Transcript

Maximizing Fleet Efficiency: Insights from Industry Expert Renee Millum | E428 Home Service Expert

From Home Service Expert · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 37 min · 7,997 words · 124 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Maximizing Fleet Efficiency: Insights from Industry Expert Renee Millum | E428 Home Service Expert", an episode of Home Service Expert published August 11, 2025 (37 min, about 7,997 words). It mentions 12 people, works and ideas, including Renee Milm, JumpSpark, A1 Garage Door Service, Amazon, FedEx.

What this episode is about

Renee Milum shares her extensive knowledge on fleet management, addressing common questions about purchasing, leasing, and maintaining vehicles for businesses. With over a decade of experience in the commercial fleet industry, she offers insights into effective fleet strategies, administration, and optimizing overall fleet performance.

Key takeaways

  • Leasing vehicles is like renting an apartment: you pay for convenience, flexibility, and no long-term commitment.
  • 498 out of 500 Fortune companies lease their fleets—proof that the ultra-successful favor flexibility over ownership.
  • Depreciation is like a fiscal black hole; owning a vehicle is often less cost-effective than leasing and investing the difference.
  • Interest rates are a mere 5% of total vehicle costs, making cash flow management more critical for business survival.
  • That 'used piece of crap' on the road could hurt your brand image—a shiny fleet boosts client perceptions significantly.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Renee Milm, A1 Garage Door Service, Amazon, FedEx
  2. – 10:00: JumpSpark, Amazon
  3. – 15:00: JumpSpark
  4. – 20:00: A1 Garage Door Service, Geotab, Sam Sarah
  5. – 25:00: Sam Sarah
  6. – 30:00: JumpSpark
  7. – 35:00: JumpSpark, Elevate
  8. – 36:44: JumpSpark, Freedom 25

Notable quotes from "Maximizing Fleet Efficiency: Insights from Industry Expert Renee Millum | E428 Home Service Expert"

  • Killer podcast. I'm sitting here with Renee Milm, and she's been helping me for the last decade just on how we handle our fleet here at A1 Garage Door Service. She's an expert…
    about A1 Garage Door Service · at
  • Definitely been a career move for me, like you said, over the last, decade and, I'm excited and I'm passionate about it. So, moved here with my family.
    about Renee Milm · at
  • There's like massive ones that aren't even in the home service space, but does anybody does Amazon buy their own trucks?
    about Amazon · at
  • That's why we started JumpSpark. But what I love about your programs is they don't just pay for the vehicle. You'll outfit the whole vehicle and you'll wrap it and that's all included. So, I'm not.
    about JumpSpark · at
  • If you know a true theft is you have to use it in conjunction with a GPS tracker of some sort. It can be Geotab, it can be one of Sam Sarah, something out there, but they work in conjunction. So, so yeah. So, like my truck, I've got the.
    about Geotab · at
  • Yeah. Elevate. There you go. I love it.
    about Elevate · at
  • That's where it's at. Freedom 25.
    about Freedom 25 · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Renee Milm — Person · Main guest · 1 mention · first at
    Primary expert interviewed about commercial fleet leasing, fleet strategy, maintenance programs, and financial/tax considerations for home-service fleets.

Books & papers

  • Elevate — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    A book mentioned by the guest as a favorite, likely related to business or personal development.

Companies & orgs

  • JumpSpark — Company · Business focus · 7 mentions · first at
    Specializes in fleet management for the home service industry, offering leasing solutions and fleet optimization.
  • A1 Garage Door Service — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions · first at
    The host's company, discussed in the context of fleet management and vehicle leasing strategies.
  • Amazon — Company · Case study · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as an example of a large company that leases its fleet rather than purchasing vehicles.
  • FedEx — Company · Case study · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned alongside UPS as a company that leases its fleet, emphasizing common industry practices.
    No, none of these companies do. The Red Cross, UPS, FedEx, like they all lease.
  • UPS — Company · Case study · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as an example of a company that leases its fleet, highlighting industry practices.
    No, none of these companies do. The Red Cross, UPS, FedEx, like they all lease.

Products & tech

  • WEX — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at
    A product mentioned in the context of fleet management, possibly related to fuel cards or fleet tracking.
    How does the gas cars work like WEX? when do I sell it? All these questions.
  • Geotab — Product · Referenced product · 1 mention · first at
    A product mentioned in the context of fleet tracking and management solutions.
  • Sam Sarah — Product · Referenced product · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned alongside Geotab as a fleet tracking solution, indicating options in fleet management technology.
    If you know a true theft is you have to use it in conjunction with a GPS tracker of some sort. It can be Geotab, it can be one of Sam Sarah, something out there, but they work in conjunction. So, so yeah. So, like my truck, I've got the.

