Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley and Greg Garcia, Account Executive with Rancho Mesa discuss Aspire’s recent Ignite Conference for the landscape industry.

Show Notes: ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alyssa Burley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Greg Garcia

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 with Rancho Mesa. Today we're going to talk about the recent Aspire Ignite Conference.

Greg, welcome to the show.

Greg Garcia: Alyssa, thanks for having me. I felt like it wasn't too long ago where I just got off an airplane, but happy to be back here in StudioOne.

AB: Well, thanks for coming.

GG: Of course.

AB: So, for our listeners who aren't familiar with the annual Aspire Ignite Conference, can you give us a glimpse into the event and who typically attends?

GG: Yeah, Aspire is probably the number one software used by a lot of landscape companies across the country. They do a really tremendous job with their product. It's been around for about 10 years now. And, just going to different industry landscape industry events, Drew and I have gotten really close with their team.

And, this is the third year that we've sponsored this event. So, it's always fun seeing familiar faces and things like that. It's also fun because a lot of the people from Aspire are based out of St. Louis. So, my background, I used to play for the Cardinals. A few of them actually knew who I was, which was surprising, but still fun, nonetheless, to catch up and tell some old baseball stories. And as far as who typically attends, it's industry leaders, landscape leaders.

It's fun now because we probably have eight to ten clients that are attending these events. So, we get to meet and see our clients again and they get to meet each other. So really, it's a really cool event.

The other thing they do well too is they have it throughout the country. The first year we did it was in San Antonio. Last year it was in Las Vegas and then this year obviously it was in Orlando. So, they're kind of hitting all the geographic regions to help with travel. This year wasn't so good for us going from San Diego to Orlando, but last year was great, the easy one to Las Vegas.

But overall, great event. They always do a really, really nice job.

AB: All right. Well, for those listeners who haven't met Greg, he specializes in commercial insurance for the lawn and land care industry, which you can probably tell. And he's written articles, been on podcasts like this one, and has spoken about best practices for insuring the landscape and lawn industry. So, it's no surprise that you'll find him at events like this.

So Greg, how did you find out about the Aspire Ignite conference?

GG: Yeah, no, it was like I said, I think it was about three years ago now. We always knew of Aspire. You know, Drew's been doing this a lot longer going on, I think, eight or nine years doing the insurance for the landscape industry and going to industry events. So, we always knew about Aspire. And then I think the connection just continued to grow year after year. And we saw their product and more importantly we saw what our clients were saying about their product it's a really really good product that a lot of our clients speak really highly of, so it only made sense for us to kind of um you know try to figure out some sort of partnership and our way of doing that and giving back to the industry is to sponsor this event. So, three years ago we decided to be a sponsor for one of the aspiring night in San Antonio and I think I actually went out there by myself as well drew sent as well. Drew sent me out there by myself and it was a lot of fun.

I met a lot of great people and kind of came back and we did the whole debrief of the conference and it was like, yeah, this is something that we're going to want to do year after year.

AB: All right. And I heard that you were asked to give a talk on where the status of the insurance industry market is and where you think it's going. So how was that experience?

GG: Yeah, completely new for me, like I was just kind of saying, Drew's the face of the franchise for the green team. So, he's usually the one that gets on stage and has to do the talks, which I'm completely fine with. I actually prefer beating in the audience, but the Aspire people asked me to go up there. And the session was based on the future of the landscape industry, kind of where you see it going in 2050. And I was like, man, I don't know where insurance is going to be at in 2050, but I could give you a quick synopsis of kind of the market for the next three to five years.

And we really just kind of honed in on the auto market. So I had some nerves for sure, something that's outside of my comfort zone. But, overall went really, really well. There was some really good feedback. And hopefully Drew just continues to do the next ones and moving forward. We'll just leave it to him.

AB: All right. So, what is the most memorable or coolest thing that you saw at the conference?

GG: Yeah. One of the coolest things that I was able to see at the conference was on Tuesday night. They always do kind of like a night recap where you get to go out. And we went out to this restaurant in Disney Springs. And I'd never been there. And great food. There was live music. And then right around like 9:30 or 10 at night, they did a drone show. And I don't know if anybody knows what that is or familiar with it, but it was pretty amazing. They had, I don't know, it seemed like 10,000 drones went up in the sky at the same time. And they'd turn a certain color or move a certain way and they'd create these images in the sky. And it was everything from like Mickey Mouse to in Star Wars, they had the Death Star. So it was like they kind of hit on all sorts of things. And I could not believe how just great those images looked in the sky. And everybody was raving about it. So Aspire always does a great job. It's always a first class event. And, you know, this was this was a really, really fun night for everybody to just kind of hang out, let loose and enjoy some entertainment.

AB: Yeah, that sounds really fun. I've heard of those, but I've never actually seen one.

GG: Yeah, it's crazy.

AB: So, what brings you back to this event every year. And why do you think industry professionals should attend next year?

GG: Yeah, a couple things bring us back every year. One, we want to try to help out the industry. So, this is our way of providing some help to the green industry by sponsoring this event because we know Aspire does a great job helping out with the landscape industry.

And two, like I said, we're seeing a lot of our clients here now. So, it's fun to catch up with clients, hang out with them and just kind of be able to have each of our clients meet each other as well.

So, we have clients in Illinois and San Diego and Northern California. They're all going to kind of meet up and we get to have a good time. And then finally it's just about networking with new people and figuring out different industry issues, trends, asking not even really insurance related questions, but just kind of how they're running their business because a lot of these successful landscape companies are at this event and absolutely me and Drew have taken away ideas from other landscape companies that we feel like maybe we can implement into our processes here at Rancho Mesa or within the green team or whatever it might be.

So yeah, it's a and then as far as do I think other industry professionals should attend, I would absolutely recommend it. I mean, I think they do a great job. They have great content. You know, they have little breakout classes throughout. It's a great opportunity to network with your peers within the industry, meet some new friends, and hopefully take away some good nuggets to take back to your own business.

AB: All right. Well, Greg, if listeners have questions about maybe managing their own lawn and land care business's risk or they have questions about Aspire, what's the best way to get in touch with you.

GG: Yeah, you can either email me or call me. A good call number would be (619) 438-6905, or you can shoot me an email at G Garcia at Rancho Mesa .com.

AB: All right. Well, Greg, thanks for joining me in StudioOne.

GG: Awesome. Thanks for having me, Alyssa.

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