The Fleet Success Show | Episode 187: Get to a Trade Show, Or Get a New Job #fleetmanagement

This is the Fleet Success Show dedicated to helping you and your fleet succeed using the experience of fleet professionals and Hall of Fame fleet legends. The show that explores how the pillars of stakeholder satisfaction, intentional culture, resource efficiency, and risk management all combine to lead your fleet to success. We're glad you're here. Now let's get into the show. Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Fleet Success Show. I am your host today, Mark Canton, and I'm joined by my good friend Facundo. How you doing, Facundo?

I'm good. How are you?

Good, good having you on today. We were both at NAAFA recently, and I just wanted to kind of, I don't know, shoot the breeze a little bit. Nothing formal, but just kind of think about it, you know, NAAFA and going to a really good trade show. It always makes me reflective. I always learn a lot. I think a lot. I love spending time with the team in a different setting. You know, you work remote. I'm here in the office in Arizona. We get to spend a lot more time together than we would otherwise. So I just kind of wanted to, you know, kind of recap the week. It was honestly, I thought it was an awesome show. Uh, I, it was, it's hard to articulate why, but I think it was absolutely the best NAFA experience I've ever had. Uh, and I hear a lot of people saying that, which is kind of sweet. Um, I don't know, man, let's kick things off, right? Like, what were your sort of general overall thoughts about NAFA? Did you have a nice time? Is there anything that stood out to you? Did you have like maybe a favorite thing that happened or something like that or something you didn't expect? Talk to me.

I had a great time. One of the things has nothing to do with Fleet. One of them has everything to do with living in Northeast Florida where it's hot and humid. And over there it was not hot and humid. Actually, when I got to the airport at LAX, I think it was like 1:00 AM by the time I got there and it was like, upper 50s and windy, and I was freezing, freezing while waiting for the, for the Uber. So that was one nice thing that I enjoyed the whole time I was there was, was the weather. But, you know, one thing was it was kind of— it's, it's a very interesting time in fleet where, you know, we've come off of COVID we've recovered from COVID for the most part, I think. But I started to hear about people that weren't able to go. I heard great reviews about you know, the event and, you know, the networking and all those different things. But that was kind of one interesting thing that I saw was a little bit of folks that couldn't attend or didn't have the funds or got their funds slashed. And I don't know, you know, we talked about this before, the importance of going to those events. I mean, we can get into it and talk a little bit more about that. But for me, I always share with people that I was in fleet management for about 8 years, specifically as a fleet manager. And during that time, I met the right people early on in my fleet career, and they connected me to other right people. And I always asked them, who do you know that I need to know? And it just, it went from there, right? So the knowledge that I picked up in 8 years, I'll put up against a lot of folks that have been in fleet management for 20, 30 years. That just kind of goes through, right? Like, I loved it. I read magazines cover to cover. You know, all those kinds of things were very important to me. And I think not going to trade shows is an issue for the professional development and networking piece of it.

I couldn't agree with you more. You know, I think I tweeted, like, early on, like, if you're in the industry, you should be there. And I hope this isn't too controversial, but I've been thinking about this all week last week, all week this week. You know, I don't mean to offend anybody, and I'm sure there's some exceptions to what I'm about to say. But honestly, if you're in the fleet professional, especially if you're a fleet manager and someone who's shown that you're interested in dedicating your life to this career, or at least a portion of it, and you can't go to the show, your organization won't facilitate that, whatever that means for you. I think you need to find a new job. And, you know, I'm not trying to be a jerk. I under— like I said, I'm sure there's exceptions. You know, I can probably think of many of them. It's a startup company, it's a this, it's a that, you know, whatever, whatever it may be. But if you're getting like the same lame excuse every year, other than maybe it's like, you know, something to do with the seasonality of the, you know, of the industry you're in, you know, something like that, you know, okay, that might— and even that, that might be a reason not to go to NAFEA or a particular show, but it's not a reason not to go to a show or a good show. I would argue NAFA is one of the best, if not the best. And, but there are really solid shows, you know, out there. Fleet Pros. And if you're in state, NASIF. And, you know, where you are in Florida, FLAGFA is phenomenal. And MEMA has great show, you know, organization. I mean, there's a lot of opportunities. Certainly some kind of stand up, you know, above the rest or race to the top, whatever. But man, if you, if your organization's not encouraging, forget enabling it, encouraging it. There's a problem, dude. Like, you— that, that's a sign maybe that's not the right place, you know. I'm sorry, maybe I'm wrong, but definitely, I mean, you know, I've come across—

