Episode 120: So You've Hired a Fleet Consultant---Now What?

Welcome to the Fleet Success Podcast. I'm your host this week, Steve Seltzgibert. With me today are Mark Canton and Tony Yankovich, my guests. This is episode 120, and this is part 3 of, of part of a 3-part series of regarding our fleet consultants. In this episode, we're going to talk a little bit about reasons why you might want to hire an expert industry expert consultant. And also we're going to talk about, okay, Now you've hired one, so what do you do next? So let's start with a little introduction. Most of you know me by now. I'm Steve Salzgiver, former fleet director for two states, Utah and Georgia, and then also for fleet vice president for Coca-Cola and for Republic Services. I've been a consultant now for well over 10 years. I've got more than 100, probably 200 or 300 projects I have under my belt now. And then of course, I am in the Government Hall of Fame. So, Mark, why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners? Sure.

Hi everyone. I'm Mark Canton. Glad to be back. I'm the head of product and advisory services at RTA. Spent most of my career running transportation fleets in higher education in New York City and then moved on to becoming a consultant, a fleet management consultant, and sort of continued on from there doing fleet management analytics and managing the data team. So Got to get my feet wet, so to speak, in a lot of different areas of fleet all over the country and in all kinds of different industries of fleet. So really happy for my time doing that and super happy to be here with you guys and talking fleet with, with some colleagues.

Thank you, Tony.

Well, thanks, Steve, and happy to be part of the third part of the three-part series on hiring a fleet consultant. I've been in the fleet industry for about 35 years now. I act as the Director of Advisory Services for RTA's Fleet Consulting Group. Started my career in fleet with the local government, worked there for about 12 years, and then moved on to fleet consulting, which I've been doing for the past 23 years now. I have somewhere north of 400 fleet studies under my belt at this point and just happy to be with you guys today.

Sounds good. So let's get moving. So you hired a fleet consultant. Now what do you do? You gotta get any good sailing information for these guys.

Yeah, I mean, look, I think the first thing to kick it off is embrace it, you know, and embrace it. This is your 15 minutes of fame. The fact that there's a project going on, uh, in relation to your fleet is a good thing. It's an opportunity to tell your story. It's an opportunity to show if maybe there are resources you need that you don't have. To show off what you do well, you know, and an opportunity, most importantly, to improve, to identify areas that, you know, you can make things move a little bit better, so to speak, for your stakeholders and for others. You know, I think a big mistake folks make when there's an engagement is they feel like maybe they're being, you know, checked out, or the word we used in an earlier episode, audited, right? Usually it's very, very rare that the consulting engagement is going to be an audit. No one's trying to catch you. Nobody's trying to ding you. None of that's going on. It's just about how can we improve, how can we make things better. So step 1, I think first and foremost, is remember consultants aren't your enemies. In fact, it's the extreme polar opposite. They're your friends. They're there to walk alongside you and help make your job go better, go more easily in the long run, help you improve. Even personally in many cases. So step 1, embrace it from an attitude perspective, from a, you know, have the right attitude going in, have the right mindset going in.

I don't know, thoughts, Tony?

No, I agree completely with that, Mark. I think the important thing is to realize that, you know, we're your friends, we're there to help you. We're a resource that maybe you don't have. And this is your opportunity. You know, most organizations are not going to have a fleet study every couple of years. So this might be a once-in-a-career opportunity, so take advantage of it.

Okay, so what next?

Well, you know, I think maybe the next and most important part is to make sure everyone's on the same page. We really need to make sure that both sides, the consulting team as well as the organization that's being helped, understand what the project the outcomes, project objectives, and the project goals are. You know, one of the things that, you know, we respond to a lot of RFPs or requests for proposals, and there's an identified scope of work in those. But once you start meeting with the client and identifying what they really and truly need or what they really and truly want, those two, those things might be different than what was originally listed in the RFP document. So what you, it's really important to do is to identify what those project objectives are, Write them down, document them, make sure that everyone's on the same page, and then, then go from there.

And that usually happens in like a kickoff meeting, right?

It certainly can.

Yep.

