#202 How to Develop Great Leaders with Values and Skills for Tomorrow’s Success

In this episode of Owned and Operated, we shift focus to a critical yet often overlooked pillar of business success: leadership development and management training. With insights from Amir of Snowball Industries, we dig into how identifying and nurturing potential leaders is foundational to scaling tier two and tier three service businesses.

The discussion explores the evolution from technical expertise to soft skills as the driving force behind effective leadership. We unpack the core values that matter most—empathy, urgency, financial intelligence, and humility—and how they shape team culture, performance, and long-term growth. John and Amir also examine structured training programs, peer learning opportunities, and practical management tools that enable owners and operators to build sustainable, high-performance teams.

For anyone acquiring or operating in remote and niche sectors like HVAC or turf installation, this conversation delivers actionable insight into creating a leadership framework that fuels operational excellence and employee retention.

🚨 In This Episode, We Cover:
 🔹 How to Spot and Grow Future Leaders
 🔹 The Shift from Technical to Soft Skills in Management
 🔹 Core Leadership Values: Empathy, Urgency, Financial IQ, Humility
 🔹 Tools for Structured Leadership Development
 🔹 The Power of Peer Teaching and Peer Learning
 🔹 Leading Remote Teams with Empathy and Intent

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🎙️ Hosts:
🗣️ John Wilson
🗣️ Amir Haboosheh

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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Leadership Qualities
• 1:40 Emerging Leaders and Leadership Training
• 8:16 Developing Leadership Programs
• 21:18 Adjusting Leadership Cadences
• 26:56 Challenges and Learnings in Leadership Training
• 29:53 Peer Learning and Industry Insights
• 38:00 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

202 Transcript

John Wilson: [00:00:00] Who do you want to be a leader? Are we trying to retrain someone's core or is this person just a great fit for leadership? And if I give them some tools, they'll, they'll do well. Getting involved in, in 

Amir Haboosheh: anything that is management related is you start leaning more on, uh, soft skills than you do on, on technical skills.

John Wilson: The, the bigger we've sort of gotten, the more our core values have gone from these things on a piece of paper to like, oh, this is, this is a, these are very real, 

Amir Haboosheh: these are the four traits that are important to me. And. For me, it's empathy, a sense of urgency, financial attendance, and humbleness. Mm-hmm.

John Wilson: Welcome back to Owned and Operated. Uh, today I have my good friend Amir from Snowball Industries on the show today. I. Welcome to the show. Thank you, John. Pleasure to be here. Yeah, this is gonna be, uh, this is gonna be a lot of fun. 

Jack Carr: Just answer the phone. It's one of those phrases that's always easier said than done.

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John Wilson: I'm enjoying these deep dive sort of conversations in our studio, and I feel like you, especially you're, you're relational and I feel like this is gonna be just a really great conversation, so I'm looking forward to it. So you, you're working from Anderson Air in Arkansas right now, and you and the team came and site visited.

For the day, and you got to witness a couple of our leadership trainings. So what you and I were talking about was. Hey, let's, let's, [00:02:00] you know, maybe gimme some feedback, like where can we improve or what did we like, what did we not like about like, my, uh, leadership trainings? And then, uh, just talk about emerging leaders in general.

But the, the two trainings you attended so far today, one was emerging leaders, which like, that's our, uh, field professionals prepping to become a frontline leader at the next available opportunity. And then you also participated in our leadership training, and that's just all of our leaders. And I think we're doing crucial conversations in both of 'em right now.

Yeah. So what was your feedback on our emerging leaders? Uh, first 

Amir Haboosheh: of all, I loved it. Uh, loved both of them. Um, actually impressed how engaged, uh, they were. Yeah, especially the emerging ones. Uh, it seems like they definitely have that excitement where they want more responsibility, they want to learn, um, the soft skills, which is, you know, pretty challenging for a lot of people Getting into that.

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Amir Haboosheh: Uh, from, you know, a senior, uh, technician or, uh, from the field. Getting involved in, in anything that is management related is you start leaning more [00:03:00] on, uh, soft skills than you do on, on technical skills. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Amir Haboosheh: Um, and I'm sure that's uncomfortable for them, but, um, they all leaned into it. They all, yeah.

Got very comfortable with the role playing. Um, that's never easy. Uh, even if you have 

John Wilson: that group actually was, um, I'm tap, I'm like tooting their horn really quick. It was immediately easy for them. And I think that that was a part of. This was a, um, something that we learned maybe a couple years ago when we tried to do this, but like, who do you want to be a leader and the type of person that you want to be a leader and the type of person that you want to activate into an emerging leaders program is the type of person that would be immediately comfortable in a role play.