Places & events

  • Freedom 25 — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    An event mentioned in passing, possibly a conference or gathering related to the industry.
  • Scottsdale TBC — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as a location where the host and guest first met, adding personal context to their relationship.
    He first time I met him, he did a full cartwheel on hole nine of the Scottsdale TBC course. So Oh yeah. Well, that's not surprising.

Full transcript with timestamps

All right, guys. Today's going to be a killer podcast. I'm sitting here with Renee Milm, and she's been helping me for the last decade just on how we handle our fleet here at A1 Garage Door Service. She's an expert in sales business, fleet management, fleet administration. She's based here in Goodyear. Uh, and uh, lots of vast knowledge. She spent the last 11 years learning and training in the commercial fleet industry. uh knows everything there is to know about fleet strategy and management, fleet wellness, fleet goals and priorities and fleet administration. And I thought I'd have you on because everybody always calls me and says, "What do I do? Do I buy new?

Do I buy used? Do I go to kick charge? Do I get it branded? Do I depreciate it? How does the gas cars work like WEX? Uh when do I sell it?" All these questions. So, I'm just going to start out first and foremost. You want to tell the audience a little bit about you and how what you've been up to the last few years? Sure. Yeah. Thanks, Tommy. Um, I appreciate you inviting me here to talk about leasing and fleet management. Um, definitely been a career move for me, like you said, over the last, uh, decade and, um, I'm excited and I'm passionate about it. So, moved here with my family.

Um, began actually was trained and worked for one of the largest sleep management companies here in, you know, Arizona. It's where I met you actually to begin with. Um, if anybody doesn't know it, um, Tommy is quite the acrobat. He uh first time I met him, he did a full cartwheel on hole nine of the Scottsdale TBC course. So

Oh yeah. Well, that's not surprising. There's probably beer involved. I don't think you can do that right now. Looks like you got a bum foot, but

yeah. Um if anybody hasn't seen it, it's it's quite the the site. So um yeah, so I'm I'm currently uh working in the commercial fleet industry. Met you, partnered up with you, and wanted to, you know, hopefully share some benefits about, you know, why does it make sense to lease versus buy? Yeah, in 2015, I think it was 2015, I met a guy named Daryl. I knew him for a long time. I knew him for knew him for 10 years before that, but he's like, "Why do you buy all these used pieces of crap? Have you ever heard about depreciation? Do you know what it's like for your team to have a broken down truck? And do you understand the perception of the clients on the road that see those used pieces of crap?" And he told me straight up like it is. He told me that and he told me, "Buy a building. I've made more buying and selling buildings as I grew than I made entirely in the garage door business. So, those two pieces of

advice, I always thought, man, I'm getting a better deal. My dad's a mechanic. I've got hoists. I could just fix these things, take care of them, and I'm saving a bunch of money.

Yeah. And that comes up a lot. I still talk to um clients, especially in the home service industry, every day, right? They're like, "Why would I pay all that interest? Interest rates are so high." interest rates only about 5% of your total cost of ownership when it comes to a vehicle. And if you do have the cash flow and say I can afford it, why would you put that somewhere else in the business to help you make more money? Or if you don't need it in the business, why wouldn't you put it into a money market? Putting cash into a depreciating abs um asset makes absolutely no good business sense. Yes, you can depreciate it all up front, but once that depreciation is gone, what do you have?

At least if you're paying interest, that's a tax deduction. It's a tax write off anyway. And

the thing that I learned about fleets is they got kind of a shelf life. Usually there's an automotive warranty on everything, the and the engine. And there's a good time to turn it back in to you get maximum amount of money when you turn it in versus running it till it falls apart. Can you talk a little bit about like fleet strategy and some of like you what are some of the bigger clients you've worked with? some of the bigger clients I work with. Um, Ghtle, um, can't think of any off the top of my head there. I

There's like massive ones that aren't even in the home service space, but does anybody does Amazon buy their own trucks?

Absolutely not. No, none of these companies do. The Red Cross, UPS, FedEx, like they all lease.

Absolutely. 498 companies out of the 500 Fortune companies lease. 498 out of the top 500.

That's a fact. Y I mean, my CFO is a wizard of doing this to where it would never make sense to buy a vehicle.

Absolutely. Like I said, once you buy it and you depreciate it, it's done. At least when you lease it, you can still use your your 179 tax advantage because it qualifies. You're using it 50% for business. You're owning it like it's your own. You're maintancing it. You're insuranceing it. And then there's a buyout at the end of this lease. This is an open-ended equity lease. We're not talking about your typical retail lease where you're going to pay a little bit of money. You're going to turn it at the end. You're going to get dinged for mileage and wear and tear. This type of lease was made for commercial businesses because home service business come put on lots of mileage. You never know if you're going to do 15 or 30,000 miles a year right?

