Lawn Doctor

In Mike Mary&rsquo;s 34-year career in the book-and-magazine business, he worked his way up from a truck driver to a supervisor to a sales manager to a VP of marketing. That path provided Mary a wealth of experience working with people in a wide range of professional relationships. When Mary finally left the book-and-magazine business nearly a decade ago, it was his experience working with people that he applied most effectively to his next businesses venture, <a href="http://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=lawn-doctor-franchisee-mike-mary-leads-by-serving-2705127" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Lawn Doctor</a>.

&ldquo;In my previous career, I traveled all over the country,&rdquo; Mary said. &ldquo;I worked with store managers and owners as a salesman, I trained, hired, and fired people as a manager, and I worked with just about every level of employee from hourly workers to executives. I saw a lot of things in the business world that I liked and a lot that I didn&rsquo;t like, so I felt very well prepared to run my own business.&rdquo;

Nine years ago, Mary found the perfect opportunity to run his own business when a friend of his offered to sell Mary his <a href="https://lawndoctor.1851franchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=lawn-doctor-franchisee-mike-mary-leads-by-serving-2705127" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Lawn Doctor</a> business.&nbsp;

&ldquo;A friend of mine had owned a Lawn Doctor in Knoxville for years,&rdquo; Mary said. &ldquo;We&rsquo;d always gone to church together, so I got to hear a lot about the business. I&rsquo;d never considered franchising, nor had I ever really given lawn care much attention, but my friend loved the business and it seemed interesting. Unfortunately, my friend hit a rough patch in his personal life with a death in the family, and he was looking to get out of the business. The company I was working for was not doing great, and I was eager to find something new, so I decided to take a look at my friend&rsquo;s Lawn Doctor business.&rdquo;

Mary started going out with his friend on service calls, meeting clients and learning the business. It wasn&rsquo;t long before Mary was sold on the opportunity.

&ldquo;As I got out there and saw the business for myself, I became excited about it,&rdquo; Mary said. &ldquo;The work was interesting, and most importantly, I was meeting and talking to people, which I love. I saw a great opportunity for me to work closely with people and really take advantage of my sales background.&rdquo;

Mary bought the Lawn Doctor business from his friend, including three territories and an existing staff, which Mary would eventually expand.

&ldquo;I jumped right in,&rdquo; Mary said. &ldquo;There was a learning curve, but I tackled it quickly. I spent the first year listening, reading, and studying. One I felt I held a strong command of the operations, I started hiring people that I felt were well suited to run the business.&rdquo;

Since Mary took over his three Lawn Doctor territories, he&rsquo;s doubled both the employee headcount and the business&rsquo;s sales volume. Mary attributes that growth to his leadership style, which prioritizes service and culture.

&ldquo;One of the first things I did was put together a company policy manual,&rdquo; Mary said. &ldquo;That was essential in establishing the culture that our company has now, and it provided a set of guidelines that even I&rsquo;m held accountable for, which helps me lead by example. My goal from day one was to create a place where my employees could be happy and thrive. I believe that&rsquo;s my primary responsibility as a boss, to serve my staff.&rdquo;

Mary says his experience in the business world helped him avoid some of the more common mistakes bosses make when taking on a new staff.

&ldquo;I worked with so many people in so many different capacities in my previous career,&rdquo; Mary said. &ldquo;I know what works and what doesn&rsquo;t. You can&rsquo;t go into a situation beating your chest and talking about what a great boss you are because people won&rsquo;t follow you. You&rsquo;ve got to build trust and demonstrate that you know what you are doing. You&rsquo;ve got to set goals and expectations and follow through on them so that your employees see that you are holding yourself to the same standards you&rsquo;re holding them to. It comes down to trust, reliability, and team spirit. Those are the things I&rsquo;m trying to build with my employees, and in that respect, I&rsquo;m here to serve them.&rdquo;

Lawn Doctor has provided Mary a chance to flex his muscles as a leader, and Mary continues to take full advantage of the opportunity, with plans to continue growing his business throughout the foreseeable future.

&ldquo;I started with Lawn Doctor nine years ago, but I wish I&rsquo;d started 20 years ago,&rdquo; Mary said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a great business, and it&rsquo;s something that I&rsquo;ve been able to find great success in even without any experience in franchising or lawn care. There&rsquo;s a lot to learn when you get started, but Lawn Doctor is great about getting you set up with all the information and materials you need. If you&rsquo;ve got some business sense and you follow their model, you&rsquo;re going to do well.&quot;

Lawn Doctor Franchisee Mike Mary Leads by Serving

1851 Franchise

In nine years with the brand, the former publishing professional has built a motivated team of lawn care professionals

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 Franchisee Mike Mary Leads by Serving

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