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

Summary

Owned and Operated - Episode #202: How to Develop Great Leaders with Values and Skills for Tomorrow’s Success

Release Date: May 27, 2025
Host: John Wilson
Guest: Amir from Snowball Industries

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Introduction

In Episode #202 of Owned and Operated, host John Wilson welcomes Amir from Snowball Industries to discuss the intricacies of developing effective leaders within the plumbing, electrical, and HVAC industries. The conversation delves deep into leadership training programs, the importance of core values, soft skills versus technical skills, and innovative approaches to fostering a culture of excellence.

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1. Evaluating Potential Leaders

John opens the discussion by questioning the criteria for selecting leaders: "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?" (00:00). Amir emphasizes the shift from technical expertise to soft skills in management roles, stating, "They start leaning more on soft skills than you do on, on technical skills." (00:08).

Key Points:

• Selection Criteria: Assessing whether a candidate inherently possesses leadership qualities or can be trained effectively.
• Importance of Soft Skills: Emphasizing empathy, communication, and interpersonal abilities over pure technical knowledge in leadership roles.

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2. Core Values as the Foundation

John highlights the transition of core values from mere documentation to living practices within the company: "the more our core values have gone from these things on a piece of paper to like, oh this is very real." (00:17). Amir outlines the four essential traits they prioritize: empathy, a sense of urgency, financial intelligence, and humbleness (00:26).

Key Points:

• Authentic Implementation: Ensuring that core values are genuinely integrated into daily operations and not just theoretical concepts.
• Essential Leadership Traits:
  • Empathy: Understanding and relating to team members.
  • Sense of Urgency: Driving tasks and projects with promptness.
  • Financial Intelligence: Comfort with numbers and financial statements.
  • Humbleness: Owning mistakes and maintaining humility.

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3. Emerging Leaders Training: Feedback and Insights

Amir shares his positive feedback on John’s emerging leaders program, praising the engagement and enthusiasm of participants: "Loved both of them. Actually impressed how engaged they were." (02:30). He notes the comfort level participants showed during role-playing exercises, which are crucial for developing management-related soft skills.

Key Points:

• Engagement: High levels of participation and eagerness to take on more responsibility.
• Role-Playing: Effective in building confidence and practical soft skills, despite initial discomfort.

Notable Quote:

“Getting involved in anything that is management related, you start leaning more on soft skills than you do on, on technical skills.” — Amir (00:08)

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4. Strengthening Core Values Through Consistent Practices

John discusses the implementation of core values into the structure of every meeting: "the first five minutes of every single meeting is now identical. We're going to say, hey, here's the meeting, here's the core values." (05:09). Amir appreciates the consistency and the use of diverse communication mediums to keep participants engaged (05:42).

Key Points:

• Consistency: Regularly reiterating core values to embed them into the company culture.
• Diverse Communication: Utilizing presentations, discussions, videos, and interactive sessions to maintain engagement.

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5. Developing a Comprehensive Leadership Training Program

Amir outlines his approach to constructing a leadership program centered around four key traits and extending over a year: 10:21:

• Sense of Urgency: Partnering emerging leaders with those who exemplify this trait to foster development.
• Empathy and Humbleness: Encouraging leaders to connect deeply with their teams and own their mistakes.
• Financial Intelligence: Enhancing leaders' ability to understand and manage financial aspects of the business.

Key Points:

• Long-Term Commitment: A year-long program allows for gradual and sustained development.
• Trait-Based Development: Focusing on enhancing specific leadership traits tailored to company values.

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6. Enhancing Communication Through Color Codes

Amir introduces the concept of color codes to improve communication and empathy within teams: "We use color code... it builds communication, you get to know one, how to identify what people's motivations are." (24:40). This system helps managers tailor their interactions based on individual communication styles and motivations.

Key Points:

• Color Code System: A tool for identifying and adapting to different personality types and communication preferences.
• Empathetic Communication: Enhancing one-on-one interactions by understanding and respecting individual differences.

Notable Quote:

“They start leaning more on soft skills than you do on, on technical skills.” — Amir (00:08)

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7. Peer Learning and Site Visits

John emphasizes the value of peer learning and collaborative site visits for reinforcing leadership training: "Our team gets to teach and that helps reinforce everything that we do." (30:39). Amir agrees, highlighting the importance of accountability and shared learning experiences.

Key Points:

• Peer Teaching: Encourages leaders to share knowledge and practices, reinforcing their own understanding.
• Collaborative Site Visits: Providing practical insights and fostering a culture of continuous improvement through shared experiences.