And I would also say that a lot of times that can even be done during contract negotiation. You really want to have those objectives spelled out for both sides to see, and then obviously clarify them and validate them during the kickoff meeting.

Yeah, nothing could be worse than when you get to the point where you're going to give them a deliverable and you got the wrong deliverable coming their way. Right. Or there's a misunderstanding. Or the reverse. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, right.

So, yeah, the reverse, right, exactly. Yeah, that's a challenge. I mean, I think you guys make a good point. You know, thankfully it's the minority of times, but, you know, sometimes you do get these funny things. Well, you're the consultant, you tell us what the replacement life cycle should be. It's kind of like, well, I'd do that gladly, except that's nowhere in the scope of this work. This is, you know, this is a PM schedule refinement, you know, or something like that, right? So that really is key. I agree with that. And I think, you know, another piece you just kind of alluded to, Steve, is the kickoff meeting. Man, that kickoff meeting is important. Don't skip the kickoff meeting. Have the team there, have the stakeholders there. Sometimes if it's a really big project, you might even need multiple kickoff meetings. You might need a kickoff for each task or something of that nature, right? Depending on the project. But Get everybody there. That's folks' opportunity to make sure they understand what's going on, what the objectives are, what are the potential issues, what are the obstacles, what's the timelines. Make sure everybody has responsibility and accountability for the pieces they're going to own, that sort of a thing. So don't flake out on the kickoff. Don't send your, you know, your assistant or something of that nature. Get everybody who's important there and leave extra time. If you think it needs 30 minutes, schedule an hour. If you think it needs an hour, schedule an hour and a half. You don't want that to be rushed or have any misunderstanding coming out of that. So, yeah.

Another part too of the scope review and the scope is to make sure you have all the expectations and confidentiality agreements in place. You know, make sure you have NDAs, those kinds of things as well.

Yep.

Exactly. I think I would add to that is, you know, during a consulting engagement, it's not uncommon at all for the objectives and the goals to actually change. You know, if we're in there doing a consulting gig and we find out the fleet is extremely old, you know, maybe what they really need is a fleet renewal plan. They need a strategic 20-year plan to identify funding resources for the next several years. And that's not part of the original scope. So, I think it's important to understand that it's a living document. And there are times that it makes sense to make a change and add a task or substitute a task. During the study.

You know, I agree. Nothing is worse than going through a consulting project and then finding out you should have done something as a precursor to the project, you know, and you have to just stop real quickly and back up and go, oh my gosh, let's do this now instead of where we are, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

So what else can you do to make sure it goes smoothly?

I think a big one that folks skip or don't always understand is, you know, the project, the consulting team is going to have a project manager, right, and different roles with their team. But you can't just kind of rely on the consultant, or you shouldn't just rely on the consultants to hold your hand all the way through and remind you when your schedule is, right? They're not your personal assistant sort of a thing. So you really need a project manager on your end as well, right, that the folks who are having the review done. So if your fleet— if it's yourself, that's great. If it's the fleet manager, you know, ideally it's someone in the project sponsor level. But whoever it is, if it's, you know, an administrative assistant, that's fine. But someone who clearly acts as the lead for your organization, and they're responsible for following up and make sure things are getting scheduled, people are showing up for those schedules. Things are being delivered, and if they're not, they can ping the various folks. So for example, if the folks on the consulting side, the consultants need a document or a piece of data that maybe you don't have direct access to and you have to ask someone else for, and Fleet asks, and they ask again, and they ask again, for those other folks who aren't directly involved in the project, it's kind of like, "Who is this Joe Schmo asking me for this?" You know, why do I owe them anything, right? But that has a different tone when it's someone from Fleet relaying that information and saying, hey, we really need this for our Fleet project. So you really need that liaison, that kind of project manager that keeps things coordinated to keep things moving quickly and efficiently. And whenever there's a project that's been devoid of that, or, you know, sometimes it's someone leaves in the middle of the project, right? And you don't get that same level of attention to detail, the project always suffers. It always suffers. It goes longer than it needs to go. You don't get— you'll be, to your point, Steve, similar to what you said, but slightly different. Tony, I'm sure this has happened to you. You're giving a deliverable and you say, well, there's no policy for personally owned vehicles. Yeah, we got one of those. Well, hey, I asked for it 60 times and you never sent me anything. What am I supposed to— that sort of a thing, right? So you want someone on top of those details. That's just one example.