So if we think about it as like, are we trying to retrain someone's core? Or is this person just a great fit for leadership? And if I give them some tools, they'll, they'll do well with it. So we, we qualified the people that went in there really well. So what [00:04:00] was the qualification process? Because most of it driven around core value.

Okay. Do they get it? Do they want it? Do they have the capacity to do it? Are have, were they nominated by multiple leaders that, hey, this person has potential to move up. They understand they're asking for more. Um, are, have they. Shown leadership inside their own team. Do people rely on them? Do they call on them?

Are they reliable themselves? Um, but are they, are they living the values? Like we, the, the bigger we've, uh, sort of gotten, the more our core values have gone from these things on a piece of paper to like, oh, this is, this is a, this is a very real, uh, part of our business. And like, and you can feel those values.

I'm, I'm gonna ask if you did, but like. I've gotten that comment before of like, people walk in and they feel it. They're like, oh, it's transparent. Like there's shit all over the walls. Like we, we see the p and l like on the walls. Uh, we see the rocks that the SLT leaders did or didn't do, [00:05:00] like, so we're transparent.

We're clearly a team. We're driving. Um, well, so people that like fit that mold tend to be very comfortable. 

Amir Haboosheh: Doing role play, you, you see it. And, um, Brandon, you know, your, your GM does a great job of keep repeating it in every single training, every single week. Um, and that reinforces the core values. The core values, yeah.

And, and also the shoutouts. Yeah. As far as, hey, this person did this, this, and that, and it exhibited this core value. And this is weekly. It's not once a month, not once a quarter. So you guys do that really well. We're gonna probably r and d quite a bit of Yeah. What we learned today. And that was done in the emerging leaders too.

Yeah. In both of them. Emerging leaders and the, the leadership training one. 

John Wilson: Yeah, we, we've, that's a new process for us if this helps. But we just started doing that and it's at the start of, so the first five minutes of every single meeting is now identical. [00:06:00] We're gonna, we're gonna. Say, Hey, here's the meeting, here's the core values.

We're gonna repeat 'em, and then we're gonna do shout outs. And for another meeting, there's one more slide. Um, but yes, they all start the same to sort of continue to drive that culture forward that we're aiming for. 

Amir Haboosheh: And it's not, it doesn't become just empty words because you're literally practicing it.

You know, someone is watching. Yeah. It happens. They're gonna present it to give the shout out. Yeah. So it just reinforces the importance of it. Yeah. Um, and then, um, just in general, him. Mixing the medium of, of communication. So whether it's presentation, discussion, engagement, showing a video, showing pictures, it keeps you engaged, uh, throughout that 45 minutes.

Mm-hmm. One hour that, uh, you go through so you're not just like start dreamlining into something else. Mm-hmm. Um, we've done a very light version. You know, you just trust the managers that they'll pick up on leadership qualities versus purposefully like. Hey, if they identified it, let's actually have, um, um, [00:07:00] weekly, uh, leadership training, something we picked up.

Not that it's, um, hey, you guys do a better version of this, but having a, a library and seeing who's actually checking out the library, it usually that gives you an identification of someone that wants to get developed, someone that wants to be, uh, is coachable. Then they pick up that book and you can start having discussions about it with them.

Mm-hmm. Um, whether it's, you know, weekly or monthly. Like, Hey, I'm reading the same book, or I read it a year ago. This is how impactful it was. What did you learn? What did you take away from it? And they will write like a, a book report too. Um, yeah. So like communicate what they learned from it. But yours from what we've seen is next level and we'll take that back to our shop and, and definitely implement it.

So 

John Wilson: what do you think we could improve on? Like when you looked at ours, what were you like, I like this, but here's what I would 

Amir Haboosheh: change because it's new to me. Everything was more, uh, I want to try. Um, all of it. Yeah. You know, so far everything that I can think of that was engaging and you know what? The role playing one, when [00:08:00] one gets.

Into role playing, they might take over, um, the whole time slot associated with it versus flipping and cameras maybe. Yeah. Or you know, Brandon or whoever is like leading the Yeah. Um, the training will say, okay, now switch. Yeah. 

John Wilson: How are you guys thinking about leadership training right now? Like, what's been your norm either presently or over your career?

So 

Amir Haboosheh: we just started developing it. We've been doing a lot of that was, um, me and, um. Our people and culture managers. Mm-hmm. Main Rock for, uh, not just a quarter, but for the, for the year. Yeah. Uh, so we went to, um, Chapman, um, okay. Um, leadership program out of Missouri that Hoffman Brothers, uh, hosted. Mm-hmm.

Um, it was great going through it. 

John Wilson: Yeah. Do you know if they're doing that again? 

Amir Haboosheh: They are in June. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So our GM is gonna go to the July one and it's gonna pair, pair up and take one of our other managers, uh, with them. Mm-hmm. It's good to go in pairs 'cause [00:09:00] you reinforce and you talk about it going there, talk about it, uh, during those two, two and a half day training.

