If you run an independent rental company, you’ve probably felt the gap. The national chains have data teams, dashboards, and analysts on staff. You’ve got a counter, a yard, and a gut feeling that’s served you well for years. So when the conversation turns to data and AI, it’s easy to assume that whole world belongs to the big players and not to you.
On episode 107 of The Rental Roundtable, I sat down with Cody Stewart, Director of Product Operations at Sunbelt Rentals. Cody grew up in a family rental business that was acquired by Sunbelt and then talked his way onto the analytics team by cold-calling the one person whose job title had “analytics” in it. That mix of yard knowledge and data skill puts him in a rare spot. And here’s what surprised me most: almost every framework he shared scales down. You don’t need millions of assets or a 25-year data warehouse to use these ideas. You just need to know where to start.
From Rental in the Blood to Data Leader
Cody’s story is a familiar one for a lot of independents. His grandfather ran the company on paper receipts. His dad ran it on an old system that gave him almost no reporting. Back then, a good month was simple: was there money in the bank when it ended? Nobody was digging into why the money showed up or which machines actually earned it.
When Cody got more involved, he pushed the family onto rental software that could surface real data, leaning on ARA financial trainings to understand where the money was going. Then Sunbelt acquired the business, and suddenly he had more information than he knew what to do with. Instead of being overwhelmed, he got hooked. That curiosity is what I’d point any operator toward first. You don’t have to love spreadsheets. You just have to get curious about why your numbers do what they do.
“It was nothing but gut feeling and paper receipts. Now it’s more analytical thinking that’s being involved in the rental industry.” Cody Stewart, Director of Product Operations at Sunbelt Rentals, (6:45)
Cutting Through the Noise When You Have Too Much Data
Here’s an interesting flip. Most independents feel like they have no data, so almost anything you show them lands as an insight. Sunbelt has the opposite problem. With millions of assets collecting data over 25 years, the challenge isn’t getting numbers. It’s finding the signal buried inside billions of them. Funny enough, the way Cody solves that big-company problem is exactly how a single-store owner should think about their reports too.
His core principle is a phrase he’s put right in his email signature. Before you measure anything, understand the intent behind it. What business outcome are you actually chasing? Once that’s clear, you measure what matters most and let the rest go. That focus is what keeps a small team from drowning in dashboards nobody uses.
“Understand the business outcome that is going to be associated with the analytics you’re putting together, and then measure what matters the most. That way you’re keeping focus.” Cody Stewart, (10:44)
The 3-30-3 Rule for Building Reports People Actually Use
This was my favorite idea from the whole conversation, and it’s the one I’d tape to the wall if I ran a counter. Cody calls it the 3-30-3 rule, and it shapes how he builds every dashboard, spreadsheet, and report. It works because it forces you to design around what the reader needs to see and how fast they need to see it.
The rule breaks down into three windows of time. In 3 seconds, the reader should know the status: is this good, bad, or ugly? Color it red, yellow, or green and put it at the top. In 30 seconds, they should be able to dig one click deeper and find the root cause behind that status. And in 3 minutes, they should be able to reach a solution, the actual path to fixing it.
Why Every Metric Needs an Action
The 3-30-3 rule only works if the report points somewhere. Cody walked through a utilization example that makes this concrete. Say you want to lift utilization on a product category. The 3-second view tells you where you stand. The 30-second view shows the driving factors behind it. And the final view names the offenders, whether that’s specific assets, locations, or people, so you know exactly what to correct. A number that doesn’t lead to an action is just decoration. Every metric should have a next step attached to it.
There’s a communication lesson hiding in here too. Cody says the hardest part of building any report is getting the person who needs it to explain what they actually want. Folks who know machines cold often can’t describe the dashboard in their heads, so he asks the same question five different ways until the real need surfaces. Someone asks for a green button, but what they really want is to know whether they should sell a piece of fleet. If you’re an independent talking to a software vendor or your own office manager, that back and forth is how you get tools that fit how you really work.