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8. Final Thoughts and Advice

When asked for final advice, Amir stresses the importance of patience and deliberate effort in developing leadership: "It's be patient. It's worth the investment." (39:18). He underscores that building strong leaders is essential for scaling and sustaining business growth.

Key Points:

• Patience and Persistence: Leadership development is a long-term investment that requires consistent effort.
• Deliberate Practices: Intentional strategies and structured programs yield the best results in leadership cultivation.

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Conclusion

Episode #202 of Owned and Operated offers invaluable insights into the nuanced process of developing effective leaders within home service businesses. By prioritizing core values, enhancing soft skills, utilizing tools like color codes, and fostering a culture of peer learning, businesses can cultivate leaders equipped to drive future success.

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Connect with Amir

For more insights or to connect with Amir from Snowball Industries, reach out via email at [e-mail] or follow him on Twitter.

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If you found this summary helpful, subscribe to Owned and Operated and visit www.ownedandoperated.com for more episodes and resources.

Transcript

[John]

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.

[Amir]

They'Ll, they'll do well. Getting involved in anything that is management related, you start leaning more on soft skills than you do on, on technical skills.

[John]

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]

These are the four traits that are important to me and for me it's empathy, a sense of urgency, financial attendance and humbleness.

[John]

Welcome back to Owned and Operated today. I have my good friend Amir from Snowball Industries on the show today. Welcome to the show.

[Amir]

Thank you John. Pleasure to be here.

[John]

Yeah, this is going to be, this is going to be a lot of fun.

[Sydney]

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[John]

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 going to be just a really great conversation. So I'm looking forward to it. So you've, you're working from Anderson Aaron, 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, you know, maybe give me some feedback like where can we improve? Or what did we like, what did we not like about like my leadership trainings and then just talk about emerging leaders in general. But this, the two trainings you attended so far today. One was emerging leaders which like that's our 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 them right now. Yeah. So what was your feedback on our emerging leaders?

[Amir]

First of all, I loved it. Loved both of them. Actually impressed how engaged they were. Yeah. Especially the emerging ones. Seems like they definitely have that excitement where they want more responsibility, they want to learn the soft skills, which is, you know, pretty challenging for a lot of people. Getting into that.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

From, you know, a senior technician or from the field, getting involved in anything that is management related, you start leaning more on soft skills than you do on. On technical skills.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

And I'm sure that's uncomfortable for them, but they all leaned into it. They all got very comfortable with the role playing. That's never easy. Even if you have that group actually.

[John]

Was, 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 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 do well with it? So we qualified the people that went in there really well.

[Amir]

So what was the qualification process?

[John]

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. Where were they nominated by multiple leaders that, hey, this person has potential to move up. They understand they're asking for more. Have they shown leadership inside their own team? Do people rely on them? Do they call on them? Are they reliable themselves? But are they. Are they living the values? Like, 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 a very real part of our business and you can feel those values. I'm going to ask if you did, but I've gotten that comment before of 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, we see the rocks that the SLT Leaders did or didn't do like, so we're transparent, we're clearly a team, we're driving well. So people that like fit that mold tend to be very comfortable doing roleplay.

[Amir]

You see it. And Brandon, you know your, your GM does a great job of keep repeating it in every single training, every single week. And that reinforces the core values. The core values and, and also the shout outs.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

As far as, hey, this person, 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 going to probably R and D quite a bit of what we learned today.

[John]

And that was done in the emerging leaders too.

[Amir]

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

[John]

Yeah, 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. We're going to say, hey, here's the meeting, here's the core values. We're going to repeat them and then we're going to do shout outs. And for another meeting there's one more slide. But yes, they all start the same to sort of continue to drive that culture forward that we're aiming for.

[Amir]

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 going to present it to give the shout out.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

So it just reinforces the importance of it.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

And then just in general, him mixing the medium of communication. So whether it's presentation, discussion, engagement, showing a video, showing pictures, it keeps you engaged throughout that 45 minutes, one hour that you go through. So you're not just like start dreamlining into something else. And 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 if they identified it. Let's actually have a weekly leadership training, something we picked up and that it's. You guys do a better version of this. But having a library and seeing who's actually checking out the library, usually that gives you an identification of someone that wants to get developed, someone that wants to be is coachable. And then they pick up that book and you can start having discussions about it with them, whether it's in a weekly or monthly. Like, hey, I'm reading the same book. 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 book report too to like indicate 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 definitely implement it.

