CONTRACTOR PROFILE
by Angie Mellor
‘Lawn Man’ delivers instant quotes to make lawns
green, thick an K
endall the “Lawn Man” Hines has been involved in the family business, Lawn Doctor of Grand Rapids, Mich. since he was eight years old. “I grew up on the lawns with my dad out there, learning every aspect of the business,” Hines said. “I got to see it from a first-hand perspective; the agronomic conditions and how to treat weeds and fertilize a lawn.” But Hines offers more than just his background in the green industry. Over the past five years, he’s grown his client base from 100 to around 2,000 accounts by changing the way he sells the service, via a chatbot platform he’s developed.
The Hines Lawn Doctor Franchise
As Hines and his brothers grew up, his parents maintained the Lawn Doctor franchise part time and after playing college baseball for a few years, he took over sales and marketing and grew the company exponentially. Recently, he and childhood friend and now business partner, Henry Eggers, purchased the family franchise and added four more Lawn Doctor
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next level,” Hines said. “We have some pretty big targets that we want to attain. We started with one truck and one machine now we have 11 trucks and 15-16 employees this year.”
Services Offered
Business partners Henry Eggers, left and Kendall Hines display their trademark “Green, thick and weed-free” plaque.
franchises in Western Michigan. Hines and Eggers grew up together on a street called Castlebrook, where they played football together in the front yard. Now the pair has named their holding company after this fond childhood memory and are working together to grow both their Lawn Doctor franchises and their new holding company. “It’s been growing fast and we have huge aspirations for where we want to go, and we’re putting together the team now that’s going take us to the
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www.greenindustrypros.com
Hines’ Lawn Doctor franchises service mainly residential accounts, and offer services such as fertilization, aeration, and power seeding to keep lawns green, thick, and weed free. Additionally, the insect division is rapidly growing with a rise in mosquito borne illnesses. “We show them results in the lawn, then they get a friendly phone call when the mosquitoes are out,” Hines said. Lawn Doctor offers treatments to spray foliage around the property, keeping the area mosquito free for 30 to 40 days. “It’s a real problem from a safety aspect, and families want to make sure they’re protected,” Hines noted.
Innovating and Changing Sales Strategies
Hines used a variety of methods to build his client base over the last five years. He described the increase