Lawn Doctor

Rich Anderson&rsquo;s retirement lasted about two weeks before he began looking for a new job. In 2015, after 34 years in the Air Force, Anderson retired with his wife Patsy in San Antonio, Texas, but the former flight instructor quickly found he wasn&rsquo;t suited for a sedentary lifestyle.

&ldquo;I spent a couple weeks watching all of Breaking Bad,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;When I was through with that, my wife told me it was time to find something to do.&rdquo;

Patsy Anderson, a former marketing professional for Anheuser-Busch, wanted to find something she and her husband could own together, and the couple began looking into franchise brands, hoping to find a business they could get up and running quickly.

&ldquo;We&rsquo;d been interested in franchising for a while,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;We had looked closely at a quick-service restaurant brand, but that fizzled out, in part because it would likely have required us to move, and we didn&rsquo;t want to do that. But we were still excited about franchising, and we were eager to find something that would work for us.&rdquo;

Rich and Patsy got in touch with a franchise broker, who introduced them to four franchise brands that would better suit their lifestyle. One of those four brands was <a href="http://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=retired-air-force-pilot-finds-a-second-career-with-lawn-doctor-2705175" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Lawn Doctor</a>, and as the Andersons waded into the vetting process, it quickly moved to the top of their list.

&ldquo;We were looking closely at each brand, and as we learned more about the pros and cons of each, <a href="https://lawndoctor.1851franchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=retired-air-force-pilot-finds-a-second-career-with-lawn-doctor-2705175" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Lawn Doctor</a> really stood out as the best option for us,&rdquo; Rich said.

One of Lawn Doctor&rsquo;s most attractive selling points for Rich was the home-visitation model, which he saw as easier to manage than the other concepts he had explored.

&ldquo;Because customers don&rsquo;t have to be home when you treat their lawns, it makes scheduling very easy, which also helps you retain good employees, and that is something we were very concerned with,&rdquo; Rich said.

Once the Andersons reached out to Lawn Doctor&rsquo;s development team, any lingering doubts they had about the brand were quickly put to rest.

&ldquo;We were sold on Lawn Doctor pretty soon after we started talking to them,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;We really liked the folks we were talking to, and we started reaching out to franchisees, who all had amazing things to say about the brand. It just looked better and better the more we investigated. Everyone we met was honest and genuinely good-hearted.&rdquo;

The franchisees that the Andersons spoke to clued the couple into another unique advantage of Lawn Doctor ownership: a built-in incentive for franchisees to support each other.

&ldquo;Because Lawn Doctor owners are separated by territories, there is no competition like you might see among franchisees for other brands,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;Everyone is eager to work together because a successful neighboring Lawn Doctor increases visibility and can raise awareness in your market.&rdquo;

The Andersons opened their Lawn Doctor business on March 1, 2016, just in time to take advantage of the busy spring and summer months. They found a sizable customer base right away, but Rich and Patsy were still able to run the business by themselves for the first year.

&ldquo;We decided not to hire anyone during our first year,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;We were busy, but we wanted to make sure we understood the business inside and out before delegating work to a technician. I was able to handle all the servicing up through our first 140 regular customers, after that, we decided to bring on a technician.&rdquo;

The technician the Andersons hired was a friend of theirs, Jared, the adult son-in-law of a neighbor, and he proved capable of taking much more than just the field work off their hands.

&ldquo;Jared does sales, office work, and services clients,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s like a full staff by himself. We could go on vacation for two weeks and he could run the business by himself. He&rsquo;s an amazing addition to the team, and we&rsquo;re incredibly lucky to have him, but it also says a lot about how manageable the Lawn Doctor model is that one smart and capable guy can more or less keep things running by himself.&rdquo;

Jared&rsquo;s expansive role represents just one change in how Rich and Patsy are managing their business since their first year. Rich says he and his wife have taken full advantage of the flexibility Lawn Doctor offers its owners by shifting their roles and responsibilities to accommodate both their skills and lifestyle.

&ldquo;For the first couple of seasons, I did all the lawn servicing, Patsy handled the office management, and we would both do sales,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s evolved so that she is more focused on marketing, which is something she has a career&rsquo;s worth of experience in, but she also spends a lot of time with my 99-year-old father. The beauty of this business is that we can make that work without much disruption. Patsy can work remotely to be close to my father when she needs to be, and we can put Jared just about anywhere we need him from day to day.&rdquo;

The Andersons are planning to bring on another technician in the spring to help with the busy season, and Rich says the hiring won&rsquo;t stop after that.

&ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking to hire a new tech and possibly a sales person in the spring. Eventually, I&rsquo;d like to get to the point where Jared is running the operations and he has three or four techs under him,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;Then I can sit back and concentrate on running the businesses as a whole rather than the day-to-day operations.&rdquo;

Even now, before Rich can completely step back from the daily operations of his business, he says Lawn Doctor has afforded him and Patsy the freedom to control their time.

&ldquo;Patsy and I don&rsquo;t work on the weekends,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a decision we made when we started, and it hasn&rsquo;t posed any problems. We work hard Monday through Friday, and we stay ahead of our scheduling, and that allows us to be free on weekends and take vacations when we want. And it works for our customers too. They prefer us to service their lawns on weekdays so they can be outside and enjoy their lawns without us around on weekends. That kind of freedom is the reason we looked into franchising in the first place, but to have weekends off is rare in the industry.&rdquo;

Two years in, Rich and Patsy have found Lawn Doctor to be a lucrative and invigorating alternative to a traditional retirement, and the Andersons are excited to continue growing with the brand.

&ldquo;For someone who has always wanted to own a business, like me, Lawn Doctor is really an amazing opportunity,&rdquo; Rich said. &ldquo;You really own it. Everything is set up for you, and there&rsquo;s a rock-solid business plan for you to follow, but the operations are not so rigid that you can&rsquo;t make it your own. You can grow it as big as you want or keep it small. And besides all that, it&rsquo;s just a lot of fun.&rdquo;

Rich Anderson, Patsy Anderson, Lawn Doctor

Retired Air Force Pilot Finds a Second Career with Lawn Doctor

1851 Franchise

Rich Anderson and his wife Patsy have been with the lawn care franchise for two years, and their business is booming

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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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Retired Air Force Pilot Finds a Second Career with Lawn Doctor

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