And and let me ask you, so usually is it like five bucks you own it at the end of five years? Is that like it's like you you get through the fiveyear lease and it's like a super low buyout. It's flexible. We can do it down to a dollar or typically we like to do it to 10 to 15%.

Okay? Because that way you're still going to be in an equity position after 12 months, right? You don't want to be upside down in this vehicle, especially if we have to sell them at 36 months or 24 months or 48, whatever it may be. Um, so we're going to make that that residual very small. And then that way you're not paying interest on that portion of the vehicle that you're not utilizing anyway.

I love that. You know, I think I fell in love with the Dodges. They've got a great warranty. They've been very dependable. Well, I went down to Santis in Mexico. Uh, and then I went and saw Utilo Master and everybody's kind of like, "How do we get your type of deal?" That's why we started JumpSpark. But what I love about your programs is they don't just pay for the vehicle. You'll outfit the whole vehicle and you'll wrap it and that's all included. So, I'm not out the the 6,000 to wrap it and then the 10,000 to outfit it. It's all rolled up into one. How does that work?

Yeah, it's all encompassing. So, another thing, you know, people say, "Oh, I'm just going to continue to finance it because my payment's less." Well, truly are you comparing apples to apples, right? You're not going to the dealership's not going to pay for your wrap. If you're full wrapping that, that's anywhere to five to $5,000, right?

They may they may not include the upfit that you need in there, right? So, with this program, it's turnkey. We assource the vehicle. We dial in the outfit just the way whatever that department is. It may be service, it may be install, and then we we take it logistically to the the graphics person, get it wrapped, deliver it turnkey, and we include that all encompassed in the lease.

Yeah. So, if you qualify for no money down, you're not paying out of pocket for the upfit or maybe 10% down to the dealership or whatever it may be to the graphics dealer.

And when is the best time like a FedEx, Amazon, ghetto, when is the best time to turn that in? Is it right before it ends on the 100,000 miles or is it a time thing or both?

It's both, Tommy. I mean, the time to get out of vehicle is really a moving target to be honest. Um, you know, during COVID, for example, if you could get out of your vehicle sooner and if you could replace it, it was a good thing because used vehicles were more expensive than new vehicles, right? But it all depends on the appreciation. You know, what is a vehicle worth at that point in time at that mileage? We know from all the data we collect about over half a million vehicles, a gas engine, the right time to get out is 100k.

Before that, even better because you're going to make more money. Dealerships will pay more money for a vehicle that's got less than 100k.

But there's also after that 100k mark, there's about a 36% probability that something catastrophic is going to happen after that on a gas engine. Okay?

Right? So that's really want to be. You really want to start looking at getting out at around 80k after warranty is up and before it gets that 100 100k mark.

You know what we started doing too is it used to bug the heck out of me because we take openers and we shove them in the back and the the van started to get all dented up and so now we run plastic like that covering even

and I never did it to the back of them till about 5 years ago. Now we do plastic sheets. It's pretty thick. It's about a quarter of an inch and now there's no dents. So, you're turning in this vehicle that's like flawless. Once you pull the wrap off, it looks like it's new almost. Is that what most companies are doing now?

A lot of them are going Yeah, absolutely. They're requesting to have that put in there. And lots of times, too, I'm finding that we can Well, if you factory order something, Tommy, we can order just the way you need it. Right. That's where you're going to get your best pricing. It's about being proactive, and that takes time, right? Most people just can't step into it because they've been replacing and buying vehicles reactively. I have a new tech starting. All right. Or I had an accident. So, if you can get into sitting down and which is what part of JumpSpark is all about is sitting down and being proactive, looking at your vehicles, kind of anticipating what that mileage is going to be in the next three to four months so we can factory order the vehicle. We can get those wall panels in there. We're going to pay the less for the part, right? We're going to pay less money overall for this vehicle.

get it out fitted and delivered and turnkey ready to go to save yourself some money too. So,

so is that what it is? About three to four months proactively most of the time depending on the manufacturer. Um, lead times have gotten a lot better now that CO's kind of over. So, Ram is definitely probably the quickest, three to four months. Um, Ford's a little bit longer than that. Chevy's probably right around the same time frame. But,

you know what we do is in every market other than Phoenix, we carry an extra vehicle. Uh, I think because me not having a guy in the field with capacity planning doesn't make any sense. I think there's certain markets we have a couple extra and I think it's important to do that. Uh, so time three to four months and tell me talk what if I'd like to do business with my local dealer. Isn't there a process that you guys could actually negotiate better through

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if you've ever when the last time you've actually went to the dealership and tried to purchase a vehicle, but I'm sure everybody has been through that process and it's no fun, right?

You get there, you get there, you negotiate, you go back and forth, and before you know it, you've been there three or four hours and you still don't have a vehicle.