You know, that kind of lends itself to the, you know, typically what we do on a consulting, the very first task is a request for information, right? And making sure that you complete that request for information as quickly and as timely as possible. I think my experience is that's where the real lag is. If you don't get that information, you can't really kick off this consulting project, you know? And so those kinds of things really need to happen up front. I know, Tony, that's something you need to Well, absolutely.

And what we've done is we've actually streamlined the process for our clients. So we've developed a very formal RFI, request for information, that identifies all the data elements, identifies all the documents that we really would like to see as we initiate the project. And it's very important for the client to understand what that is. So, you know, Mark mentioned multiple kickoff meetings. One of the things that we typically recommend is that once we develop and submit that RFI to the client for a consulting gig is that we meet with them. We meet with the people that are going to be charged with pulling and compiling that data and information together. And we'd like to go, I mean, you know, we developed a spreadsheet template for the inventory and we'd like to go through and say, okay, this is why we're asking for this data element. This is why we're asking for this. This is an example of what we anticipate. And so everyone's on the same page. So generally speaking, and again, I've been doing this for a long time, the biggest delay always occurs in that data gathering phase or that discovery phase. And, you know, if we can simplify that, we can all be on the same page. Anything that we can do to shorten that timeframe is really just going to keep the momentum moving forward for that project.

Yeah, that's a good point. I'll dovetail that and say, you know, two things about that RFI. One is that take your time and get it right, even though it does cause delays. It's better to get it right on the front end than to be at the end of the project finding out, oh, there's these other 150 assets that we forgot to tell you about after you just completed a rightsizing study, right? And obviously I'm being a little over the top with my examples, but these kinds of things sort of have happened before. So take the time. It's better to get it right and have it take a little longer. At the same time, it can't go on forever. And so it's okay. I think, guys, one of the things we run into is there's this hesitancy to say, "Oh, I don't have that," or, "Oh, I can't get you that." And that makes it worse because now you wait and eventually you figure out, well, we can't get it anyway. It's okay. Most of the time when you get an RFI for a consulting gig, we don't actually expect it. I'm sure other consultancies are similar. We don't actually expect that you're going to have every nook and cranny detail and piece of information. We expect you're going to have most of it, frankly. But, you know, we want to cast a wide net so that we make sure that as we're doing our analyses and our evaluations, there wasn't a piece of information or data that we should have considered. We didn't consider, right? And so it's okay to just say, hey, we don't have a policy for personal use of vehicles or personally owned vehicles or whatever. That's okay. And that'll make the list of things that we need to work on to get better, you know? So yeah.

And the other thing too, I know that this has come up a couple of times. If you feel like you're intimidated by the RFI or you don't have the information, don't make it up. You know, don't scramble and say, "Oh my gosh, I got to get a policy written real quick so I can send it to them." You know, it's okay. You know, don't worry about that because everybody doesn't, like Mark said, they don't have everything.

So just let us know, "I don't have that." Yeah, when we come across a client that has every single thing in perfect order, they won't need us. So we'll just simply say, "Okay, here you go. Here's your contract back." Well, we'll talk to you soon.

Totally agree. I remember doing a recent— I mean, and we'll cover a lot of this too. We'll come out and we'll do interviews and we'll sit down with all your staff and we'll even do a deeper, deeper find. But I remember a client recently we worked with and you give them a PowerPoint or the recommendations and the findings and all of a sudden you have something in there. They say, well, I have that.

What?

Yeah. And we're going, well, you never gave us that. Never came up in an interview, you know. And there's just nothing more, uh, you know, nothing worse, I guess, than having that happen to you, right?

Yeah, right. It's frustrating, Stephen. And that does happen, unfortunately.

Yeah.