and I think NAFA might have this on their website— but there's a part like within the resources or somewhere that has like a justification letter as to why, why you can go to those events, right? I mean, that people actually have to justify. And I remember when I first started going to national trade shows I didn't really know where to start. And somehow again, meeting people, they're like, hey, there's this resource there that's basically a template. And I was like, that's interesting. But, you know, if I'm asked, here's gonna be my back pocket kind of a thing of why should you go to a trade show? Like, all right, well, how much, let's just say it costs me, I don't know, I'm gonna throw a number out there, $2,000 to go to a trade show. I'll bring back at least one idea that can offset $2,000. Great point. You know, in a heartbeat, right?

I'll save you that when I get back. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And chances are it's exponentially that, right? I mean, the ideas that I started coming back with were saving us, you know, $15,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 bucks, right? 'Cause you just, you tweak this, you tweak that, know, you bring in this technology that can do whatever. It's so worth it, right? And that's just on the savings that you bring back. Forget about the connections that you make to help you solve future problems.

Great point. Exactly. You know, he makes such a good point. One of the studies the consultants love to do is the right-sizing studies, whichever format that we do it for that particular client, because they know that there's a very good chance they're going to save that fleet money and the study is going to pay for itself, right? Whether it's because they've subtracted vehicles or often the case, they've added vehicles but have corrected the type, right? Going on a tangent, but here's the connection. You know, you go to even one, um, session where you've learned something like that, like, hey, I know how to identify underutilized vehicles and how to tell the story to the rest of the organization as to why it's underutilized, you eliminate one vehicle you paid for the show multiple times over, right? I mean, you, you couldn't be more right about that. That's a great point. Um, so anyway, yeah, that's my message. That wasn't what the podcast was supposed to be about today. I'll get us back on track, but Hold on.

I'm going to— I'm going to keep it together for a second. Hold on. So, so I was at a trade show. I was at NAFSA.

This year or previous year?

No, years ago. This is— I was still a fleet manager. And during that time, this is interesting. I remember being at one of those shows and getting a call from the director of my department. And he said, you know, I don't know if I can sign this memo. I can't remember what I had sent to him, and it was basically proposing to bring in a motor pool, automated motor pool. And, you know, I had proposed the vehicles and where and all that stuff. And interestingly, I learned that the previous time at a trade show, right? I brought that idea. One of the things that it helped me do is understand it, figure out how to do the analysis, and quite frankly, build up the the guts to come in there and pitch something totally new, right? Because this is what he said to me.

This has worked before, we can do it.

Yeah, what he said to me was, well, we just don't have the data to support this. I'm like, well, the reason that we don't have the data to support this is because we're running our motor pool. They're all old beat-up vehicles that nobody wants to drive. They're run on a clipboard. When I started as a fleet manager, I went to where they were, they had the vehicles. And I was like, where do you keep the, the motor pool vehicles? Oh, they're parked over there. Oh, they're all gone. And they're like, who has them? And they looked at the clipboard and they're like, I don't know. You know, so of course, of course, another story for another day. Yeah, of course, that when you're trying to justify something new, you know, you get stories from people that are there and how they've done it and how they've overcome it. Right. So The savings— that motor pool is still there and it's operating so well. And people had thanked me afterwards because it made their life so easy. They felt pride in the vehicles that they were driving, representing the organization. So all of those things, I mean, I'd love to take credit and be like, oh, I just had this dream last night and thought of this motor pool. No, it all happened.

I walked into a burning bush and this is what I stayed at.

What was it? I stayed at a Holiday Inn.

