Lawn Doctor

Georgia natives and husband-and-wife team Josh and Katelyn Scott are taking their passion for <a href="https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=lawn-doctor-franchise-taking-josh-and-katelyn-scott-across-the-florida-georgia-line-2711171" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Lawn Doctor</a> down to the Florida Panhandle—and it all started, in part, thanks to a Facebook post.&nbsp;Josh had decided to go back to school after fulfilling a five-year contract with the Marines, and he would need a job while he studied business at Columbus State University in Georgia.&nbsp;Fortunately, a friend of his shared a Facebook ad for a job at the local <a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor">Lawn Doctor</a> right there in Columbus. Josh responded and joined that franchise as a technician. He soon fell in love with the brand and appreciated the mentorship provided by <a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/tenured-lawn-doctor-owner-kehn-dickerson-becomes-a-franchisee-mentor-2705549">Lawn Doctor franchisee Kehn Dickerson</a>.&nbsp;“From the start, I saw lawns that were not very aesthetically pleasing,” Josh said. “I got to see the process to make them beautiful and fell in love with the idea of doing it full time.”&nbsp;Katelyn was already familiar with the brand thanks to her dad.&nbsp;“My dad has had Lawn Doctor coming out and doing services for his yard for probably five to six years now,” she said. “I’ve seen my parents’ yard transform. Everyone who passes by their house compliments their yard. I just really like what the brand does. It’s a cool business to me.”What helped seal the deal for the Scotts was Discovery Day. They enjoyed meeting brand executives and learning about Lawn Doctor and felt the brand was in line with what they wanted in a business opportunity.&nbsp;“Just meeting everybody kind of really set it in stone for us,” Josh said. “<a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/lawn-doctor-franchisees-enjoy-major-lifestyle-and-culture-benefits-2708649">The brand’s culture</a> is something we want to be part of.”&nbsp;Franchising with Lawn Doctor also fits in with more long-term goals the couple had.&nbsp;“We’ve always wanted to have our own business,” Josh said. “With help from Katelyn’s Mom and Dad, we purchased the franchise.”&nbsp;The Scotts’ Panama City, Florida franchise will open in mid-February. As part of their new venture, the Scotts will move from Georgia to Panama City with their 4-year-old son, Reid.&nbsp;Lawn Doctor was founded in 1967, and the brand has since grown to more than 550 locations. The brand signed more than 40 new units in 2018 and <a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/lawn-doctor-begins-2019-with-strong-franchise-development-expectations-after-completing-one-of-its-biggest-years-in-franchise-development-in-2018-2708943">expects to hit the 600-unit mark</a> by the end of 2019. The <a href="https://1851franchise.com/lawndoctor/top-5-reasons-to-invest-in-a-lawn-doctor-franchise-2709778">benefits of franchising with Lawn Doctor</a> include a systemic business that provides recurring revenue year-after-year, a brand with name recognition, superior technology and the ability to work outdoors.&nbsp;The Scotts’ Panama City location will be the brand’s second on the Florida Panhandle. The brand <a href="https://www.lawndoctor.com/florida-lawn-care-florida-fl/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=lawn-doctor-franchise-taking-josh-and-katelyn-scott-across-the-florida-georgia-line-2711171" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">already has a presence in major markets in Florida</a>, including Miami, Orlando and Jacksonville.&nbsp;The Scott family’s experiences will serve them well in their new venture. Josh has hands-on brand experience, for one, and Katelyn works in customer service for Blue Cross Blue Shield.&nbsp;“It ties in with Lawn Doctor, which involves working with a lot of customers,” she said.&nbsp;The Scotts are open to expanding with the brand and even passing the business down to their children, but first, they want to focus on their Panama City franchise. They are already very familiar with the Panama City market and are excited to bring Lawn Doctor to the area.&nbsp;“We’ve always enjoyed going there for vacation,” Katelyn said. “It’s the ultimate place. Who wouldn’t want to live on the beach? We plan on getting involved with the local Chamber of Commerce to meet new people and connect with other businesses. Also, with our son going to elementary school, there will be events we can sponsor and use to get our name out there.”&nbsp;With a genuine passion for the brand and supportive company culture, not to mention a love for their market, the Scott family is clearly poised for major Lawn Doctor success.&nbsp;The startup costs for a Lawn Doctor franchise range from $100,015 to $116,065. The franchise fee ranges from $88,950 to $102,000. To learn more about franchising with Lawn Doctor, visit <a href="https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=lawn-doctor-franchise-taking-josh-and-katelyn-scott-across-the-florida-georgia-line-2711171" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/</a>.&nbsp;

Lawn Doctor Franchise Taking Josh and Katelyn Scott Across the Florida-Georgia Line 

1851 Franchise

The husband-and-wife team will open a Panama City, Florida franchise in the spring of 2020. 


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;

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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Lawn Doctor Franchise Taking Josh and Katelyn Scott Across the Florida-Georgia Line

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