And then, um, same thing. Uh, talk about it when you come back. So it just keeps reinforcing it when you send it in Paris versus, uh, by yourself. You're all vulnerable mm-hmm. Uh, during those two days. 'cause you, uh, open up on storytelling and Yeah. A lot of your gaps. So, but they, they're cognizant of it and they, um, and they make sure that you're not paired with the person you came in so that you can, uh, speak openly.

Uh, but that's exactly what our goal is, uh, for this year is just mm-hmm. Build a leadership training program. Um, and, uh, we're just r and ding as, as we go through it right now. So, and we do have a lot of. Managers that right now, uh, this is their first time managing Sure. Or managing at this size. Yeah.

Because there isn't the shop, uh, as big of as ours in, um, the one that we have in northwest Arkansas. It's not as, as, um, as big as [00:10:00] ours. Uh, especially on, on just dedicated HVAC. And there are other ones that are multi trade. Mm-hmm. Um, but, uh, this is definitely one of the, one of the bigger ones, or at least the second biggest.

John Wilson: Mm-hmm. So as you're thinking about constructing this program, like what are the thought, like what are the facets of this program that you'll be adding? Like how are you thinking about it? Formation. 

Amir Haboosheh: I will tell you what's the main outcome as far as the goals and that we want to achieve, at least me personally, will be a good positive outcome.

Uh, you know, there's certain, um, traits. I look into good leadership when we recruit, so then we should apply the same. Um, um, qualifications or expectations when we promote, uh, or develop, uh, with, with them. Um, and it's, you know, um, one, obviously we talked about it having a sense of urgency 'cause they're gonna be the drivers of their department.

Yeah. Um, second is, um, um, being empathetic, um, and being able to like really [00:11:00] connect with the teams that they're leading. 'cause if you're driving hard. Are you doing it through, uh, authority or are you doing it through influence? Um, authority is just gonna very, very short live influence is being able to like, really give them that sense of ownership, whoever it is, whether it's the team leads or, uh, technicians of like, you know, why this is important.

Um, that one is just, you know, humbleness. Um, that's important because mm-hmm. If we're gonna make mistakes, um, can you own the mistake? Are you the type that would. Not apologize, uh, or, and if you do apologize, would you do it in front of a group when you have to own up to something? Mm-hmm. Um, there's ways that we can, you know, uh, flush that out.

So it's just having, uh, uh, you know, uh, sense of urgency being humble, um, being empathetic. And then the one that is a little bit more, less soft skill, uh, is, is just being comfortable with numbers and, uh, getting into the financial intelligence side. Finance intelligence side is like, it actually is the least concerning, uh, [00:12:00] because there's plenty of, um, um, management minded books that, um, it helps with that.

Yeah. And then you start reviewing p and ls and you start, you know, with the pipeline and the cogs and, uh, what they impact the most and it clicks pretty quickly. Mm-hmm. Um, being humble, being empathetic, having a sense of urgency and why all these matters. That's probably the one thing, the outcomes I would like to, um, achieve.

John Wilson: Yeah. And do you think it's like a, a year, like six months? I would 

Amir Haboosheh: say a year, yeah. And then just repeat it. Yeah. From what I've seen with the ones that I worked with, um, I would say a year, um, if they have at least one or two, I would, those traits makes a lot easier. Yeah. So if like, if they're already leading with empathy, empathy, they have.

They're very humble. Then I can just focus on financial intelligence and, and developing a sense of urgency. Yeah, yeah. Developing a sense of urgency, um, has probably the most challenging one. [00:13:00] Um, what I've done there is, um, partner them, um, including myself, people that have a higher sense of urgency than me.

Mm-hmm. Um, this way. Um, they're the drivers and I'm their support. Um, and I just have to match their sense of urgency as opposed to, 'cause it's, it, it takes energy to have a high sense of Yeah. Uh, urgency. Uh, so if they have, if I know my, so the whole other part of that is knowing, um, your own gaps and challenges, and then talking to, let's say the gm, if this is your challenge and it's hard for you to develop it.

Then can you identify it and support somebody else that has it? Now it's your job to at least support it. So it doesn't always have to be you, you the responsible for it, but you are ultimately accountable for it. 

John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. We, one of the things I. Brandon did a great job. Brandon really took the lead on our leadership, uh, training.

You could see it. Yeah. And [00:14:00] he, he did an amazing job. And one thing that I like that he did was, was break it out into series where, like right now, I think today was the last, or second to last it was number five. I just don't remember which, which one? I think there are four going into five. Okay. And it, and that's a crucial conversations and crucial conversations.