We handle that process for you, right? And it is my fidiciary duty to kind of play dealerships against each other. It's my job to get you the best price. I have dealerships in place to do that and I will go to them first. And if I have to, like I have clients say, "Hey, I have a great relationship with so- and so. I've been working with them for 10 years. Can you really do business with them?" I'll be like, "Absolutely. Are you willing to pay more for your vehicle though for me to do business with them?"

Yeah. So, you're going to go out there, even if you're used to buying locally. Let's say I need a vehicle in two weeks, you're able to source it through a local dealer at a better price.

At a better price. Yep. Uh, what have you learned? You're a big piece of enterprise. You understand the fleet game. They're the best of the best. What are some of the common mistakes you see?

People buying used vehicles like you said, right? Hey, they're going to save a little bit on the front end, but they're not going to save it on the back end, right? So, they think by buying that used vehicle, they're going to pay less. They're going to have a more affordable payment. Um, but in actuality, they don't know what that vehicle has gone through that first year or two that before they even bought it. At least, right? At least if you bought something new, you know you have that warranty. you know, you're the only one that's been driving it. Um, so that's probably one of the biggest mistakes.

And then two, just holding on to their vehicles until they need a new transmission and then they go in to find out that the transmission may be less than a new vehicle, but the vehicle is so old.

It's going to have more issues, radiators, financial sense to replace that transmission. Now, I it's been a while since I've really dug into the fleet department, but we I think we've got a program that covers almost everything that we pay a little extra for the oil changes and and and if that needs a radiator. I I'm not sure exactly. I think we pay a little like it's like an insurance plan or something or handles the maintenance.

Well, what you know, A1 is with a different fleet management provider, but with JumpSpark, we have an overall discount program. And how that works, it is a monthly fee. It's a little bit. It's like $10 per vehicle depending on the size of your fleet, but it allows you to use any of our nationwide vendors. So, you could save 10 20 to 30% is the goal overall. So, you get discounted on preventive maintenance. You get ASC certified technicians that are reviewing non-preventive maintenance, right? Because they're incentivized to save you money. They make more if they can save you money on labor and parts, right? and there, you know, if you have a a mechanic that goes in or a driver that goes in and it's too soon, this the service isn't going to get done. If a vehicle goes in and we negotiate a better price for you, but we still don't think it's going to help improve the vehicle because it's so old,

we're going to let you know that, too, right? So, you know, when we bought the Don's garage doors in Denver, there was about 15 guys, and the only question they asked literally was, "Are you going to give us new trucks?" They were so used to getting broke down, getting 500 bucks for the week. The morale was horrible. All they cared about, do we get a new vehicle? And there's like pride of ownership when they that's their that's their office.

They drive around that. That's how your company's getting showed. Like when we started showing up in brand new vehicles, the ticket average doubled. People were like, "We know you're not the cheapest. You're the best. We don't want this to break again. Just do whatever it takes to fix this store the right way. You guys are the professionals." And then you get like the old truck. I see a lot of the guys in like the tile business and especially in Arizona, you know what I mean? And they just they put everything on the side. Like they do all the stuff they do. You don't really know. And it's like I've used those guys. Everybody that shows up to our house now has a new truck. Like I want it done right. I want the best warranty. I want them to be safe for all my family. And I think it's just a not a status thing, but just like,

oh, they're professional. They're going to brand damage. Absolutely. Like I don't know how many times you walk and you your parents told you or my parents told me, you know, first impressions count. Yeah. You walk into an interview. It's the same thing when you show up with your your truck at a customer's house. It's first impressions, right?

And and something else you were talking about with the drivers. I get texts almost every other day from new clients that have come on board and said, "Oh my gosh, you should see the grin on my technician's face when they got their new vehicle."

Yeah. You should see the smile. Oh my gosh. Renee, he's so excited. They're so excited. They're so happy, you know. And I'll hear from from owners that like, "Oh, it doesn't matter what type of vehicle they drive. They don't care about the the vehicle. They're just going to beat it up. They don't care. They don't care because you gave them a piece of crap in the first place, right? So, give them the benefit of the doubt. If you're hiring the right people, you give them something new, they're going to treat it respectfully because they're going to feel proud, right? Driving around in it. It's like when you go to a nice house, like a pristine house, like if I get water on the sink, like I'm cleaning it up versus like being in a nasty baseball game where you're just like if you miss the big, no big deal.

Exactly. It's 100% true. That's a good analogy. Yeah. So, what KPI should I be paying attention to with the fleet? I mean, obviously there's oil changes. I think we've got stuff plugged into the OB2 sensor that alerts us about everything, but what are the technologies? What are like KPIs that you look at in a fleet? like operating expenses are the two main key things honestly right that's your your two the biggest part of total cost of ownership and then just like I said depreciation when's the right time to get out of there's the three main things that going to cost you the most um and then also downtime a lot of people don't know how to track downtime

right a lot of people say oh I have a spare I don't have any downtime but you do you still have downtime you have downtime when the vehicle goes in for just preventive maintenance so that is definitely a KPI is definitely not tracked by most companies out there because it's very hard to track.