Oh yeah. And then sometimes it gets even worse because it's, I have that. So then, you know, all right, well, we'll call this off, we'll review it, and we'll come back. And then you get what they have, and it's like, this isn't that. You just didn't want to say in front of the boss you don't have that. Come on, it's okay. Don't Oh boy. Yeah.

So a couple of the things, you know, make sure you communicate this with your staff up and down. I know, Mark, we go back to that same point, you know, earlier where if you got a project leader, they need to cast a wide net, make sure everybody in the organization is aware of it. So if we get— we don't want to get outside that net and get those extraneous questions that get asked. So, and then the other thing too, next, is arrange for the onboarding. We're going to be coming there as consultants, right? So we're going to have to have a place to work, a place to interview, those kinds of things. Any experience on that, Tony?

Yeah. Well, Steve, let me go back to that previous point that you made about communication. And I mean, real, real world story. Just one of the, about a month ago, was on site doing interviews. And we like to, we like to interview all the stakeholders, not just the fleet manager, not just the city manager. The CEO or the CFO of the organization. We like to get down onto the shop floor and interview the mechanics. We like to talk to the technicians, the parts clerks, the people that are, you know, doing the work, turning the wrenches.

Customers.

And yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I, you know, the organization set up the interviews for me and I would arrive to their shop, sit down in the conference room, and the guy says, who are you and what are you here for? And I'm like, Oh, that's funny. Yeah, really. I'm sure you guys know. And they're like, no, really. Who are you? And what you, what are you doing? And it's like, okay, we've been doing this project for, you know, 60 days already. This get, this interview's been scheduled for the last 3 weeks and they have no idea of why we're there, who, why we're meeting with them. So give them a heads up, communicate with your staff. The last thing that they want, a technician on the shop floor wants to see is some consultants walking through their shop and they have no idea why they're there.

Right.

Mark and I just did a recent one where we both traveled over 10 hours and got there and people weren't even ready for the meetings.

Yeah.

You know, so I mean, things like that become, you know, disheartening a little bit on both sides because then we have to schedule subsequent meetings after, you know, to catch up some of that work. So, you know, make sure everybody's on the same page and everybody's scheduled. They know what they're doing. You give them a list of what they have to do when the consultant talks to them.

Yeah, and if you think about it, it's just inefficient, right? I mean, you're going to delay the delivery of the final outcomes of the project, right? But also, hey, we cost money. All consultants do. So do you really want to miss a meeting, or to Tony's point, not be prepared for a meeting? And maybe it requires then another follow-up, or maybe that meeting goes long, or maybe you just don't get— it's a waste of money, bottom line. It's a pure waste of money. So communicating, getting out in front and having people ready, at least some idea of what they're walking into, is really important. You can't really emphasize it enough, I don't think. And ironically, that happens quite frequently, unfortunately. So it's a key piece, I think, you know?

Absolutely. And Steve, that segues right on to the next topic you brought up was onboarding. How do you onboard your consultants? And really, When we're talking about onboarding, we're talking about the logistics of the project. You know, identifying who that project stakeholder is on your side that's going to be the key point of contact. We're identifying who are we going to meet with when we arrive on site. You know, little things like, you know, if the fleet shop is just one small building on a campus that spans 5 or 6 acres or 10 acres, tell us what building it is, you know, that we're meeting in. Tell us, you know, it's Building C at this address. Identify a place that the consultants can kind of call their home when they're on site, whether it be an empty office, whether it be a conference room, and let them have a place to stage, let them have a place to conduct interviews and meetings. So, that's really important as part of the onboarding process with a consultant.

And, you know, Mark's— I was going to say, I'm sorry, Mark. I was going to say too, make sure they have the right security to get into that place.

Oh, that's a good one. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I mean, I've been trapped in inside and can't even get out for lunch before, right?

So I mean, you want to make sure you get out and then you can't get back in, right? Yeah, exactly. It's exactly right.

And we all laugh because it's happened several times.