Are like hard conversations like, Hey, you're a really nice guy, but your performance is not good. Here's what we have to do. So it's, it's basically helping people through hard conversations. And I like when, when he went to format that. So this is like my input as far as thinking about developing your own or if the listener's thinking about developing their own, that makes it a lot less complicated.

'cause really what you're looking for is 12 topics and you're gonna spend a month on each. Which is much less intimidating than 52. And, you know, financial literacy we've gotten, I believe, [00:15:00] I don't even know that we actually train on it necessarily as, as much as we just open the p and l and that is our training.

Like, hey, here it is. Uh, and then I walk through it line item by line item. We talk about what happened, why, what budget was where we missed, where we won. And I think people are getting it from that. I do think I need to be more deliberate with our directors on it though. But all, all that to say I like the series approach.

And even yesterday I was walking, it was kind of funny. I was walking in the hallway and I saw our supply chain manager, Fred, and I was like, Hey Fred. He has two remote like offshore team members and Fred's awesome. Like Fred started in in the team in January. He's just done like an odd, like a bang up job of like getting us into shape.

And uh, so we started building a team around him and he's like about three weeks into having a team. It was just him for the first 90 days. And I don't, I don't know what randomly occurred to me, but I, I realized that I had built a team around him. I'd never asked if he'd run a team. I kind of made an assumption, maybe I did in the [00:16:00] interview process, but like, I don't think it was ever, you know, big.

And I know that I never armed him with the tools to know how to lead a team in the Philippines like that never came up. And I asked him, I was like, Hey Fred, I'm just verifying this. I am nearly positive. The answer is I didn't, but we didn't give you any information on how to lead this team, right? He's like, no.

Fortunately I had some background in it, so like we lucked into that. But so what we're thinking about doing now, in addition to like the, the emerging leaders and the Wednesday, and I don't wanna spend, I don't want another meeting. So what, what I'm thinking about doing like micro podcasts, that's, we have the benefit of a studio is like, how do I make a 10 minute.

Uh, either a series, a weekly series something. So I spend an hour on it. We turn it into a a month of like 10 minute snippets once a week. And like the first one should be, Hey, I have a remote team. Here's how you manage it the Wilson way. Like, here's our expectations. 'cause we've [00:17:00] just never, literally never done it.

Yeah. Which is kind of ridiculous 'cause we have 30 people offshore and we're just like, you can figure it out. And I think I've roughly been like, you should do a daily huddle. That's about as 

Amir Haboosheh: it's a different skillset, remote management. Yeah. We have, uh, some of, you know, we have, um, some of our managers are really good at it.

Yeah. And it takes, it's much more intentional. A hundred percent. Yeah. And it resonates with them actually, of things being more direct, uh, and clear. Yeah. Um, and if they want to. Give you feedback as far as their day and how everything went. So it's like you can, you can where, where, you know, day to day here, you might feel like you're micromanaging because you're asking like, okay, what did you do today?

Yeah, no, they want to tell you what they did today. Yeah. And give you a report, whatever that is. At least they, they can, so they completed the day. Um, recording yourself doing a task, uh, is a lot easier. Yeah. And, um, [00:18:00] and then they do it record themselves. They send it back to you. Yeah. And then you can make adjustments and they iterate on it.

Uh, so like we, we use Loom, but I think if you're on Office 365 Ustream or something. Yeah. Um, but a lot of these things, like these are the tools I saw, like giving them the tools of how to manage remote. Mm-hmm. And you're right, that's just some, something that some people don't have experience in, and.

It's great to just have a few, uh, data points. It's also just 

John Wilson: tactical. 

Amir Haboosheh: Yeah. 

John Wilson: You know? 'cause I feel like that's something that we missed on Yeah. As we developed our program, our program is to help PE turn potential leaders or current leaders into better versions of what they already are. 

Amir Haboosheh: Yeah. 

John Wilson: And what we missed was tactically here's exactly what you do to manage a remote team.

Or there was a couple other, uh. There was a few other, like, as I was just like, I had a kind of an open day yesterday, so I just like putz and like looked at like friction points and I was like, we could do something about that. [00:19:00] We should be talking about that. That should, you know, um, yeah. It, but it, it was interesting 'cause I, I feel like there's all these different opportunities on like what to train on and some of it has to be like long sn, long, like month long series, two month long series.

And some of it has to be like. Here's a 10 minute thing, so you just know how we do this. Yeah. And, and you 

Amir Haboosheh: have to use a lot more, I guess, online tools like Clickup and Asana and stuff like that. Like here's your checklist. I've done all this. Here's your weekly one, your daily ones, your mm-hmm. Subtask that they use their custom to.

Um, that typically here you can capture just in a conversation molding around from like one, um, one cubicle to another, like just checking in without it looking like. You're hovering over them. Um, but when it's remote, it's like if you didn't actually check boxes, did you do it? Yeah. And update, because otherwise they don't wanna spend hours me in meetings either.