[John]

What do you think we could improve on? Like when you looked at ours, what were you like? I like this.

[Amir]

But here's what I would change because it's new to me. Everything was more. I want to try all of it so far. Everything that I can think of. It was engaging. You know what, the role playing one, when one gets into role playing they might take over the whole time slot associated with it versus flipping humorous maybe. Yeah. Or you know, Brandon or whoever is like leading the training will say okay, now switch.

[John]

Yeah. How are you guys thinking about leadership training right now? What's been your norm either presently or over your career?

[Amir]

So we just started developing it. We've been doing a lot of that was me and our people and culture managers main rock for not just the quarter but for the. For the year.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

So we went to Chapman Leadership Program out of Missouri that Hoffman Brothers hosted. It was great going through it.

[John]

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

[Amir]

They are in June. Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

So our GM is going to go to the July one and it's going to pair up and take one of our other managers with them. It's good to go in pairs because you reinforce and you talk about it going there. Talk about it during those two, two and a half day training and then same thing, talk about it when you come back. So it just keeps reinforcing it when you send it in pairs versus by yourself. You're all vulnerable during those two days because you open up on storytelling and a lot of your gaps. But they are cognizant of it and they make sure that you're not paired with the person you came in so that you can speak openly. But that's exactly what our goal is for this year is just build a leadership training program. And we're just R and D ing as we go through it right now. And we do have a lot of managers that right now this is their first time managing or managing at this size.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

Because there isn't a shop as big as ours in the one that we have in Northwest Arkansas. It's not as big as ours, especially on just dedicated H Vac. There are other ones that are multi trade but this is definitely one of the biggest. One of the bigger ones or at least the second biggest.

[John]

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 formation?

[Amir]

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. You know, there are certain traits that look into good leadership when we recruit. So then we should apply the same qualifications or expectations when we promote or develop with them. And it's, you know, one, obviously we talked about it having a sense of urgency because they're going to be the drivers of their department.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

Second is being empathetic and being able to like really connect with the teams that they're leading. Because if you're driving hard, are you doing it through authority? Are you doing it through influence? Authority is just going to be very short lived. Influence is being able to like really give them that sense of ownership. Whoever it is, whether it's the team leads or technicians of like, you know why this is important. And the other one is just, you know, humbleness. And that's important because we're going to make mistakes and can you own the mistake? Are you the type that would not apologize? And if you do apologize, would you do it in front of a group? When you have to own up to something, there's ways that we can flush that out. So it's just having a sense of urgency, being humble, being empathetic and then the one that is a little bit more, less soft skill is just being comfortable with numbers and getting into the financial intelligence side, finance intelligence side is like it actually is the least concerning because there's plenty of management minded books that helps with that. And then you start reviewing PNLs and you start, you know, with the top line and the cogs and what they impact the most. And it clicks pretty quickly. Being humble, being empathetic, having a sense of urgency and why all these matters. And that's probably the one thing the outcomes I would like to achieve.

[John]

Yeah. And do you think it's like a year, like six months?

[Amir]

I would say a year. Yeah.

[John]

And then just repeat it.

[Amir]

Yeah. From what I've seen with the ones that I worked with, I would say yeah, if they have at least one or two of those traits, makes a lot easier. Yeah. So if like, if they're already leading with empathy, empathy, they have very humble, then I can just focus on financial intelligence and developing a sense of urgency. Developing a sense of urgency as probably the most challenging one. What I've Done there is partner them, including myself, people that have a higher sense of urgency than me. This way, they're the drivers and I'm their support. And I just have to match their sense of urgency as opposed to. Because it takes energy to have a high sense of urgency. So if they have. If I know my. So the whole other part of that is knowing 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, and 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're responsible for it, but you are ultimately accountable for it.

[John]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sydney]

We.

[John]

One of the things. Brandon did a great job. Brandon really took the lead on our leadership training.

[Amir]

You could see it. Yeah.

[John]

And 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 one.

[Amir]

I think four going into five.

[John]

Okay. 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 basically helping people through hard conversations. And I like when he went to format that. So this is like my input as far as thinking about developing your own, or if the listeners think about developing their own, that makes it a lot less complicated because really what you're looking for is 12 topics, and you're going to spend a month on each, which is much less intimidating than 52. And, you know, financial literacy. We've gotten. I believe. 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. 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 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 the team in January. He's just done like a Bang up job of getting us into shape. And so we started building a team around him. And he's like, about three weeks into having a team. It was just time for the first 90 days. And I don't know what randomly occurred to me, but 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 interview process, but I don't think it was ever big. And I know that I never armed him with the tools to know how to lead a team in the Philippines. That never came up. And I asked him, I was like, hey, Fred, I'm just verifying this. I'm nearly positive the answer is I didn't. But we didn't give you any information on how to lead this team.