That's right. And, and boy, there are some places where it's not good to happen to you, right? I mean, I'll get stuck outside in Arizona and you're cooking, boy. Yeah. But you know, just a quick piece of that again and tying it to the efficiency thing is like, you know, we You know, we've said, "Hey, can you put us in a home base, put us in a meeting room and have the interviews come to the consultants?" Right? Because if you think about it, the folks in your organization, they're going to know the campus or the building. They're going to know it pretty well. They're going to be able to find that meeting room much better than a consultant's going to find a meeting room who's never been there, who's been once or twice. What you don't want is the consultant going to 15 different meeting rooms for all of these different meetings. And then you say to yourself, "Well, why? Because I really want the consultant to get to know the property and to see so they have an understanding." Great idea, great thought, but you know what? Schedule a tour and put aside an hour or two or however many are necessary and have that be part of the agenda for the site visit. Okay, consultants, come on, I think it's really important you understand. Most of the time we'll ask for that anyway. But okay, here's the campus, here are the buildings, this is where we keep the tires, this is where we keep the fluid, you know, whatever it may be. And then have that home base for the meetings and bring your interviewees there because again, you want that time to be used as efficiently as possible.

Anything else, Tony? Dad?

No, I would agree 100%. You know, let's use our time efficiently, bring the people to us as much as we can. It's just going to be a lot better process for the entire team.

You know, one thing that always comes up is the consultants are going to interrupt our workflow, our plans, our, you know, our routines. So how do we prepare for that if you're waiting for those consultants to come in?

Well, I think we could do a couple of things, Steve. I think it's important that the consultants be flexible when they come on site, whether that means we're going to be there before they have rollout or before the shift starts, whether we give them an hour to get all their quick fixes and all their morning pull-outs done. So we need to be, as consultants, be flexible to arrange our work around their shifts. We understand. I mean, you're not going to close the shop Things still have to get out the door and we can work around that. And I think it's just making sure that we have the flexibility built into the schedule that we can accommodate that.

Mark?

Yeah, exactly. I, I, exactly. I, I like to think of it as it's our job to be flexible about scheduling and around scheduling, and it's your job to keep to the schedule. So we'll come in and we'll usually give you maybe even a 12-hour range. Hey, we're willing to be on site 6 to 6, but when you, if you tell us someone's gonna be there at 7:15, please try to have somebody there at 7:50. But we can bounce around and we can do other things if there's time to fill, you know, in between those. So yeah, I couldn't agree more with Tony. If you come across a consultant who's just simply inflexible in that way, you know, that might be a reason to maybe do a double take, you know, quite frankly. But I think another piece of it gets back to having that liaison and doing the scheduling, Steve, right? Because if we get out in front of it and we know let's say on November 1st, that on December 1st there's going to be a site visit and the folks are going to be here Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and these are the meetings, you know, if, you know, that should give enough time to, uh, to at least mostly, you know, work around whatever scheduling conflicts and so forth that you have. And if not, then don't choose that week. That's part of the, of the set of the, of the visit process, I think, right? Choose, choose time periods where you know a conducive to have those consultants around. But the last thing we want to do is get there and feel like we're stopping you from doing your work or feel like, you know, we're just getting in your way, right? That's the last thing we want, right? And it's not productive for anybody. So yeah, it's a good thought, Steve.

Any other thoughts, guys?

Well, I'll just, I'll do a couple quick here if it's good, and I'll get your guys' take. I mean, one is kind of hearkening back to what I said at the start about embracing it. I do think it's important to, you know, and then Tony made, or Steve, one of you made a point about communication. And I do think it's important to encourage your team to be forthcoming, right? I mean, I'm sure you guys have done that. Thankfully, it's the minority. But I've, you know, you do this project where, uh, you can tell people are like hesitant, and you're kind of having a, you know, a pull teeth to get things out of people. And for whatever reason, they're scared, they don't want to get in trouble, they're worried about the politics of it. You know, and I get that, and that's human nature. But, you know, again, we're not there to ding you.

Nope.