They just want to be able to like just get through it. The culture is different too. Mm-hmm. Very much like task driven to get [00:20:00] things done. 

John Wilson: Yeah. So how else are you think about 

Amir Haboosheh: developing your current leaders? So again, this is, um, new to us is having, um. The something we've taken a page from traction, and then you guys use traction as well.

Mm-hmm. It starts with that as far as like, at least that's that, uh, the bare minimum that any shop should do is quarterly meetings, um, and going over issues lists, going over like the wins, accomplishments, and, uh, building, um, rocks around it, goals for, for the quarter, and keeping them accountable to it either week, over week or month over month.

We could do a better job at that ourselves. Um, that accountability, once you have it on them, they have it on their team base because then now you're setting the standard and the expectation. Mm-hmm. And if you don't do it, then, then, then they won't. Um, and I say this is all in work in progress and developments because Yeah, we're slowly, um, crystallizing, like, what are the meeting [00:21:00] cadences?

Yeah. What are the agendas? Quarterly ones, the monthly ones, the weekly ones. I know you have, um, um, a lot of these things already, like in place or working through it, um, in stages. Yeah. We're four, 

John Wilson: we're four years in to EOS and that's given us a lot of structure. And, uh, I, I do think, you know, varying, we've done varying degrees.

Like we, uh, we, I think we overcorrected at first where at one point. We were running like 13 L tens a week and it was a lot. And what we do now is we run three and that feels better to us. A lot less people are in those L tens, but it's really just like with leadership and I think, I think this is a gap with EOS that I'm told Scaling up, which is a different version of it helps.

Correct. I haven't looked that far in scaling up. [00:22:00] But you know, part of the gap with the OS is they're like, Hey, full implementation is full implementation and that's the whole company. And it's like, yeah, but we light version. Yeah. It's, it seems unnec like we did it. Mm-hmm. And it was unnecessary. Like it di it was, it was actually a distraction and didn't really drive the vision.

And I think we drove the vision better with what we're currently doing. 

Amir Haboosheh: So outside of that, outside of like accountability through implementing all these cadences and having it all. Um, empathy is a big thing. Um, not only for me, but mm-hmm. Also my, um, people and culture manager and also my gm, um, um, out of, uh, out of Anderson.

Mm-hmm. And so we are, it doesn't matter what personality tests you use, but we use color code. Uh, there's different ones. Yeah. And I'll give you different insights. Um, she, she trained on that. Um, she, uh, does, um, uh, workshops on that for the managers, for the technicians. What it does is it builds communication.

You get [00:23:00] to not, one, how to identify what people's motivations are and the, the their more ideal or default communication style. Um, and then you adjust to that as a, as a manager or you get to talk, you, you put it as part of the language. Um, so let's say, um, I'm, my primary color as an example is, is white and I'm motivated by.

Piece then my default is to make sure that hey, everybody's, um, uh, you know, they're talking and they're not yelling at each other, and I can identify that well, um, and when I'm stressed, um, and my dream line, um, or not be focused. Um, so being able to identify that, integrating that into your one-on-ones where before something comes in, you read about, um, their color codes, you read about their history within the company.

Your promotions have been stagnate for the past year or two. Have they got promotions? Um, a little bit of a bio about them. What you just did is you induced em, uh, empathy. 'cause for the first, like before they walk in, [00:24:00] have a one-on-one with you, um, instead of it about it being about you talking about talk, trying to get information from them, you put yourself in their shoes.

You went through their company journey with Wilson over the past three years, five years, 10 years, 30 years. Mm-hmm. Depending on longevity. Then now you for like 15 minutes, were in their shoes, they're come and talking. You're much more open to listening versus, um, talking over them or trying to get your purpose out of the one-on-one.

So, and that honestly, we, we picked up from, um, anyhow out of, um, Utah. Yeah. They very purposeful in empathy and color code and put integrating it in their one-on-one sessions. That is interesting. Yeah. 

John Wilson: Yeah. I like the color code. We're not using any right now. We did use, uh, for a while we used, um, a color Culture.

Color Culture index. Culture index. We did culture index for a while. I, I don't think we were, I think we were definitely not mature enough to like implement it properly [00:25:00] and it became like, like we got in our own way 

Amir Haboosheh: on it. We literally print our main profile, put it on every single person's, uh, desk. Yeah.

Or cubicles people right away. It reinforces it. To your point, if you just do it once and you put it in the shelf and you, yeah, just look at it again, then why did you even spend time doing it? Using it as a communication, doesn't matter which one. Yeah. Using it as a communication tool, and even in a workshop when people are like joking around, it's like, Hey, you're yellow.