[Amir]

Right?

[John]

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 want to 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 either series, a weekly series, something. So I spend an hour on it. We turn it into 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. Because we've just never, literally never done it, which is kind of ridiculous because 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.

[Amir]

It's a different skill set. Remote management. Yeah, we have. Is. Some of. You know, we have. Some of our managers are really good at it.

[John]

Yeah. It's much more intentional.

[Amir]

100%. Yeah. And it resonates with them, actually, of things being more direct and clear and 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 day to day here you might feel like you're micromanaging because you're asking like, okay, what did you do today? No, they want to tell you what they did today and give you a report, whatever that is. At least they can. So they completed the day recording yourself. Doing a task is a lot easier. And then they do it Record themselves, they send it back to you and then you can make adjustments and iterate on it. So like we use loom, but I think if you're on office 365 yo stream or something. Yeah, but a lot of these things like these are the tools. So like giving them the tools of how to manage remote and you're right, that's just something that some people don't have experience in and it's great to just have a few data points also.

[John]

Just tactical.

[Amir]

Yeah.

[John]

You know, because I feel like that's something that we missed on as we developed our program. Our program is to help people turn potential leaders or current leaders into better versions of what they already are.

[Amir]

Yeah.

[John]

And what we missed was tactically, here's exactly what you do to manage a remote team. Or there was a couple other. There was a few other. Like as I was just like I had a kind of an open day yesterday so I just like putzed and like looked at like friction points and I was like we could do something about that. 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 ten minute thing. So you just know how we do this.

[Amir]

Yeah. And you have to use a lot more just 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 subtasks that they use. They're accustomed to that. Typically here you can capture just in a conversation, mosling around from like one, one cubicle to another. Like just checking in without it looking like you're hovering over them. But when it's remote, it's like if you didn't actually check boxes. Did you do it?

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

And update. Because otherwise they don't want to spend hours in meetings either. They just want to be able to like just get through it. The culture is different too. They're very much like task driven to get things done.

[John]

Yeah. So how else are you thinking about developing your current leaders?

[Amir]

So again, this is new to us is having something we've taken a page from traction. And I know you guys use traction as well. It starts with that as far as like at least that's the bare minimum that any shop should do is quarterly meetings and going over issues lists, going over the wins, accomplishments, and building rocks around the 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. That accountability, once you have it on them, they have it on their teammates. Because then now you're setting the standard and the expectation and if you don't do it then, then, then they won't. And I say this is all in work in progress and developments because, yeah, we're slowly crystallizing. Like, what are the meeting cadences? What are the agendas? Quarterly ones, the monthly ones, the weekly ones. And you have a lot of these things already, like in place or working through it in stages.

[John]

Yeah, we're for. We're four years in to eos, and that's given us a lot of structure. And I do think, you know, varying. We've done varying degrees. Like, we. I think we overcorrected at first where at one point we were running like 13L 10s 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 L10s. But it's really just like with leadership. And I think this is a gap where 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. 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 took the light version. Yeah, it seems unnecessary. Like we did it and it was unnecessary. Like 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]

So outside of that, outside of like accountability through implementing all these cadences and having it all. Empathy is a big thing, not only for me, but also my people and culture manager and also my GM out of Anderson. And so we're. It doesn't matter what personality test you use, but we use color code. There's different ones and I'll give you different insights. She trained on that. She does workshops on that for the managers, for the technicians. What it does is it builds communication. You get to know one, how to identify what people's motivations are and their more ideal or default communication style. And. And then you adjust to that as a, as a manager or you get to talk. You put it as part of the language. And so let's say My primary color as an example is, is white. And I'm motivated by peace. Then my default is to make sure that everybody's, you know, they're talking and they're not yelling at each other. And I can identify that well. And when I'm stressed and my dreamline or not be focused. And so being able to identify that, integrating that into your one on ones where before somebody comes in, you read about their color codes, you read about their history within the company. All your promotions have been stagnant for the past year or two. Have they got promotions and a little bit of a buy about them. What you just did is you induced empathy because for the first, like before they walk in either one on one with you and 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 depending on longevity. And then now you for like 15 minutes were in their shoes. They're coming, talking. You're much more open to listening versus talking over them or trying to get your purpose out of the one on one. So. And that honestly we picked up from any hour out of Utah. Yeah, they very purposeful in empathy and color code and integrating it in their one on one sessions.

