Lawn Doctor

The second time Jonathan Bankert decided to open a franchise, he knew exactly where to look. By then, the franchise broker maintained an inventory of roughly 250 franchise brands that he would pair with prospective franchisees who came to him looking for an opportunity that matched their interests, experience and capital. But the first time he decided to open a franchise, Bankert hadn&rsquo;t yet become a franchise broker. In fact, he says he didn&rsquo;t know the profession existed. If he had, he says he would have never bought into the global sandwich brand that marked his first foray into the franchisee side of the industry.

&ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t the right personality match for me,&rdquo; said Bankert, who had decided to purchase a franchise after working as the director of franchising for a small fast-casual franchisor in Hanover, Pennsylvania. &ldquo;I knew the industry, and I wanted to own something for myself, something to build equity.&rdquo;

Bankert learned quickly that the franchise he&rsquo;d chosen for his first business would not work for him in the long-term, but he says the experience did not turn him off from franchising. &ldquo;It wasn&rsquo;t the right fit, but I still knew I wanted to own something, and I trusted franchising was the way to do it&rdquo; he said.

Bankert sold his franchise, and after a short stint in law enforcement, (&ldquo;I was looking for something less stressful than sandwiches,&rdquo; he jokes), he learned about franchise consultancy, a profession he suspected he might be uniquely well-suited for, given his experience on both sides of the industry and his firsthand knowledge of the importance of franchisor-franchisee alignment.

Bankert has been working as a franchise consultant for about two years now. Last year, he and his wife Eleanor decided it was time to take a second shot at ownership, so they dipped into Bankert&rsquo;s portfolio and started vetting concepts. It wasn&rsquo;t long before they focused on <a href="http://lawndoctorfranchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=why-a-franchise-broker-chose-lawn-doctor-when-starting-his-own-business-2706773" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lawn Doctor</a>.

&ldquo;We pulled about seven brands that we were interested in and started researching them,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;<a href="https://lawndoctor.1851franchise.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=why-a-franchise-broker-chose-lawn-doctor-when-starting-his-own-business-2706773" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lawn Doctor</a> was hands down the best. Everything about it made the most sense for us.&rdquo;

Bankert says the lawn-care franchise&rsquo;s low investment, wealth of corporate support, home-based and seasonal operations, and strong marketing checked off all the boxes he and Eleanor were looking for, but it was the validation from existing owners that convinced the pair that Lawn Doctor was the franchise for them.

&ldquo;I spoke to a number of owners, and without exception, they confirmed everything we were excited about,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;They were making money, they were getting support from corporate, the marketing was working. I even spoke to someone who had left the system. I expected to hear about how it wasn&rsquo;t for her or why she couldn&rsquo;t make it work, but she was moving on for personal reasons, and she her husband had worked the business for something like 30 years. To me, that was the biggest selling point.&rdquo;

Soon after determining Lawn Doctor was a great potential fit, Bankert met the brand&rsquo;s vice president of franchise development, Eric Martin, at a convention hosted by Bankert&rsquo;s consultancy. Martin told Bankert about an open Lawn Doctor territory that happened to be available in his area. Bankert said he had just the prospects in mind.

Bankert went out to a Lawn Doctor discovery day earlier this year, and he and Eleanor signed a contract to own two territories shortly after. They begin training in June and plan to be open for business in July.

Bankert says he plans to grow his <a href="https://www.lawndoctor.com/charlottesville-va/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=why-a-franchise-broker-chose-lawn-doctor-when-starting-his-own-business-2706773" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lawn Doctor franchise</a> to eventually encompass four or five routes, at which point his son Keith will take over the business. In the meantime, Keith will start as the business&rsquo;s operations manager and Eleanor will help with the office responsibilities while keeping a part time job as an ultrasound technologist.

That ability to run Lawn Doctor without fully leaving their existing careers was a major factor in the family&rsquo;s decision to buy into the brand, says Bankert.

&ldquo;We wanted to find something that would allow us to work together, from home, before both of us left our current careers,&rdquo; Bankert said.

As the Bankert family gears up to open their first territories, Martin says the Lawn Doctor team is excited to start working with them.

&ldquo;We have owners who come from all sorts of backgrounds, but few of them have the industry insight that Jonathan does,&rdquo; Martin said. &ldquo;He knows exactly how valuable our model is, and I have no doubt he&rsquo;s going to work it beautifully. Jonathan and his wife have a lot of flexibility in their current career, which will allow for most of their time to be focused on building the brand. We can&rsquo;t wait to help them grow the business.&rdquo;

Now that he&rsquo;s becoming a franchisee again, Bankert says he&rsquo;s excited to return to that side of the business.

&ldquo;Franchising gives people the opportunity to build something without the uncertainty and difficulty of starting a business from scratch, and that&rsquo;s exactly what we want. We want something we can grow. We want to be able to look at our business and say &lsquo;this is mine,&rsquo; and we&rsquo;re excited to find that with Lawn Doctor.&rdquo;

&nbsp;

Why A Franchise Broker Chose Lawn Doctor When Starting His Own Business

1851 Franchise

Jonathan Bankert helps match entrepreneurs with like-minded franchise brands. Here’s why he chose Lawn Doctor for himself. 

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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