Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley interviews Greg Garcia, Account Executive in the Landscape Group, as he recaps his experiences attending Leaders Forum 2024 in Litibu, Nayarit, Mexico.

Show Notes: ⁠Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter⁠

Director/Host: ⁠Alyssa Burley⁠

Guest: ⁠Greg Garcia⁠

Producer/Editor: ⁠Megan Lockhart⁠

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “News Room News” by Spence

Transcript

Alyssa Burley: Hi, this is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa's Media Communications and Client Services Department. Thank you for listening to today's top Rancho Mesa News. Brought to you by our Safety and Risk Management Network, StudioOne. Welcome back, everyone. My guest is Greg Garcia, account executive in the Landscape Group with Rancho Mesa. Greg specializes in commercial insurance for the lawn and landscape industry, and I invited him in today to share his experience at the recent 2020 for NALP Leaders Forum. Greg, welcome to the show.

Greg Garcia: Hey, Alyssa, Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Excited. Talk about kind of the trip that we had down to Mexico and looking forward to getting into it.

AB: All right. So it sounds like you've been busy attending events and meeting with clients. Not too long ago, you and your brother Drew were in Las Vegas at Aspires Ignite Conference. And you just got back from the Leaders Forum, which is an executive level conference hosted by the National Association of Landscape Professionals. So with so much going on as a landscape insurance broker, what brought you to Leaders Forum?

GG: Yeah, no. Great question. And you mentioned Aspire earlier, Drew and I probably try to hit 4 to 5 different events throughout the year and we pick and choose kind of the events that we feel we get the most out of and are the best for us. You know, from a sponsorship standpoint, from Rancho Mesa and also just from an industry standpoint, what are most of our clients going to what are the industry experts going to? And for me NALP's Leaders Forum is one of my favorite events. It's it's more intimate setting. There's not as many people, but it's, for the most part, business owners at this event. And you get all these great minds into one location at one time and ideas are being shared can be organizationally or culturally. So you're just finding a lot of good nuggets to take back with you. And NALP does a great job always putting on these events. This one was down in Mexico and Drew and I and our dad went as well, had a great time down there. And the great part about these events as well is that more and more of our clients are starting to show up. I think Drew and I had about in total, about six of our clients there So great to see them. We brought down some Rancho Mesa hats for the clients that were able to make the trip, so they got some Rancho Mesa swag. So that was fun and overall, just a great event for us. And we really had a good time down there.

AB: All right. And I think it's important that not only we're meeting with our clients throughout the year, but that our clients get to meet each other. They can share experiences and really build a bond with like minded companies from around the country. And of course, supporting the NALP is important to Rancho Mesa. And we found that the NALP is a valuable partner to us and it's a great organization for our landscape clients to join. So if you were talking to a client or maybe a prospect that hasn't attended Leaders Forum, what would you say that they can expect?

GG: Yeah, Leaders Forum. I kind of touched on it earlier, but yeah, I think some of the best thing that you can get is you're going to be in the same room with industry experts. And for us it's landscape industry that, you know, you got people from Landcare, they're some of the largest organizations in this room basically sharing their secret sauce for what has made their company successful. And the willingness that these owners have to share with with other industry owners is amazing. I mean, there were sitting around round tables similar to the one in StudioOne here, and people are just kind of going around the room and talking about kind of what has worked for them, why they're successful, some of their failures and how they've learned from it. So the networking aspect for us, I know Drew and I, we always do a recap of it and we're always taking back so much from this event. Another way is, you know, there's just so many fun activities. Like I think on this last one they did like a Survivor challenge, so they kind of break it up, right? You want to have some formal conversations with people, but also, you know, make sure people are having fun. So they broke teams up into about ten different teams breaking you, kind of getting you out of your comfort zone as well and interacting with people maybe you wouldn't have interacted with unless otherwise forced to for the Survivor contest. And so we had a great time there. And yeah, so if anybody is thinking about it or is on the fence and I know sometimes the locations can be a little bit challenging to get to, it's a great event and I know after the next one's in Costa Rica, after that, we're coming back stateside. I think in 2026 would be in Arizona, in 2027, will be in Anaheim. And so I highly recommend anybody who's kind of on the fence that they want to go to to come check it out.

AB: Yeah, it sounds like you would get a lot of really great insight into how these successful landscape organizations are working and be able to pick the brain of other people who have been there and done it. That's that's really exciting.

GG: Exactly. Super fun.

AB: So was there a highlight for you from this event?

GG: Yeah, highlights. Obviously just listening to people, you know, telling their story, but kind of off the course highlight was myself, Drew, Allen Sweeney, who's the CEO of Aphix, and Dan Krems, who's a CFO at LandCare. The last day there wasn't really anything organized to do, so we got to super early and went surfing to a local surf spot. I'm not a great surfer. I can stand up. None of us are great. I'll just put it out there right now. But it was fun for us to get out there. And the one caveat was when you walk down this little trail to get to the beach, it was it was lined with this this like river pond deal on the left there. And there's actually alligators that were just kind of roaming around in there.

AB: You lost me at alligator.

GG: Yeah, same with me. They had the they had to really get me to go down this thing. And we asked the surf guy who we rented the boards from were like, Do the alligators ever get into the ocean? And we were hoping he'd be like, Never and not a chance. But he's like, Nah, usually not this time of year. You guys should be okay. And we were just like, All right, I guess we're just going to put it in fate's hands and we're going to go and see what happens. Luckily, we all came back with all of our fingers and toes and we had a really, really great time. So it was a great way to cap off an event with what two people, Alan and Dan, who we have so much respect for, and they've done so much for us and we've learned so much from them. It was nice to kind of get into a setting outside of maybe a roundtable like this. So it was that was definitely my highlight. And making out there unscathed was was a bonus for sure.

AB: Well, I'm glad that everyone made it out of the water. Okay.

GG: Exactly.

AB: And safe and sound so that they can attend that next year.

GG: Exactly. That's right.

AB: So is there anything else that you'd like listeners to know about Leaders Forum if if they are somebody that's on the fence?

GG: Yeah. No, I think reach out to myself, my brother Drew anybody else that's a member and then just ask them about their experience. I never heard anybody say anything bad about Leaders Forum or any NALP event that's put on. NALP, does a great job putting these events on. It's always first class, the hotel, the amenities, everything is so nice. It's organized. I can't say enough about this event. Probably my favorite event of the year. But yeah, if there's any questions you can reach out to me directly. I can be reached at ggarcia@ranchomesa.com. Or you can call me call my office at 619-438-6905 if you have any additional questions.

AB: All right. Well, thank you, Greg. And, you know, I do think that the fact that you're attending these types of events that really shows that you are part of the landscape industry, that you want to meet and interact and understand the people that you're insuring.

GG: So, no for sure!

AB: Think that's great.

GG: Yeah, and I'll just close on that as well, is that we go to these events to network. We're not going there to, you know, sell insurance. We want to find out about industry issues, whether they're having it with their insurance or other industry related problems. And then we can try to be a problem solver, come back here to to Rancho Mesa and ask around the office if they have any ideas. So, yeah, it's great event and thanks for having me in StudioOne. I always enjoy coming in here and recapping these things.

AB: Of course. Well, like you said, you know, thanks for joining me in StudioOne and I can't wait to hear about the next event that you guys go to Costa Rica.

GG: So it should be another good one. So thanks, Alyssa.

AB: This is Alyssa Burley with Rancho Mesa. Thanks for tuning into our latest episode produced by StudioOne. For more information, visit us at ranchomesa.com, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.