I stayed at a Holiday Inn. Yeah. Oh man, that's, that's— yeah, that's a great, that's a great point. But anyway, so look, I'm sorry, I hope it's not too controversial. I think it's freaking obvious. I don't think it's rocket science, but you know, get to a show, get to NAFEA. If you can't get to NAFEA for some reason, you know, obviously it's too late this year, but man, pencil it in for next year and pencil in the other shows. You know, I encourage you to do more than one. One is like the— I mean, the, the point of entry, right? I mean, I think most fleet managers should probably be attending at least 2 a year. You know, one in a more general platform like NAFSA, that's for the industry as a whole, and another one that's hopefully more specific to the exact needs or the nature of your fleet, whether it's because it's an industry conference, you know, like you're in sanitation or you're in government fleet or you're in trucking or whatever it may be, or because of some other commonality like the climate and the, you know, topography of the region you're doing, like FLAGFA is, right, which is very regional because there are a lot of issues around being a fleet in Florida that frankly other fleets don't have to deal with in other parts of the country. Right. So you're getting that general industry-wide perspective and then you're also getting something that's, you know, very relevant to the, to the nature of the circumstances that you're dealing with. And so I would argue that those two are kind of like, you know, you know, baseline. And then anything beyond that, okay, we can— we— if you can't get access to it, at least I could entertain it. I think that fleet managers should probably have a goal of attending, you know, 4 to 5 a year. I know that sounds rich. I know that sounds a lot, but to your point, the more ideas you get exposed to, the more likely you are to have a great way to do something, to solve problems that you can't otherwise solve. And also, by the way, to find more talent to help you, you know, keep your fleet team, you know, filled with talent and in their positions, which is— Yeah. Extremely challenging these days.

So yeah, I mean, let's be honest, I've, I've been in conversations at different events where people try to recruit you or you're trying to recruit others. You know, there's a little bit of a poaching game that goes on, and that's fine too. But, um, you know, I think that one thing you said was really interesting, and honestly, I've never really thought about it that way, which was, you know, going to a national trade show and the different folks that you're exposed to there. I Love FLACFA, shout out to FLACFA, wink wink. One, 'cause I'm in Florida, but that was the first, first trade show I ever went to, was a regional FLACFA event in Fort Lauderdale. That was a 100 Best Fleets thing led by Tom Johnson, which was one of the very, imagine that being one of the very first fleet people you meet. That's a character. Talk about getting an introduction to people, you know, after meeting Tom Johnson, you know, he did a lot of things and introductions for me. But one thing that you said that was really interesting that I've never really thought about is Florida. Lots of hurricanes, lots of weather-related issues. I remember one time now that I'm thinking about it, it's like, boy, there are a lot of folks that have generator companies or like all these, you know, I'm like, why? Well, I just figured it out, right? We're in Florida, right? You know, and it's just like, well, you're not going to get a lot of those guys when you go to some trade show in Long Beach, right? There's not a lot of hurricanes in Long Beach. And so it is very important that you kind of diversify in that way, right? Like going to these national events and you talk to your buddies that are in different parts of the country. Great. But it's important to have that network not only with your vendors here, but with other surrounding jurisdictions, right? Like just because you have a hurricane here in Northeast Florida, they might be on the beach and, you know, sun's out in Tampa, you know, and, you know, you can talk. There's ways that you can help each other. That happens. All the time.

Yeah, it's a great point. Yeah, you, you, the, the amount of relationships and partnerships that evolve out of that, it's— I mean, we can go on and on. Piggybacking contracts, who are the best vendors. I mean, literally lending each other resources that come out of meeting each other at a conference. So yeah, that's also a really, a really good point. All right, so that's my, uh, my kind of take for today. But let's get back to NAFA here. You just mentioned the 100 Best Fleets. So that's a good, really good segue. You know, one of the things that you do here for us at RTA is you help those folks who want to apply. You know, you know, in general, I would say you're an advocate. I think we as a company are advocate. We encourage people to apply, you know, even if you don't place, even if you don't win, you know, there's something to be learned from applying because going through that exercise really kind of teaches you a lot about who you are and where you need to go. You know, but, you know, talk to me a little bit about that. We had a great showing this year. You know, really cool event, more people applied than ever. What are your thoughts about 100 Best Fleets?

The 100 Best Fleets, the cherry on top is ranking, right? Everybody wants to rank, but that's the number one reason they don't apply, 'cause there's that fear of not ranking, right? To not be recognized. But I always tell people, and this is the encouragement to all of our customers, I would tell 'em, look, the reason that you apply is to benchmark and then improve and then repeat, benchmark, improve, repeat, right? And so—

And by the way, whether or not you're our customer, that's the message. We want you to do that. Go out there and apply.