What What is AI changing the game at all shaping how fleets maintained? Is there anything with AI?

I mean, there is some stuff coming up. Um, definitely I need to find out more information on that. But you're going to be seeing a lot more new stuff in the future when it comes to AI and and how that helps. It's going to help, you know, point out KPIs for your fleet

and when to like turn it in, what makes it absolutely like especially with that like we've got the camera systems. It's a dual camera. It listens. We run to make sure if a guy looks down, looks away, rolls through a stop sign, is speeding, we know about it. And those are like unfortunately we've had a lot of accidents. We've had a couple trucks flip. We've had like we know every time a guy looks at his phone. And those are learning opportunities and we're very strict on that. And I think, man, you get in a couple bad accidents, it could put put a small business out of business.

Absolutely. Your insurance rates will crush you. Your Yep. Your loss runs will will make that very difficult. No. So, having cameras, if you Yeah, absolutely. Front facing, back facing, if someone knows they're being watched and they in they, you know, want to stay in their position, it's definitely makes a big difference. I even had a company who called and told me that they didn't have the camera, but with the GPS, they had a call from someone that said, "Hey, a tool fell out of the back of your truck. I was driving behind it, right, and it, you know, damaged my vehicle."

They were a able to pull that that up and find out that that vehicle wasn't anywhere in that vicinity that on that day in time. So,

oh yeah, whether you have a camera or not, having a GPS can make a huge amount of difference, can save you on your insurance, and can keep you out of hot water in situations like that. I like too the OB2 sensor tells you the codes and you know the codes like you know exactly what's going on like right away it pops up. This is what it was an air filter issue or it's a major issue, right? I think that's a big advantage to understand how long the car is going to be out. I had a guy reach out the other day. He's like, "How do you track your gas?" He's like, "I think my guys are filling up their wife's tanks.

I know there's there's WEX and there's other things. Can you explain how that works,

sir?" Sure. So, you can get a WEX card, but the only way for you can really tell if you know a true theft is you have to use it in conjunction with a GPS tracker of some sort. It can be Geotab, it can be one of Sam Sarah, something out there, but they they work in conjunction. So,

so yeah. So, like my truck, I've got the TRX. It's actually a vehicle in the fleet because I got a company car and I get the special card and then I got to put in the odometer reading every time, right? Right. And so it's tracking the miles, the gas per mile against the odometer reading.

Yeah. Even if you just have a card like that and you don't have GPS, if the mileage is input incorrectly, you're going to get a report that's alerting you to that, right? So it could be the fact that, yeah, they were at say they 60,000 miles and all of a sudden they're filling up something at 30,000 mi. Is it their really vehicle? Is it somebody else's vehicle? You don't know for sure, but you would get alerts, you know, giving you a heads up regarding that. I probably get this question, what should I do with my vehicles? They don't want to go to a company like Cake Charge.

Their vehicles look like crap. They're driving billboards is what they are. And one of my buddies, Cameron Herald, like if you start parking on the two days off in the right areas, like the right Costos, they're well lit up at night. He's like, that literally grew 800 Got Junk to over a thousand locations. All we we called it parking. they park in the right spots. But it's got to be a beautiful It's not just stencils and like just we do garage doors. It's like it's it's a billboard and it's got to look beautiful and easy to clean

and memorable. Memorable. Like I don't have BBB and all my vendors and Yelp. Well, it's just simply A1 garage door service and it's just it's memorable and the colors, you know,

and you're on there. You're memorable. My mask. Yeah. My uh whatever it's called. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, a good a good rebranding can do amazing things for for the business and for advertising. So, if if you guys are thinking about it, considering it, don't hold back. It's another one of those things that maybe you're thinking it's too much at this point in time, but it'll it'll pay back dividends in the end. So,

you know, one thing we looked into, and I think this is ending in a year, but electric vehicles had a huge opportunity to get u credits and all kinds of stuff. What what are your thoughts on electric vehicle fleets?

Credits are still out there, don't get me wrong. Um it's just like the government still has to do or just the states still have to do more when it comes to infrastructure. Everybody's scared. You know, manufacturers are putting electric vehicles out there and they're saying, "Oh, they're going to go this far or they're capable of this." But what hasn't been taken into account for is weather, payloads, all that kind of stuff. So, um you know, companies are they're scared, right? They don't want to send their driver out and have them get stuck somewhere and don't have a charge or maybe they've run out of, you know, charge before they they anticipate it happening and they're in the middle of their whatever they're doing, right?

