;

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