Yeah, actually, I'm not gonna say the name, but I did help some local folks here in Florida that are not our customers over coffee, right? And had discussions with them about how they should think about applying, why they should think, continue to apply. You know, so, yeah, so the benchmarking is so important. I had folks the week of calling me saying, I don't know if I can do it. You know, it's, I've just, I've been so busy. And I was like, look, I'm gonna, you know, we could take the bandaid off slowly or I'm just gonna, or we can just rip it off. So I'm gonna rip it off. So don't be offended with what I'm gonna say to you. But look, you're busy this year and you're gonna be busy next year. Probably busier. And you're gonna be busier the year after that. So if you don't do it now, you're going to give me the same excuse next year to kick the can down the road. And so I said, look, even if you don't fill out the entire application, start with what you got, you know? And so that's where you start. That's where you continue next year. And there's different ways that you can talk about it. Even if— I'll give you an example. This was really popular when telling folks, like, yeah, well, I don't, I don't do this particular thing. I can't think of an example right now. Okay, well, for that particular thing, is it something that you've thought about? Yes. Is it something that you wanna start? Yes. Are you gonna start this year? Yeah, actually we're gonna start this year. Okay, perfect. Let's talk about that metric. What are you gonna do? Okay, well we want something as simple, let's use asset availability. Some folks aren't even, weren't even tracking that. Okay, great. What's your asset availability? I have no idea. Okay, cool. Industry gold standard, 95%. Let's not start there. Let's say that you're gonna start tracking it and then this year you're gonna start at, 88% or something, right? I love Back to the Future. Let's go with 88%. You know that— you're not smiling. You know, the 88 miles an hour?

Oh, is that— that's where he takes off, is that 88? I'm thinking in terms of like, was that when the movie was made? What year was— I know it was in the '80s.

It was made in '85. '85.

Okay.

Yeah. So, you know, start with something lower. Start with something, you know, but say you're going to start with this. You haven't tracked it before. You know, how are you going to review it? All— anything that you can say, why? Because now you've benchmarked yourself, and you're— what you're telling the judges is that you're not tracking it and you don't necessarily have a metric, but here's— you're just throwing it up against the wall and you're going to start with something reasonable, right? Right. And you go from there. Interesting, right? And so I think, uh, that's— a lot of people won't tell you that. They'll just tell you, we didn't apply because we don't have time. No, the reason that you didn't apply is because you're not tracking it. You don't want to talk about it.

You're scared or you're embarrassed, right?

Yes, exactly. And so, you know, there's a lot of those conversations that I had. And some of those folks I happen to know a little bit better just because they are some of my— some of the accounts that I work with. Right. And so I was like, look, we've been talking, you know, touching base throughout the year. I know some of the great things you're doing. There's no way that I'm not letting you apply. Apply, right? And here are the, you know, here are some of the things you've told me throughout the year that you need to talk about. And, you know, some of them jumped over 20 or 30 spots. And actually there was 2 or 3 of these, right? Because they were like, ah, I'm not sure if we're gonna, actually one in particular, I'm not sure if we're gonna apply. No, you're applying. You've told me some great stuff this year. You need to continue to talk about it. If you're looking for fleet experts and former fleet managers sharing their best practices and advice, networking opportunities with hundreds of fleet professionals, and live hands-on training sessions and workshops designed to help you take your fleet to the next level, then you need to register for RTA Connect 2025. It's the fleet event of the year. Join us September 22nd through 26th in Las Vegas and get the tips, tricks, and tools you need to help your fleet succeed. Visit www.rtafleet.com/connect to learn more.