You know, we're not going to say fire anybody tomorrow or, you know, any of those sorts of things. So it's really important that people are forthcoming because the more you put into it, the more you're going to get out of it. And if we don't get honest and clear information, it's going to negatively impact our ability to give recommendations. Or if we're there to help you implement, you know, it's going to negatively impact our ability to help implement, right? Because we're not getting to the bottom of things quickly. And the irony of it is, is usually in those situations, guys, eventually we get to the bottom of it anyway, right? We find out the thing that people have not been wanting to say. And the only thing that happens is we find out much later on. And so, you know, so it just delayed things and made it more challenging. So that's one that really sticks out to me. I don't know if you guys have any experiences around that or you second that thought or what.

Oh, I definitely agree 100%. You know, we very rarely, if ever, quote anyone on what they're saying or what they're telling us. But we do need open and honest answers and information. And frankly, you know, I like to tell people, we know fleet, but we don't necessarily know all the circumstances and challenges that each individual organization faces until we get on site or until we start, until we initiate the project. So we're not going to learn that unless you share that with us.

Great point.

Yeah. So any final thoughts on what happens once they get the deliverables? Once you get deliverables, if you've got that from your consultants, what do you do with it then? What do you do with that report?

Well, I think even before you get the report, hopefully you've, you've been in pretty good communication with, you know, the consultants and you so that you have a sense of what's coming. Right. And so the number one piece of advice I could give any fleet manager is get out in front of the recommendations. Right. Show them that, show your leadership that you're active. Show them that, you know, you're not sort of sitting on your hands and waiting to see what this is about. If there's an opportunity to start moving on something that's low-hanging fruit, do it. And be prepared with, okay, what is going to be my response to these recommendations? Hey, yep, we're going to do this. Hey, we've already started that. Hey, we can't do this yet because we need XYZ to take place first, you know, so forth and so on. Try to get out in front of that. So I really think that's a key one. And then number 2, once you get to deliverable, boy, I'll tell you, Depending on the nature of your project, you may get something that amounts to a fleet Bible, right? And can give you how to run a fleet essentially for years to come. You know, how to set objectives for your team. You know, what the key pieces that you need to focus on versus what you don't. So it really does depend on the project. But I think step 1 is once you get that and you get stakeholder buy-in, meaning leadership has said, yep, okay, we agree with these recommendations, now do something about it. I think the next step is probably develop an implementation plan, and then after that, begin to implement. So I don't know, guys, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, and I agree 100%, Mark. And I think part of that implementation plan really needs to include prioritizing the action items.

Yeah, good point.

You know, you're not going to be able to do everything at once. Some of these things, like Mark said, are low-hanging fruit, and you can go out tomorrow and make changes to those. Other things are going to take a little bit of time. Other things have to build on other improvement opportunities. So what we really want to do is identify your priorities in short, you know, near-term or short-term, midterm, and long-term. Set a priority, identify the resources and effort required to implement the change, and then, and oftentimes you're going to have to consider cost as well because, you know, some of the recommendations will require some upfront or some capital costs.

Yeah.

Yep, agreed. I, as a fleet manager, I use many of my consulting engagements as kind of the premise to setting my strategic plan every year. You know, and to your point, you know, you need to be able to prioritize that. You know, perhaps it's a 5-year plan. And that's especially true if you've got some replacement analyses going on because you've got to get out in front of that. You've got to have some particular— maybe it's appropriation of capital. You know, maybe it's seeding your internal service fund or whatever it takes to make that happen.

Right. That's a good point, Steve. I'm going to turn it on you. You're the, you're the host today. But, you know, being on both sides of it, you know, what are some of the things that you used consultants for when you were a fleet manager?

You know, I used them to do a best practice assessment, you know, like, which is probably one of our most common ones that we do. I've used them for replacement studies. I've used consultants to write policies and procedures, kind of do like one-off tasks where I didn't want to hire somebody to do that. Right. And that way I don't have to invest in, you know, in a full-time employee and have to pay benefits or anything like that.

Sure.

So once, once the consultant is done with the project, like SOPs or, you know, standard operating procedures or policies, then they're done. They're gone, you know, and then all we need to do is implement them.

Right, right. It's a good call.

