Lawn Doctor

Florida-based <a href="https://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=veterans-turned-franchisees-turned-friends-find-benefits-to-opening-their-lawn-doctor-businesses-mid-year-2709267" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank">Lawn Doctor</a> franchisees Greg Harkrider and Ralph Valle have a lot in common. Both are retired veterans&mdash;Harkrider retired from the Navy after 25 years of service, and Valle from the Army after 23 years&mdash;and both operate Lawn Doctor services in Florida. Furthermore, the two launched their respective lawn care businesses in late spring/early summer of last year, right on the heels of what might conventionally be considered the industry&rsquo;s &ldquo;busy season.&rdquo; Rather than presenting them with issues, however, Harkrider and Valle say that opening mid-year was advantageous, and definitely brought them together as friends.

&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t so busy that, when we jumped in, we couldn&rsquo;t handle it,&rdquo; Harkrider explained. &ldquo;We got in at the very tail-end of the busy season, so we were able to gain customers that were looking for lawn care [...] but our heads weren&rsquo;t spinning.&rdquo;

Harkrider, who operates in Jacksonville, Florida with the help of his fianc&eacute;e, Sheri, said that this was a beneficial way to start because he made enough money to support the business throughout the off-season while he found his footing. This put him in the position to analyze everything he&rsquo;d soaked in during his 2018 opening so that he could hit the ground running in early spring 2019.

&ldquo;I am poised and ready to strike,&rdquo; Harkrider said of the upcoming season. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve secured my deals for fertilizer and products for the year; in the off-season I got my program built; I can tell you down to the penny what it&rsquo;s gonna cost me per yard, per foot...I&rsquo;m ready.&rdquo;

Valle, who operates in Fleming Island, Florida, agreed that the mid-year opening was a positive experience.

&ldquo;Opening during the non-traditional season really helped me,&rdquo; Valle said. &ldquo;I was very nervous at first &mdash; you know, you&rsquo;re dealing with products that can burn a lawn. It was nerve-wracking.&rdquo; 

However, opening during a time with less-hectic demand let Valle get comfortable with the process and leveraged his learning opportunities. Now, as he looks toward the spring of 2019, Valle says, &ldquo;I have so much more confidence.&rdquo;

Since their openings, Valle and Harkrider have grown to be good friends, speaking regularly by phone to discuss business strategy and share best practices.

&ldquo;Ralph and I talk every day,&rdquo; Harkrider said. &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t have someone in the business to talk to, to brainstorm with, to jump in the boat with your misery or to laugh about it all together, well, look for another franchise,&rdquo; said Harkrider.

&ldquo;It helps us. We were just bouncing programs off each other,&rdquo; Harkrider continued. &ldquo;On a couple, [Valle] said &lsquo;I&rsquo;ll go with what you&rsquo;re doing,&rsquo; and on others, I changed my thought. That&rsquo;s imperative.&rdquo;

When asked if the friendship helped the experience of being a Lawn Doctor franchisee, Valle said yes, emphasizing that having another owner-operator who knows what it&rsquo;s like to be in the weeds (literally) has really helped him.

&ldquo;We actually met because he reached out to me before our training class. We&rsquo;ve helped each other a lot. If he finds something that&rsquo;s wrong, he&rsquo;ll call me and we&rsquo;ll see what a better route is. He has bigger lawns than me and I have smaller lawns, so if I have a granular problem, I&rsquo;ll call him, and if he has a spray problem, he can call me.&rdquo;

Knowing that the two could face down any concerns they encountered while opening mid-year was reassuring for each party.

&ldquo;It was win-win,&rdquo; said Valle.

Both Harkrider and Valle also knew that, no matter at what time of the year they launched, they could rely on Lawn Doctor&rsquo;s industry knowledge and ongoing support.

&ldquo;Lawn Doctor has been around doing franchising for over 50 years,&rdquo; Harkrider said. &ldquo;Everybody I&rsquo;ve met is happy in the business; there are guys that have been franchise owners for 20 or 30 years and are doing really well. [Lawn Doctor is] on the <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/franchise500/2019/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=veterans-turned-franchisees-turned-friends-find-benefits-to-opening-their-lawn-doctor-businesses-mid-year-2709267" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line:none" target="_blank">Franchise 500.</a>&rdquo;

Harkrider further explained the appeal to Lawn Doctor&rsquo;s proven business model by noting: &ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t flying by night; it&rsquo;s not a fad. This is long-haul stuff. If you put money into retirement plans and investments, you&rsquo;re betting on the long game. This is the same.&rdquo;

Both Harkrider and Valle are focused on growing their business in 2019: Harkrider hopes to &ldquo;quadruple what [he] did in 2018,&rdquo; and Valle expects to end the year with at least 200 new customers. Given the knowledge and experience they had the opportunity to amass and better understand during last year&rsquo;s launch, the two friends are well-positioned to hit their goals.

While Harkrider and Valle have indeed hit their stride after a mid-year opening, Harkrider takes care to emphasize that there&rsquo;s no &ldquo;one size fits all&rdquo; approach.

&ldquo;There are advantages to opening right in the middle of the heat in the season, and there are advantages to opening earlier,&rdquo; Harkrider said. &ldquo;It depends on the person. If you&rsquo;re a person that wants to ease in, then maybe you get started in the off-season. If you say, &lsquo;Light the fire and throw me in it!&rsquo;, then, jump on it and strike.&rdquo;

<div>&nbsp;</div>

Veterans-Turned-Franchisees-Turned-Friends Find Benefits to Opening Their Lawn Doctor Businesses Mid-Year

1851 Franchise

Lawn Doctor franchisees Greg Harkrider and Ralph Valle leveraged what they learned opening last summer in order to hit the ground running this spring.


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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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Veterans-Turned-Franchisees-Turned-Friends Find Benefits to Opening Their Lawn Doctor Businesses Mid-Year

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