Yeah, it's cool. You know, I, I got a little bit in on trying to encourage a few people, not nearly the effort and the work you're doing. And, and it was a similar thing, and, and it was, you know, do you really think I have a chance? And in many cases, frankly, I found myself giving the same message. Yeah, you do. You got a really good chance, actually. You know what, you know, and, and, and, and to your point, whether or not you do have a chance, that's not even really the point, man. It's like, if you want to know if you're doing well and how to get there, start with this, and then you have a way to measure it. And it's important. Now let's, let's kind of change gears here a little bit, a second, right? You know, again, everyone has heard me say this 6 kabillion times, I hope. You know, we work in the most under-resourced industry on the planet, especially in terms of its importance to society. And I will stand by that. I probably I pray I don't go to my grave with that because I hope that changes. But if God forbid I were to go tomorrow, it would be true. And, you know, and it— and to me, that only compounds the importance of applying for things like this and, and getting recognized. You owe it to the people who are breaking their back every day for you to try to make that fleet better, that company better, that city better, that town by you know, by providing excellent fleet goods and fleet services. You owe it to them. You owe it to them to get them their recognition. It may be the only 15 minutes of fame they get. They break their back. You know, the police folks, they save folks every day. The fire folks, they save people from burning buildings and they're heroes. And, you know, rightfully so. Right. But none of it happens. None of it happens without the fleet assets that made it happen, without that ladder truck, you know, without the vehicle that got them there and so forth and so on. And the people who take care of the streets and save people from flood zones and, you know, the, you know, our great folks who work in water departments and streets and sanitation. I mean, they're all, all super people and they deserve all the credit they get, but none of it happens without fleet. None of it. And this is the only opportunity, or one of the few opportunities anyway, that your people actually have a chance of being recognized for the great work they do and the dedication that they have. Um, you know, and again, I'm giving government examples, but the same is true for corporate, you know. Uh, the sales and, and the market, super important, but that fleet is what makes it go. That fleet is what makes that truck available to get the food to the grocery store, or to, or, you know, or to get the garbage to the dump site, and so forth and so on. So that's my opinion, man. I think you owe it. I think you owe it to your people to apply and to try to get them some level of recognition if they're doing a great job.

Well, there's also, I remember like the first city manager I had in the city of Ormond Beach, she's awesome, Joyce. Joyce, we were in a meeting, I think it was every Tuesday or something like that. We had like a manager's meeting and managers and director meetings. So everybody was there and we would talk about, you know, we'd go around the table or whatever. And she was saying, she said something and it was basically, look, let's face it, public works, which is fleet was under public works. Public Works is not sexy, you know. And so, and I was like, I'm offended. Like, you know, I love what we do over there. Like, I am—

I'm in a jacket over here. I'm a soccer star. What do you mean I'm not sexy?

I see, you know, I see the vehicles and I'm like, man, that's a nice piece of equipment. And so, you know, she, she kind of had that take, which was, you know, she was great. But, you know, she's like, let's, let's face it, it's not sexy. You know, nobody really cares about what's going on over there. And so fast forward some time, we got the first 100 Best Fleets. It meant something to her, right? Like she made a big deal out of it. And then, you know, going into next year, she was like, so how are we going to do this year? Right? Because I'm going to talk a little bit trash to our neighboring cities, be like, y'all didn't rank. Good for her. And so she ran with it, right? And so just like you said, right, if you're not, telling your story, if you're not, like we talked about in the past, if you're not promoting what your organization's doing, nobody's going to do it for you. And nobody's going to hear about it. Yeah. And then nobody's going to take that and run with it. You'd be surprised about the potential reactions people have and then the pride that they feel when you're recognized in that way and it's part of their organization too.

Yeah, it's a great point. It's a great point. All right, I'm going to go a different angle for you now. We'll stick on the NAFA theme. All right, great show, learned a lot. I have a few different spots I want to hit, but I want to make sure I call this one out, man. I had a ton of fun riding around those little electric scooters all around town when the show was off.

Micro mobility.

Yes, those things were awesome, man.

Yes, I was, I was a little concerned when you guys got back from dinner, um, and you guys were rolling up. And it was funny because it was like the— what is that, that those motorcycle gang when they're rolling up like that? Yeah. Yeah. And what I told Ryan, for you guys that know Ryan, he's a, he's an executive on our team. And I said, Ryan, are you the designated survivor? What happens if these guys get into an accident? Because it was you, Josh, Kevin, like you guys were all on scooters. I was like, I'm concerned right now. We shouldn't be doing this. The Sleeper Gang. That was the Scooter Gang. That's right. That was a lot of fun. We went on a ride a little bit later as well. That was fun too. But yeah, I mean, that kind of brings up something that was interesting. And I actually wrote a blog about this, micromobility, you know, bikes, the things that you can— the scooters and the bikes and things that you can rent through the different companies out there. But I've always thought about what role do they play in fleet? Do they ever become part of fleet? Right. You know, I mean, you've worked in an organization where you operated in, you know, deep Manhattan. Yeah.

