Co-hosted by The Grow Group and McFarlin Stanford, ACE Peer Group members recently gathered in Alaska not only to talk business but create memories and build relationships. Hear from attendees why being a part of a peer group matters to them.
Transcription:
TORCHIA: Our peer group members meet four times a year. Three times a year, they meet at a member’s location. So if you’re a member in Des Moines, Iowa or Topeka, Kansas, everybody from your peer group, another 10 to 12 companies, will come spend a day with you and your team, and then we’ll conduct our meeting at a local hotel or business center. Then our fourth meeting of the year is a summit. It’s a retreat. It’s all members, same place, same location. So that’s our standard program, what we like to mix into the program, or what we call ace experiences. And these are an experience for Ace members to do something that they wouldn’t normally do with their peer group. So Alaska is an amazing place for us to host an ace experience, because we have access to a great fishing lodge and we happen to have a member in Anchorage. So that’s where the ACE experience in Alaska came from.
CALI: Even when we’re having fun, we make sure that we get business done. We’ve been doing the Alaska experience for the ACE program now- this is our fifth year. We bring peer groups here, typically in their third to fifth year, somewhere in that range. It’s an opportunity to get away, spend time together and bond. You know, it’s more about breaking bread with those that you work with and you build relationships.
WELLER: We’re all dealing with a lot of the same stuff in our day to day, so when we’re faced with a challenge that maybe we don’t know how to address, it’s just the network of other owners, CEOs and leaders, has just been great for me.
COATES: You know, since being in a peer group, it’s helped grow our business. It’s helped give me access to a lot of people who if I don’t have the answer for something there’s always someone that does.
AMIGO: Being 24 years old there’s not a lot of people my age in this situation that I’m in, and I’m very grateful for it. Just talking to other peer group members, they tell me, man, if I were your age and I had this access and this knowledge at this point, I mean, they can’t imagine where they’d be now, and I really take that to heart. And so I just picked these guys brains. But I also want to provide value. I don’t want to just take, take and take. I also want to give. So I also give my experiences for the younger generation as well.
CALI: Well. I always tell people who want to join a peer group, you know, why learn it alone? Being a CEO of a landscape company here is a pretty lonely job, and having those who have been there, done that, or tried this and failed at it and tried this and won at it. It’s much easier to learn that from your friends and your network. And as you build this board of advisors, they get to know your team. They get to know who your leadership group is, and help you build a leadership group, even if you don’t have one. So I would tell you that the peer group is a chance to step away, work on the business, right, and take your business to the next level.
CROMLEY: You know, the peer groups is a funny story in the fact that, you know, I was like, always against them. I didn’t think they worked. I was like, I’m not sharing my ideas. And I wasn’t so much against it, I just didn’t think that it would bring a ton of great value. And you know, one of my friends who came to my facility, did a tour, and said, you know, you gotta join this peer group. You gotta just, and he kept calling me. I’m like, I’m not doing it. I’m not doing it. And finally, one day, he’s like, I’m sorry, I just signed you up for it. I said you were gonna do it. And I was like, You know what? I like you, I trust you. I’m gonna give it a shot. But now I’m hooked. I think it’s one of the best things in the world. Because I haven’t made like, I haven’t met other business owners. I’ve met friends. I mean, these guys are friends for life. At this point, this is it’s Tuesday, and I got an angry client. I don’t know what to do. I text them. I’m like, What do you think we should do here? Oh, that happened to me two months ago. Let me tell you how I handled it.
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