You're motivated by fun. You're red, you're motivated by power, and you're at blue. Motivated by relationships and intimacy. Um, and you start reading your, um, your weaknesses, your, your strengths Yeah. And guidance on how to, um, work on them. And how do you leverage them and com lever, like utilize them to communicate better with somebody else.

Um, just changes. People are a lot more, um, uh, less defensive. It's more about. Your red is coming out, um, you're being really direct. Um, or [00:26:00] I need to be direct because I know that that's the way you prefer to communicate. 

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That's supply house.com, promo code H five, and that code is valid through September 30th, 2025. There's a few things that we had tried to roll out before and [00:27:00] we did a botched implementation. Um, I think we tried, just tried to go too fast and we didn't, we didn't get buy-in and we didn't like.

I think, yeah, I mean, we didn't get buy-in, but I think about a few of them. We've reimplemented a couple. We have not reimplemented, 

Amir Haboosheh: um, that yet, you know, and it starts like everything else. Uh, and I have a lot of mentors that, um, a mentors can show up from different places. Could be someone that actually like work alongside or you, or they report to you, but you learn from them.

Um, if you're not, um. If you're not repeating it, if you're not using the language. Yeah. If you're not integrating it, um, and you just joke around or, or, or, and not give it importance and then it, they won't. Um, but if you actually start using it Yeah. And it's not just part of your language. Um, they're seeing the power of that.

It's a [00:28:00] resource. It's a tool like everything else. It's a great way, it's such a easy way to. Connect with people in the trades, whether it's hvac, farming, electrical, or otherwise. Those are the core that both of us, uh, are in. Um, when you start talking, Hey, this is just part of your tool, they get it. Um, the p and l for example, this is the, um, di diagnosing the health of the company.

Mm-hmm. They get it. Let's look at this, let's move this dial. You know? Then you're like, okay, everything is more and there's a, a healthy balance to it and, and, and a balance sheet. Uh, you want it to look healthy, and this is what a healthy balance sheet looks like. You start tying their, the way they identify problems and they fix it and you do it to your business and leadership.

Um, it if, um, they get it and they start utilizing it in their own day-to-day management skills. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Amir Haboosheh: And this is what, when I say like, we naturally, um, you know, as far as um, um, myself and uh, our people and culture manager, um, and her name is, um, [00:29:00] Sydney, we regularly. Practice these things, but we haven't, and we do it every opportunity we can with the managers.

Like, Hey, this is it. The coaching moment, this is a training moment. Um, let's be thoughtful. We'll probably talking about it more than, uh, implementing by way of we can rush into an implementation or decision. It is important for us to talk about how to, how to approach it, uh, so that it's, um, uh, the efficacy is high.

Yeah. It's received well. Um, so for us, we need to just start formalizing it in a structured way. So instead of impacting one-on-one, as we're scaling, as we're growing, we can impact many, whether it's like five at a time, 10 at a time, and their, and our team is asking for it, they would love to have a weekly leadership training, whether it's at their managing ones or, or the, um, the managers.

John Wilson: It's a huge win. Yeah, and I think what. You know, you asked this yesterday too, and it was kind of funny, but, um, we're starting to introduce like, peer learning opportunities, [00:30:00] right? And, uh, we have a lot of site visits and we love it. And one of the best things we get out of it is our team gets to teach and that helps reinforce everything that we do because they go from, um, like we had a workshop here and it was like 30 or so, like, uh, companies and our call by calls got to walk in and like.

Do a session, uh, a short one. And they, they were like amped up about it. 'cause they were like, yeah, like this was awesome. Like, I got to, like, I felt like I walked away understanding why I did this thing better than when I walked into that room 10 minutes ago. And I was like, yeah, that's sweet. That's the purpose.

That's awesome. Yeah. 

Amir Haboosheh: And then they can also, 'cause then probably they hear you and. Their voice, like talking is like a decision. Mm-hmm. Like, hey, I'm missing the step. I'm gonna remember to do this as they're repeating it. So, 

John Wilson: yeah. Yeah. It continues to reinforce. We also added, uh, the owned and operated pro thing, and one of the big things we wanted out of that [00:31:00] was like, it's a peer group and our leaders are like slowly joining in, but also their leading sessions, which is kind of fun.

So. Our call center managers, uh, Lori's leading sessions, uh, Brandon's leading a session on leadership development and like, here's, I think he's actually running through the program, like as if training them as leaders, which I thought was kinda interesting. Uh, 'cause we basically had to do it anyways and record it for our own library.

Mm-hmm. So, so the double duty, but have you looked into like peer learning for them, like peer teaching and peer peer learning? 

Amir Haboosheh: We haven't, they asked for it. Um, like their peers in service as a service manager. Yeah. Warehouse manager, install manager. Um, this is part of that. Yeah. And know, full transparency, transparent.