Now we're in Midtown Manhattan and South Bronx.

I mean, you can probably— I don't know, you'd probably tell me better, but if you're in a building and you have to get your vehicle out of a garage and you have to drive 2 or 3 blocks and park, I mean, that might take— how long might that take you?

You know, a half hour at least. And you're right, but in that— when, when you were in close proximity, you were much more likely to just walk, frankly.

Yeah. Or, or if it's a little bit further, you know, you hop on a scooter, right? And so you have all these different scooters. You have all these different scooters that are owned by, you know, whoever the companies are, you know, will they one day be part of fleet management? You know, as a bike, actually, I know of an organization that set up bikes in that for the same reason, right? Like, you know, safe, I think they were those three-wheeled bikes, what are they called?

Tricycles or whatever.

Yeah, so to make sure people weren't falling off, but they set those up and people were riding them around the city to get to different buildings for that same reason. Safer, healthier.

Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, it's certainly impacting fleet at the very least, whether or not it ever falls under the purview. I think it wouldn't shock me at all. And I think there are some towns and cities where it already does. You know, you see it a lot in universities where when the, the either the green folks, you know, the sustainability folks or the car sharing and pooling folks will often fall under the fleet organization. and they will typically have, you know, some bike and electric programs. It's really common. So yeah, I think it's a good point. You know, it's funny, for those of you who might see in movies or TV shows about it, but in New York City there's this, there's this thing, a bike courier. I'm sure there's some other cities too, and that's the whole reason they exist. It costs a lot of money, but you hand something off to a, to a guy or a gal on a bike and they can get crosstown, uptown, downtown pretty quicker than pretty much any other way to do it because of that congestion, because of that traffic, to your point. It's the reason they exist. So, and now you do see it, you do see it over New York and over a bunch of other cities, you know.

I will throw this out there and not get too far 'cause we, this, I'm sure we could have a whole conversation about this, but I wonder how that kind of transportation is impacting utilization and ridership of like metros and transit buses and those sorts of things, right? Could a city need to cut the amount of buses that they have because of things like this?

Yeah.

I have no idea.

Yeah, we should, we'll get some transit experts on. And we'll have that conversation with them. Yeah, good point. We definitely have plenty of shoulders we could tap on that. So that's a podcast idea for another time. So what else, man? What else struck you about NAFA? What else, like anything you noticed? I think you mentioned to me before we started and something I think was dead on, man. I was super excited to see how well attended all the sessions were, man. The place was packed.

Yes, yes. A lot of the sessions, you know, that was interesting. Like even after lunch or the late session ones, They were all pretty well attended. That's what I thought. You know, that was awesome to see that. I did see a couple of people, you know, walking around outside, probably trying to stay awake, you know, after having a big lunch or something like that. There was one particular session that I really enjoyed. It was Al Curtis, and he was talking about— I don't know, it was about retention and, you know, recruiting folks and all those things. But he did something that was really interesting. And I actually did a LinkedIn post about this right afterward, actually during the session. There was an interesting moment where he said he had one of his technicians there. No, I think it was like a— I think it was actually somebody on the management team now. And he was saying that he had done such a good job. He had started as a technician, right? I mean, what an appropriate session, recruiting, retention, all these things. And there was this moment in the session where he said, you know, that he was going to take over eventually the session and continue moderating. Because Al was the moderator. And so in that moment when he stood— Aaron was his name— stood up, Al turned, went to go sit down, sat down in the chair, kind of adjusted his jacket, leaned back. And then in that moment, Aaron came up and started talking. And when he started talking, like, it was seamless transition. You know, the guy was very well-spoken. And it was just this moment, like, of this changing of the guard. That happened. And I've been thinking for a while about the importance of educating, particularly technicians that are coming into the industry or thinking about the industry. And maybe those folks are thinking about, well, I'm going to be a technician. Okay, cool. And then I'm going to be a technician 2 and then a 3. And then, you know, we'll see. And then, you know, and then that'll be 30 years later and I need to get my knees replaced. Right. Nobody is telling them, and this is actually one of the major things that I'm starting to work on, is why aren't tech schools, or why aren't other fleet professionals, or when we have the conversation, you know, some of the things that have been around in fleet management forever and they haven't changed is a technician shortage, right? We can talk about the different reasons why, pay, all those things, but nobody's saying to a technician, Hey, look, you can start out as a tech just like Aaron did. Aaron at Cobb County started out as a tech. He came in there for an interview and Al told the story during the session, and he was very well dressed and he was just different. He had a different attitude about him. So he started as a Tech 1 and he worked himself up through the ranks. And now I think he's somewhere on the management team. But what if we tell people that this is a possibility, right? The pay, the benefits, all of the different things that you get, and it's not being pitched to them this way.