Service or install. So, I think that's the biggest thing. I think once we figure out that infrastructure problem, we get better um the vehicles get better when it comes to distance and charging cuz here in Arizona, heat does affect it, but not as bad as let's say cold weather,

right? Like cold weather below 30 degrees temperatures will really zap your your distance on a vehicle. But

how many miles does a typical bigger van get electric vehicle? Well, I guess empty 70.

170. But that's empty, right? How many vans are driving empty out there? None. Yeah.

Yeah. I've always thought we could do it. We'd get all these credits and we just But then I'm like, man, if you run out of charge and that truck's down. I guess we're not there yet, but in the next few years, we might be there.

Absolutely. What else are you thinking the people should know? So, we talked about gas cards, maintenance, making sure like the Sam Sarah and these things, they tell you when the truck needs an oil change. If you keep that stuff going, how like when you're leasing it, do you get penalized for not maintaining it? Like if the oil if you don't get it done in time,

you don't get penalized because it's it's technically still your vehicle. So, if something breaks down because you, you know, been neglectful, it's your responsibility. Well, like if a goes and it's got a 100,000 milei hard part warranty. I remember I had a truck that had way too many uh miles before the oil changes and we had to go to war uh with you guys. This was years and years ago.

Yeah. But it had a They're like, "This is your fault." Like or the oil might have been an engine, but it was like it was bad because it didn't have enough oil in it.

So, how do you find the right fleet manager? Well, that's a difficult question. you probably would know better than I do. You've been through, right?

Somebody with experience that understands vehicles and just understands how to care for them, I guess.

Absolutely. Um, what haven't I asked you yet? Well, what I wanted to talk about maybe a little bit more in depth about is like I said, fi leasing is very similar to a finance, but what a lot of people don't realize is there's so many more financial benefits to doing it, right? A lot of people say, "Oh, you know what? I'm just going to stay at the dealership. It's the same. It's the finance, right? The I got a line of credit. like what's what's wrong with the way I'm doing it this way? Well, instead of, you know, financing it in almost every single state, if you lease a vehicle, there's no sales tax. There's a monthly sales tax, so you don't pay interest on that. If you roll it into the the finance, you're paying interest on it or you're paying out of pocket for it. And here in Arizona, there's even an additional benefit that some people are aware of and some people are not. And maybe you know, maybe you don't, but

I don't think I do. vehicle that's uh 12,000 gross vehicle weight or or more, you don't have to pay any sales tax on it if you lease.

Is it 12,000? 12,000 12,000 12,000 GVW. Yeah. Okay. So, if you lease a vehicle like even um so it's usually like a 350 or up. Sometimes the 250s, the half tons even can qualify for it. But if it's registered properly that way, you save all of that sales tax. You don't even have to pay a monthly sales tax. I heard some of the smartest people in the world, they buy Bree's got one, the Mercedes, uh because they weigh so much and it could be depreciated. Like people are like that's the only vehicle you should buy or lease because you got to be over 6,000 to get the benefits, right?

For 179. Yes. For the 179. This is just just purely sales tax benefits. So right now if you go out and buy a vehicle, anybody goes out and buys a vehicle, it doesn't matter how much it weighs. If you're not leasing it, you're paying whatever what is it? 8.1 8.2 Prescott 9.3% sales tax on a $50,000 vehicle.

That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. When you lease it, you don't have to pay that here in Arizona at all. But across the the US, you still have to just pay a small monthly. You pay that that percentage of sales tax on the monthly lease payment.

I love it. What do you So people are probably wondering what's my next steps, you know, how do I learn how to do this stuff because there's certain stuff that go into the accounting side of it and small businesses sometimes it's hard to realize those things if do they just reach out to you tell them you know I need five vehicles in the next year and you'd work with them and just help them understand the tax benefits.

Yeah, absolutely. Initially I set up a 30 minute discovery meeting with whoever it may be whether you have two vehicles or 500 vehicles right to really learn out learn about you know what is your next goals for the 12 months what are your heartburns right and then just explain you know if you're some people are familiar with leasing some are not right we'll talk about leasing and death because there's like I said more than just sales tax benefits more than just lower payments more than just no credit reporting there you go I just had a meeting with a guy today he's got eight vehicles on his personal credit

for his business. For his business. Yeah. So, right now, now he wants to go out and he wants to get a nicer house. And they're saying, "Well,

you have $500,000 worth of debt risk on your That is something I never even thought about."

So, by by leasing, the line of credit stays with the leasing company. They're the lease. You become the lease.

Do I need like two years of uh business credit? You don't need two years of business credit, right? So, we help everybody that is a startup, you know, over three years. It's just it's a little bit more difficult. Underwriting is going to want more paperwork if it's less than two years because that three-year mark is kind of the aha where you know what, they've made it three years. They've proven that they can be successful in this business. So, the bank's a little bit more lenient, right?