Say I did ask, tell them like, hey, if you build a good connection with an install manager, yeah. Excellent. 

John Wilson: Get their number. Save their number. Yeah. Yeah. Tommy, uh, mellow was talking about this, uh, when we had him on the show and it really stuck with me. But [00:32:00] he used to do all the site visits himself. Like, he'd be like, oh man, this company's doing something crazy.

I gotta go out there and like see what they're doing and then bring it back. And what he said, he's like, I don't remember when it changed for him, but he said, um, you know, eventually, like I, I started sending my managers because I felt selfish 'cause I was getting all the, all the information and like they weren't advancing.

And so we have really. It's potentially gone overboard on that. And, um, I actually haven't gone on a site visit in a while and we, like, I have a manager at a site visit like once a month. We had one in, we had two in Vegas a couple weeks ago. We have one in Georgia right now. Nice. Uh, we've done Dallas, we've done, uh, a few, like a lot and we're just continuing to find more and more opportunities.

Chicago, uh, we're finding more and more opportunities to, like, how do we draw out and, and like get, get more information in. What has been challenging is there are just not many companies left [00:33:00] much larger than us that will let us in the door. But there are, I do want to, uh, I'm starting to find a lot of inspiration from companies not in our industry.

Like the, you had seen the Premier Home guys and, and their episode will come out at some point, either before or after this. Um, but that's totally outside of the industry, but like. Everything that they're talking about is, it's all the same stuff. It's people, it's sales, it's marketing, it's culture, it's, you know, um, so we're starting to try to find more opportunities like that, that are adjacent, that we can draw lessons from that our industry hasn't caught up to yet.

Yeah, I'm 

Amir Haboosheh: super interested in that. I think, um, I would love to visit like, um, uh, reg's shop, uh, or any one of the foundries Yeah. That he has. Um. Just manufacturing in, in general interests me. 'cause you have to be very efficient. Yeah. Especially if you're manufacturing in the USA. Yeah. Um, so that, that always [00:34:00] is, uh, uh, interesting for me.

Not, I haven't reached out to, to either him or, or Josh, but, or just like visiting here and, and connecting through you. Um, we built, um, you know, professional relationship where I could reach out, but. Definitely something that, that I'm interested in learning from other industries and how you can apply it to your own.

Um, I do want to touch on one more thing as far as shop visits, exactly why I prefer never to do a single, uh, um, shop visits by myself and at least going, uh, with a team member or two. Yeah. In this case, uh, three. Um, I love being able to talk to them about it. Yeah. As it's going, as we're traveling back.

What did you come back to? 

John Wilson: Notes? What'd you pick up? Yeah, hundred percent. That's, and that's our gap is sometimes we'll send someone alone. I. We had, uh, Ali do a site visit of, uh, radiant in Austin. Awesome. Like awesome company 55 in that location. And like, she took a ton away from it, but she didn't have like an implementation partner.

Yeah. And I think that that would've been huge. [00:35:00] Keeps you accountable too, 

Amir Haboosheh: because if you're going by yourself, like 

John Wilson: you 

Amir Haboosheh: might not be as focused to capture everything. Someone is also has your blind spot. Did you ask this? 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Amir Haboosheh: What did you get? You know, I forgot that. Let me ask that. Yeah. If you ever want to come down to northwest Arkansas Yeah.

You, I recommend, 

John Wilson: yeah. 

Amir Haboosheh: I think Cassandra would benefit from it. Okay. Um, because she's, um, she's your, uh, people manager. Yep. Uh, she will definitely work well with, uh, with Sydney and now Macy that we have joined our, um, uh, people and culture depart. So, and you know, I talk about that depart, not talk about them quite a bit.

Because they're so, they're drivers, um, of change and revenue, um, and people, and there is no business that is not, um, reliant on, on people. Mm-hmm. So it's very top of mind for me to have a really good culture, um, and, and strong like people and culture, uh, team, uh, within us. 

John Wilson: Yeah. [00:36:00] 

Amir Haboosheh: Yeah. And you, the managers see that it's a, they're, it's a resource for them.

It's not just hr. They literally. Ask coaching with them, Hey, I need to go through a termination, or I need to, um, uh, give a raise, or I need to discuss comp or job description. It, it is awkward. It's difficult conversations. Yeah. But at least they're very open. One, they're open to having those conversations, but open to be coached on it.

And now, um, they have that resource that I, I don't need to be involved. 

John Wilson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's great. So you're developing a program. Mm-hmm. What's your timeline? 

Amir Haboosheh: Well, we gave ourself probably not enough of a deadline, but we said this is the year and that we're gonna work on it. So let's just find, it took us a long time.

