When he purchased PG Rental Centre in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, in 2015, Todd Molland was a newcomer to the equipment rental industry. It didn’t take long for him to recognize and appreciate the advantages offered through the business’s pre-existing American Rental Association (ARA) membership.
“I think the advantage is twofold,” Molland says. “On one side of the coin, there is someone like me: I have a different background of banking and finance, and I am not — and probably never will be — an industry expert, because there is so much to learn. As a new owner and a new person to the industry, to upskill myself as quick as I possibly could, I could only do that by relying on the knowledge of others around me. In order to do that, being members of ARA is an absolute no brainer. You can go on [rental education] courses online, you can meet your peers and befriend people that do exactly what you do, but you don't compete with because they are in a different market.”
Molland singles out The ARA Show™ as a marquee benefit of ARA involvement that is key to establishing valuable industry connections and even saving money.
“The other side of it is, we kind of operate in silos. I am in northern British Columbia and so for me, the only way I'm going to be able to form those bonds and relationships is to meet with other people. Attending The ARA Show, for us, is non-negotiable. That is marked on the calendar for five years out or however long known dates permit. I always tell people that you cannot measure the non-monetary component of attending the show, like the relationships you gain. The other thing, too, is that I have yet to attend a show where the pure monetary savings that I got from attending the show did not pay for my travel costs two, three, four or five-fold,” he says.