Okay. But if you come in under two years, more than likely there's going to be, you know, they're going to want some money down. And that's just to keep you in that equitable position because if something happens in another year and you need to sell all your vehicles, last thing you want to do is have to hand us a check over once we sell those vehicles and sell us ow us more money. So,

so I remember I had this idea just because I've had hundreds and hundreds of people. I'm like, if I could use A1's buying power, and this was hard because we had to get so many people together to make this opportunity happen, which we call jump spark. Uh where do they where do they reach out to you to get to jump on a phone call?

They can simply go on the jumpspark.com website. There's a place where they can fill out a form and it comes directly to me and then I'll send you out my calendar and you can schedule something that works for you and I both

How how many clients do you think if they reached out to you that you could actually add value like save them money and explain things? I mean, is there really anybody out there that shouldn't be reaching out?

The only the the toughest ones I I mean, everybody should reach out. Absolutely. I would say I help 99% of the people out there that reach out to me. There's a small 1% that you know what, they're so brand new and they didn't realize what the payment was going to be on a, you know, a van with $50,000 van

1,500 bucks. Less than that. Less than that. But still, they weren't they weren't prepared, right? So,

well, it makes a lot of sense. It frees up cash flow. A lot of people are burying money, great money that they could use on marketing, hiring, innovation, technology, and they're tying it up into their fleet.

This is like the first thing I learned with a great CFO is like keep the cash flow. Use the money for growth.

Uh what else am I leaving out? The only other thing I really kind of wanted to mention is what makes JumpSpark different than other fleet management companies, right? So, first of all, we specialize in the home service, home improvement industry, right? There's tons of in different industries out there. There's municipalities, right? There's nonprofits, right? We want to focus on and hone our expertise to home service. We feel that we can really benefit them the most because of how they utilize their vehicles. So, and two, you know, what I did prior to, you know, getting a career in fleet, I spent I got a degree in hospitality management. I've spent 20 plus years in customer service. And so I can tell you what, if if you decide to become a client with us, a partner, your number goes in my phone. If you call me and if I'm not in a meeting, I answer your call. Yeah.

If you text me at 6 a.m. or 10 p.m., I'm I'm getting you an answer, right? If I'm keeping you there through the entire process, right, from sourcing to the time it gets delivered to your door, you know what's going on. Even though you don't have to do it, you have an idea so you can prepare with your team. So, I just want to say I guess what makes us different is the fact that we like I said, we're focusing in our expertise is for home service industry. Our customer service is number one.

I just think we can save people a ton of money. I I really believe that people My cousin just called me. I think you're working with Michael.

Mike. Yeah. And uh I'm like, dude, you got to go through this. I'm going to save you a bunch of money. Like, I believe in this because people ask me all the time. And they don't understand their credit card. They don't understand depreciation. and understand like just morale. There's so many things of how you look.

We get a better buy because of our fleet buying power. We're going to give them the best buy. We're going to save them the upfront sales tax. Sales tax on graphics, sales tax on the upfit. They don't have to pay any sales tax on that, right? We are going to save them a ton of money.

I spent four years perfecting my upfit to make sure that the guys are organized, it's easy to do inventory, and they have everything when they show up to the home.

And it's efficient, right? Yeah. And it's quick. You could look at it. There's the right bins. There's the tubes up top. We got five tubes for struts, uh, and and torsion tubes and angle iron. It's just super dialed in. And I think if people understood the organization, how you function, the only time you're making money is at a customer's house. So, having all the stuff, staying organized. You know, many of my guys take the client to the trucks

and they look at them and they go, "We're going to do business with you." Like, we've never seen a truck this organized. And that's their personal office. So, I just think people it doesn't hurt. You don't charge for a consultation.

Absolutely not. So, they they call you up, they go on JumpSpark, Ju P a rk.com. You'll talk to them. You'll see where they're at.

I think it does take like reach out right away because it does take a few months. So, you got to have a plan. And I, you know, it's going we're going into budget season.

And what we do is look at how many texts do we need to hire. Sure. And we got a pretty big fleet. So there's certain times we run the trucks a little longer because we need to hire a bunch. So we got to take those new ones. And there's certain times we want I'd love to turn them in at the perfect time. It's just for a company that's growing like ours 30% a year. It's hard because there's certain look people have accidents, people quit, people have weddings. The treat fleets are it's a Thank God we got the right woman in the fleet department. find me. She is so good. She comes with a vast knowledge, much bigger company and managing a fleet of ours. I think we got 500 guys in the field now. So, and then you got my Dodge TRX that I don't even drive. But, uh, part of my deal going into the next time I sell the company is they pay off the truck, I get to keep it, and they give me a new one.

There you go. Yeah. So, um, what's your favorite book? Elevate. Yeah. Elevate. There you go. I love it.

Oh, there's another one, too. The Art of Closing. Um, the art of closing antel. Yeah.