Um, so, you know, we, we jumped the, we talked about this yesterday and we jumped the gun at Snowball by building a snowball university. Mm-hmm. And, and we built it for home service, yet we had [00:37:00] commercial new construction, we had residential new construction, we had commercial service and residential service was.

At best, 20 to 30%. And so now we're building this whole, um, pouring resources into something that only 20% of the company the companies would've benefited from. 

John Wilson: Yeah. And so 

Amir Haboosheh: we took a step back from that and, you know, decided like, Hey, let's why we rent the wheel. There's next star there is service. And right now we're using, um, SPE, which is, um, I think service business excellence, um, so far really like their approach.

Um, and it's a great tool, uh, both on demand and coaching. Um, so we're also, right now it's a bit of a learning, um, as we're building a mode and just trying to create our version of it. Um, but have these resources kind of like, uh, sitting on the sidelines, uh, with us as we build our, our, our way of doing it.

Leadership training and management training. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Amir Haboosheh: Yeah. So it [00:38:00] is a, it is a year seems like, Hey, is that a really defined mm-hmm. Deadline. Mm-hmm. Um, but for us it's also like, Hey, there's a lot that happens quarter over quarter. 

John Wilson: Well, there's a lot that goes into it. Yeah. I mean, it took us, um, six months of like diligent effort and a year and a half or two years of talking about it.

Okay. But six months of energy. I mean, there's slideshow, there's present, you know, there's like breakout sessions. There's a lot that went into it. Um. And he and Brandon did a great job, but he like slowly sort of grind ground away at it. And we've had leadership trainings for three years, every Wednesday at nine 30.

It's like very consistent. Uh, it's just, it didn't take its current format until about six months ago. Okay. That's when we leveled up. It just looks good. 

Amir Haboosheh: Yeah. He seems very comfortable too when he is, uh, going over it. So yeah, he's in his 

John Wilson: element. This was awesome. So we talked about. Your, [00:39:00] uh, emerging leadership training you gave me?

Not really any things to improve on mine other than timing. I'm sure something will come up. Okay. Text me later. Yeah. Um, you always want to get better. Any, any final, uh, words for somebody thinking about developing their team and, uh, being better versions of themselves? 

Amir Haboosheh: Uh, it's be patient. Uh, it's worth the investment.

It will always, like everything else will take longer, uh, than you think. Mm-hmm. Um, but you'll be surprised where the benefits are come through within and bleed through the organization. Yeah. Um, 'cause unless you want to stay small, uh, which is okay too of people. No, it's not. For a lot of people, that's what they, that's what they would like.

Um, um, there's actually a shop that purposely said, I can, I will only grow. As far as I remember every single person's name, I'm 145 and I still know him. That's, and actually, you know what, his side was about like 35 million revenue. Yeah. So maybe that translates, maybe that's where we cap, yeah. One 50. But that was [00:40:00] his constraint.

Like, as long as I can remember people's names, that's my growth. Um, something odd. Um, uh, but that's his version of it, and that's okay. So, um, yeah, it's, uh, for us it's just, well, I forgot the actual, the original question. 

John Wilson: Just like, what, what's a final word for like, someone who's thinking about going? Just patients.

Amir Haboosheh: Yeah. Really? That's the biggest thing you would need, um, continue. Um, 

John Wilson: helping them through it. Well, it sounds like deliberate too. Yeah. Because you were, you were deliberate. You talked about color codes. You talked about, Hey, I want to, I wanna be empathetic when they walk in the room. So it takes like a level of.

Deliberate 

Amir Haboosheh: and, and define what's a good outcome for it looks like. Yeah. Because then you can start iterating and adding things. Yeah. And knowing that, hey, these are the four traits that are important to me. And for me it's empathy, uh, sense of urgency, financial attendance, and humbleness. Mm-hmm. Um, and if knowing that those are the main four things you want to be able to, uh, make sure your leadership program, um, um, [00:41:00] develops and, and coaches through.

Then you can adjust based on the, hey, are, are they reaching this outcome or not? 

John Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. This was awesome. 

Amir Haboosheh: Same, 

John Wilson: uh, if people wanna get 

Amir Haboosheh: ahold of you, how can they find you? Um. You know, probably the easiest thing is just right now my email. Yeah. Um, it's, uh, Amir at, uh, snowball inc.com. Awesome. Um, or I don't even mind putting my number there.

John Wilson: Oh. But we'll, we'll keep your number off the internet. Uh, are you and active on LinkedIn and Twitter? 

Amir Haboosheh: Yes. Awesome. Uh, more Twitter than, uh, LinkedIn, but honestly more as a, uh, uh, listener, leader and, uh mm-hmm. 

John Wilson: And a silent observer. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on today. This was awesome conversation.

Same here, John. Thank you for having me. If you like what you heard, make sure you subscribe and check out owned and operated.com for more.