Well, and Mark, when I was with the city, a local government organization, we brought in a consultant to do a couple of things. One was to do a best practice assessment to identify, you know, where there were opportunities for improvement. But the bigger part of what we brought them in for was to help centralize our fleet operations. We had a very decentralized organization where many divisions and departments had their own fleet shops. I mean, we had I believe it was 8 different organizations within the city that maintain their own assets. And so we, the primary purpose or objective was to bring that consultant in to help us develop a plan to centralize the organization.

Yeah.

Same thing for us. Well, any final thoughts? Tony, any final thoughts on this?

You know, I don't think so, Steve. I think the only thing that we haven't really talked on is scheduling. I think it's very important that it's part of the communication, it's part of the kickoff meeting as part of the contract negotiations is we identify a project schedule. We understand what is going to be required to meet that project schedule. A lot of times our language in a contract will say the clock doesn't start ticking until we receive all the data and consider it complete and accurate for the project clock to start.

I think that's a very good point, you know, I mean, and I think constant communication back and forth, as Mark has alluded to earlier. Because you can get way behind in a project. And if you're not communicating back and forth, you know, I mean, if it takes 3 weeks to get the information and you didn't tell them anything between that 3 weeks, then you're 3 weeks behind. And they may not know that, and they're expecting delivery, you know, 3 weeks earlier because you didn't communicate that that set the project back. So I think that constant communication is key between both the project leader on the on the side of the city or the county or whoever's requested project, could be a corporation, and then also the consultants. So I think you need to agree on what that cadence is up front.

You know, Steve, you just said something that reminded me of something I rarely get the opportunity to explain, so I'm going to try to do that here. But I think it's really important for folks to understand that, you know, you know, generally speaking, most consulting organizations, right, they need to have more than one client to stay in business, right? And so in all likelihood, you're not the only project going on for right or for wrong. You may feel you should be prioritized, and in many cases I'm sure you are, depending on, you know, but there is a resource aspect. And so, you know, naturally, as you all might understand in your businesses, uh, consultants are planning their work around that schedule that Tony just talked about developing and around some of the things you guys mentioned, like this request for information. So if you say you're going to have it in 2 weeks, uh, and then it takes you, let's say, an extra 2 weeks, it may not always be a one-to-one, uh, increase in the timeline, right? Because now that you took those 2 weeks, the time that the consultant had put aside to look at that information has been lost to some other work that they're obligated to do to someone who did keep the timeline. And now there's a sort of an exponential delay by you all not keeping your timeline. So highly encourage you keeping the timeline, and it's very normal for that not to happen. That's okay. That's not to scare anyone, but get out in front of that. To your point, Steve, about communication. Hey guys, I thought I was going to get this to you in 2 weeks. I'm a week into it and I'm not even halfway done. So in fact, it's going to be 2 or 3. By getting out in front of it, the consultants can then reschedule their work and so potentially and most likely orient it so that it doesn't have as large of an impact on the overall project timeline. But when we find out a month, you know, after you're a month late on something that it's still going to be another month, well boy, you're talking about an exponential increase in the overall timeline because there are other obligations that we have to keep, otherwise we can't feed our children, right? So it's really, it's difficult for folks to get that sometimes. They kind of think that the consultant exists only for them, but that's just not the reality of it. So, you know.

I can speak from experience, and I'm sure Tony can too. We're constantly juggling different projects, you know, simultaneously as we work with our various clients.

So true, Steve.

Yeah, you guys are giggling, so I think I hit a nerve for you on.

Well, I think that's actually a pretty good way to end this conversation. We beat this up pretty good. But if any of you have any questions out there, you need additional information about our discussion today, don't hesitate to reach out to myself or the Fleet Success Show team. And please tell your friends about our show and send us your comments, questions, feedback, anything. Send us your, you know, on social media if you want to. You can also contact us on social media at @fleetsuccess, or you can send us an email at podcast@rtafleet.com. If you have opinions, we want to hear them. If you have future topics, we want to hear those as well. So let us know. We really appreciate the feedback we get, and we get quite a bit of feedback. So we're very appreciative of that feedback. So thanks for tuning in this week, and we'll see you next time.