What do you like about it? You know, when I first started in the fleet industry, um, it was a a book, we called it like a book club that at the office and we would read certain, you know, chapters each time and come back and say, "Hey, what was the aha part? What you really took away with it." He just he he just made it, you know, I had to wasn't used to reaching out to sweet sweet people, right? I was used to reaching out to the operations team, right, to get things done. And so you just had a lot of really good information about how to get in front of people, how to talk to like CEOs, CEOs, presidents, right, who make those kind of decisions because they are on a a different level and they have a different, you know, talk path. So

that book really helped me out um my career rise career for that. So you know, there's a good book, it's like the best salesman in the world by J, what's his last name? He I think he sold he's the record setter for selling all the the most cars. Have you ever heard of that book?

No. Huh? Yeah. It's it's He's long since passed away and retired, but he was in the 60s and 70s. He used to sell seven cars a day. His record was like 14 in a day.

That's a lot. And he just said, "I build relationships. I get to know the families. I give them a good shake. I treat them right. I send them birthday cards. You know, I make it an experience. I'm looking out for them. It's not pressure tactics

about trust." I think that's the deal with you is like if nothing else, people could get some information and understand this is what it would look like. And planning is key here, guys. Like you call up Renee and you need to figure out when you need the vehicles. Going and buying them at the last minute is going to cost an extra 10 grand.

I mean, it just doesn't make sense. You're going to get what's on the lot. It may be a low a low trim level. It may not, right? You may have options on there that you don't need a vehicle.

Yeah. like four-wheel drive when you don't need it or not a four-wheel drive if you're in like

for for me Flagstaff. Right. Right. Or you're getting an XL instead of an XL, you know, an XLT which you don't need. You need all the extra bells and whistles as fleet vehicle, right? Because most mo all of them are going to come with the same safety anyway. It's minimum,

right? Safety stuff. So proactively is definitely Yeah, it's there's never too early to schedule a time to talk to me. It may not you may not be ready to go after we talk and that's okay. I have lots of clients who are like, Renee, I still need to do this. Touch back with me in two months. Whatever it may be. But

what are some reasons people wouldn't want to work with you right away? What are they what are they waiting on?

They're probably waiting to figure out how many vehicles they're going to need or hiring or whatnot.

And they want to talk to their CPA. They want to they're looking at their budgets.

How often do you get on a phone with a CPA? Very rarely does a CPA call me. I mean, I do have I do have clients who come back to me and say, "My CPA said this or my CPA said that." But

that's the biggest thing is understanding these write offs and cash flow. I mean, it's really a product of controller, CPA, CFO that understand. I don't know anybody out of Gettle, my buddy Eco Plumber, like all these guys all over the country that buy their vehicles. You always lease. It's the right thing to do. The smartest companies are doing this. Uh, you might think you got to figure it out. Why would I pay this payment if I always talk about cost versus value? Like, yeah, did you find a better price, but what's going to happen when you when we got to show up every six months to come fix it because it broke and you miss another day of work? And you might be paying less upfront, but when the it's always in the shop and the morale, people quit because of this. I didn't know the number one question I was going to get is, "Do I get a new vehicle?"

It's it's it's for real. And all of a sudden, your tickets go up, conversion rate goes up, happier clients, you look amazing on the road. So, um, well, I appreciate you, Renee. Let's just close us out. Maybe we didn't talk about something. Maybe there's something, uh, you just wanted to say to to the audience to get us

I just want to say it doesn't matter whether you need one vehicle or you need a hundred. Our goal is to make it a seamless and easy process for you and you're going to get the same level of customer service whether it's one or 100. So,

so go to jumpspark.com and book an appointment with Renee. Thank you. I appreciate

just want to say one other thing. Freedom 25. That's where it's at. Freedom 25.

I'll be there. I will be there. If anybody comes in and sees me and mentions that you heard the podcast, you're going to get a special prize.

Special prize. Freedom. September in Vegas. Thanks, Renee. Thanks, Tommy. All right.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Maximizing Fleet Efficiency: Insights from Industry Expert Renee Millum | E428 Home Service Expert"?

Tommy (Host), Renee Milm (Guest).

What is "Maximizing Fleet Efficiency: Insights from Industry Expert Renee Millum | E428 Home Service Expert" about?

Renee Milum shares her extensive knowledge on fleet management, addressing common questions about purchasing, leasing, and maintaining vehicles for businesses. With over a decade of experience in the commercial fleet industry, she offers insights into effective fleet strategies, administration, and optimizing overall fleet performance.

What is mentioned in this Home Service Expert episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Renee Milm, JumpSpark, A1 Garage Door Service, Amazon, FedEx, UPS. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Maximizing Fleet Efficiency: Insights from Industry Expert Renee Millum | E428 Home Service Expert"?

The episode runs 37 min; the transcript is about 7,997 words in 124 timestamped sections.

More from Home Service Expert

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.