“The more you can talk, the more you can ask questions. Ask the same question five different ways. People intuitively know what they want, but they don’t know how to ask for it.” Cody Stewart, (16:06)
Why AI Is Becoming the Great Equalizer for Independents
If the data conversation can feel like it favors the big guys, the AI conversation flips it. Cody is genuinely optimistic that AI levels the playing field, and he made the case with a comparison I keep thinking about. He likened it to the arrival of the automobile. Yes, some old trades faded, like wagon making. But a whole new world opened up around it, and travel became something everyone could do. AI does the same thing for analytics. It hands real capability to operators who never had the budget or the talent to build it themselves.
“It did help level the playing field for people being able to travel. And it’s the same thing it’s going to do for industries and entire businesses.” Cody Stewart, (26:21)
For independents, this isn’t about replacing jobs. It’s about finally filling roles you could never afford or never find people for: an after-hours agent that books a rental at midnight, a tool that analyzes how your counter team handles calls, or trend-spotting that used to need a million-row spreadsheet and an analyst. This is the direction we’ve taken with Quinn, our AI agent at Quipli. It pairs your rental software data with real customer communication, phone calls, emails, and texts, to catch missed rentals and flag customers who look ready to churn, at a cost a single-location shop can actually afford.
Adopting AI Responsibly: Lead It, Don’t Ignore It
Cody is passionate about AI responsibility, and he’s led multiple seminars on it. His first point is one most owners miss. If you run a rental business, your people are already using AI. Your counter staff, your mechanics, your sales reps, whether or not you’ve said a word about it. So the question isn’t if AI shows up in your business. It’s whether you’re going to lead how it gets used or stick your head in the sand and accept whatever happens.
Leading it starts with communication. Cody likes to ask a room of owners three questions. Have you used AI for work? Almost every hand goes up. Have you asked your employees if they use it? Less than half. Have you asked them how they use it and what tools they’re on? Almost nobody. That gap is the whole problem. Once you know who’s using what, you can set the rules. Pick the tool you want. Lock down your security. Decide what data should never go into it: financial records, employee details, customer information.
“In the absence of leadership and vision and direction, people are going to use these tools the way that they want to, and they’re going to put data in they shouldn’t be putting in.” Cody Stewart, (31:44)
Prompting Matters More Than You Think
Cody shared a live example that should make every operator pause. He typed a real question into an AI tool: does a customer need to be certified to use a man lift to clean the gutters at their home? The tool’s first answer was that no contractor’s license was needed. Technically true, but dangerously incomplete, because insurance and most litigation point straight to the operator’s manual, which calls for training or certification. A broad question gets a broad answer.
“You’re having something curate an answer for you that is so good at it, it makes it seem like it is the most competent yes-man in the world.” Cody Stewart, (33:48)
That’s why the human stays in the loop. Train your team to ask better questions and to check the sources behind every answer. AI is a tool, like electricity, and you wouldn’t let anyone wire your building without safety rules first. Set the guidelines, encourage people to explore new uses, and keep a person accountable for every decision the tool touches.
The Technology Is Only Getting Better From Here
One line from Cody stuck with me because it reframes how you should think about timing. The AI you’re using today is the worst it’s ever going to be. If it already feels impressive, that’s a little mind-blowing, because there’s nowhere to go but up. Progress here isn’t a straight line. It compounds and ramps, which is hard to feel in the moment but obvious when you look back six months.
I’ll leave you with the same advice Cody gives at his seminars: talk about AI as much as you can. Get curious about your own numbers. Build your reports around the 3-30-3 rule so they drive action. And when you bring AI into the business, lead it on purpose instead of letting it run in the shadows. None of this requires a national-sized budget. It just requires a willingness to ask better questions, which, fittingly, was the best career advice Cody said he ever got.
At Quipli, that’s the future we’re building with Quinn, putting the data and AI tools that used to belong only to the nationals into the hands of independent operators. The playing field is leveling, and the operators who lean in now are the ones who’ll be hard to compete with five years from now.