Right, create a career track. That's what you're talking about, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. And that's one of the better parts of going to NAFWA. There's a couple of other good shows out there, you know, who focus in on that, but, you know, you're hitting the nail on the head, right? Uh, just plays back into our earlier point. Yeah, that was a good talk, um, and we need more of that. We certainly have talked quite a bit about that on, on here in recent, and we still have more to do. We'll do a succession, a session on succession planning here. But that's another thing Al was kind of putting on demonstration there, right? He's grooming this, you know, this person to not only move up the chain for themselves but to potentially become a leader of a fleet down the road. And I think that's a great point. And that's my point about the resources, right? Like, you know, thankfully NAFA puts out the CA-FM. Dude, there's nothing. There's nothing. There is no— you get your master's certification from, you know, the ASC, God bless them, okay? Now you're a Tech 3 or whatever it is, right? You got your master's. And then someone says, go be a shop supervisor. And nobody tells you how. Doesn't tell you how to manage people. Don't tell you what's important, what a shop supervisor does that's different from a tech. It's just, here you go. And the same thing with a fleet professional, right? And so thankfully the CAFM helps fill that gap. But where are the degrees, man? We got degrees in transportation and degrees in almost every field. You're seeing more and more degrees that are relevant to skilled laborers. Engineering degrees and so forth and so on. Where are the degrees in fleet management? This is a call out to the entire higher education industry. Get your act together. We need this. The world needs this.

I know of a customer here at RTA that he was a technician at Ford and he did pretty well as a technician. And then the supervisor role, this, you know, kind of a fleet manager role opened up. So he applied, he got the job. So day one, They handed up the job, the keys, and they're like, "Go get 'em, champ." And that was it. You know, the little mixer that we have has little cricket noises. I was looking, I was going to hit it, but I don't know which one the cricket noises are. But that is what I— when he told me the story, that's what I envisioned, right? It's like, "Yep, go." And then he walks in and he's like, "Imagine the difference. Before, the thing that you used as your tool for your widget was tools, right? Wrenches, whatever. Now it's a— you're sitting in front of computer and it's totally different. Now you have to motivate people and there's no—

Yeah, you better, you better learn why that FMIS is your best friend and your best toolbox real quick. Yep. Yep.

And what matters, right? What things to track.

Right.

There's so many things to track.

Yeah. I mean, we've talked a little bit about it, right? You know, almost developing a curriculum for fleet managers where we build on you know, okay, go get your CAFM and go get these certifications. But also maybe it makes sense to go take a course in Excel and a course in public speaking and a course in all of these various things that are going to help you be a successful leader and a successful fleet manager. Yeah, yeah, that was cool stuff. I thought— I think NAAFA does a really nice job of how they do the scheduling, frankly, where, you know, there's enough time for the booths and for the trade show element of it. but it doesn't conflict with the sessions so that people are encouraged to go to the sessions. I'm sure that's at least in part why they had such good turnout there. Um, you know, I think some of the other shows might want to take a look at how NAAFA does their scheduling and take a page out of their book, because I think that that played out extremely, extremely well this year, uh, and, and, and better than, let's say, the average show by a lot. Um, so I thought that was also, uh, really well done. You recorded a podcast, right? Were you a guest? Yeah. Tell me about that.

Yeah. Erin Gilchrist from Intellishift. It was funny because I was curious. I always talk about who do you know that I need to know and all these different things. And one time, months ago, I had posted on LinkedIn like, who's that fleet person you need to know? I'll start. I started with her and randomly fast forward A few weeks before the event, Kelly reaches out and she's like, "Hey, you wanna do a podcast with Aaron there?" I was like, "Oh man, that's a lot of pressure." So by the way, we talked about autonomous vehicles and kind of my experience recently when I was in Scottsdale and riding, going in an autonomous vehicle.

Yeah, with Waymos.

You know, we kind of talked. Yes. And then we talked about, well, yeah, that's probably a little bit too far off here for fleets, you know, and talked about, what are some technologies that are gonna be hitting fleet management a little bit sooner? Actually, I just had a thought here. There was a trend that I noticed at NAAFA this year.

Okay.

That is kind of, there's, and you kind of think about car racing, right? There's this overtaking going on right now because in the past it was so heavy, and it still is, it was still heavy on electric vehicles, Do you remember what that one thing was? I'm gonna put you on the spot here. Do you remember what that one trend was?

What do you mean, before EVs or?

No, no, no, no. Right now going on that was at NAAFA, there was one topic that was everywhere.

Topic that was everywhere. Certainly it wasn't EVs this year.

Nope.

I was gonna go with sort of that, you know, that training and that succession plan piece, the data, the analytics.

That was popular. AI.

AI, yes. Yeah, yeah.

The impact of AI on everything, right? I think this is a very—

there were a couple sessions on that. Yep.

Yeah, yeah.

It was everything, by the way, because a year ago there was nothing on AI. Well, not calling out NAFA, I don't remember theirs, but I went to every show in the industry. It's actually something that I called out in a, in a, you know, in a, in a post that I made, that there was, there was one show the entire year that had a single topic on AI, single session on AI for the entire 2020-24. My gosh, fleet industry, where the heck are you? Right? Catch up. So NAFA, tip the cap, you're catching on. And it's a great call out for Kundo. AI. Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, it was, you know, one thing I struggled with was when I was looking at the, you know, one of the great things I love work that I love about working at RTA is when I go to these events, I go to all the, like, just like I was when I was a fleet manager, right? Because I want to know what continues to go, what's going on in the industry, what are, what are people, you know, having success with, where are they struggling?

What are the new ideas? How can I solve a problem? Right. Yep.

Yeah. And so when I was looking at the schedule, it was like almost every breakout session time that they had had something about AI that I wanted to go to. But then they had another one that was interesting. So I would always, you know, I probably caught about half of them, you know, so it was like, how do you use AI with this? How do you use AI with that? So I thought that was kind of an interesting shift where before it was just EVs being jammed down your throat. And now there was a little bit of change in kind of the biggest topic, I guess.

I'll do a quick shameless plug, but I'm not sure exactly who it's going to be, but it might be me. It might be Josh. It could be someone else from RTA, but we are going to speak on AI at the FleetCon this year. So if you're interested on it, frankly, fleet folks, if you're listening, if you're not integrating AI into your everyday just yet, You're already kind of behind the curve, so catch up and reach out to us. We can give you some tips and some tricks as well. I'm glad to do that. Uh, Fukuna, we could go on a really long time here, man, about different cool things with NAFA, but I think we got to call it a podcast this time. We'll, we'll get together again and we'll keep riffing. I love talking with you, man. I love these conversations. And, uh, but I think it's time to go. Uh, with that, I'll say to you, have a great weekend. We are recording on a Friday, Hawaiian shirt day for those who didn't notice. Come on, where's your Hawaiian shirt, man? We need you.

I'm not in the office.

I'll remember you're the coolest looking dude in the company, so you'll be all right there.

I'll wear— I'll— I need to get some. I think I've got one. I'll just remember on the Friday.

I'm calling everybody out at RT. I'm calling out the entire industry. Come on, Fleet Hawaiian shirt every Friday in Fleet. Let's go, let's do it, let's do it.

I'm starting the first post on that next week.

All right, that's my man.

All right.

With that, everybody, have a wonderful time. Again, Facundo, thanks for joining me. And I wish you all nothing but success in your life and in your fleet endeavors. Take care, everybody. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on LinkedIn, or leave a review. Want to learn more about our fleet management software, Fleet 360? Check us out at rtafleet.com. If you want to learn more about having your fleet evaluated by Arkansas consulting team, go to FleetConsulting.com.