[John]

That is interesting. Yeah, I like the color code. We're not using any right now. We did use for a while. We used a color culture.

[Amir]

Culture index.

[John]

Culture index. We did culture index for all. I don't think we were. I think we were definitely not mature enough to like implement it properly. And it became like we got in our own way on it.

[Amir]

We literally print our main profile, put it on every single person's desk or cubicles right away. It reinforces it. To your point, if you just do it once and you put it in the shelf and you just look at it again, then why did you even spend time doing it? Using it as a communication tool. Doesn't matter which one. Yeah, using as a communication tool. And even in the workshop when people 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 motivated by relationships and intimacy. And you start reading your. Your weaknesses, your. Your strengths.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

And guidance on how to work on them and how do you leverage them and like utilize them to communicate better with somebody else and just changes. People are a lot more. Less defensive. It's more about, hey, your red is coming out. You're being really direct or I need to be direct because I know that that's the way you prefer to communicate.

[John]

Owned and Operate is proudly sponsored by supplyhouse.com running a home service business is tough. I'm in the grind every single day in my plumbing and heating business. What I look for is ways to make my life a little bit easier. And supplyhouse.com helps with that. Supplyhouse.com has over a quarter million parts from all the brands that you and your team are going to love. And all those parts are in stock and ready to roll. So you can schedule your next job with confidence. Supplyhouse.com can also help you boost your bottom line with their free to join TradeMaster program. Over 100,000 professionals trust the TradeMaster program every single day for free shipping, free returns and discounts on the stuff that they buy. Use promo code SH5 for 5% off your first order. That's supplyhouse.com promo code SH5. And that code is valid through September 30, 2025. There's a few things that we had tried to roll out before we did a botched implementation. 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. I think about a few of them. We've re implemented a couple of them. We have not reimplemented that yet.

[Amir]

You know, and it starts like everything else. And I have a lot of mentors that. Mentors can show up from different places. Could be someone that actually like alongside or you that or they report to you, but you learn from them. And if you're not repeating it, if you're not using the language, if you're not integrating it and you just joke around or not give it importance, then they won't. But if you actually start using it and it's not just part of your language, they're seeing the power of that. It's a resource, it's a tool like everything else. That's a great way. It's such an easy way to connect with people in the trades, whether it's H vac funding, electrical or otherwise. Those are the core that both of us are in. When you start talking, hey, this is just part of your tool. They get it. The P L for example. This is the diagnosing the health of the company. 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 healthy balance to it and the balance sheet and you want it to look healthy and this is what a healthy balance sheet looks like. So you start tying their, the way they identify problems and they fix it and you do it to your business and leadership if they get it and they start utilizing it in their own day to day management skills.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

And this is what, when I say like we naturally, you know, as far as myself and our people and culture manager and her name is 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 a coaching moment, this is a training moment. Let's be thoughtful. We probably talk about it more than implementing by way of we can rush into an implementation or decision. It's important for us to talk about how to, how to approach it so that it's. The efficacy is high.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

It's received well. 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, ten at a time and there. And our team is asking for it. They would love to have a weekly leadership training whether it's at the matching ones or the managers.

[John]

It's a huge win. And I think what, you know, you asked this yesterday too and it was kind of funny. But we're starting to introduce like peer learning opportunities and 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 like we had a workshop here and it was like 30 or so like companies and our call by calls got to walk in and like do a session, a short one. And they, they were like amped up about it because they're 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.

[Amir]

That's awesome.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

And then they can also because then probably they hear you and in their voice like talking like, like, hey, I'm missing the step. I'm going to remember to do this as they're repeating it.

[John]

So yeah, yeah, it continues to reinforce. We also added the owned and operated pro thing and one of the big things we wanted out of that was like, it's A peer group. And our leaders are, like, slowly joining in, but also they're leading sessions, which is kind of fun. So our call center managers, Lori's leading sessions. 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 kind of interesting because we basically had to do it anyways and record it for our own library. So the double duty. But have you looked into, like, peer learning for them? Like peer teaching and peer learning?

[Amir]

We haven't. They asked for it like their peers in service. As a service manager, warehouse manager, install manager. This is part of that. Full transparency, transparent. See, I did ask, tell them, like, hey, if you build a good connection with an install manager.

[John]

Yeah, excellent.

[Amir]

Get their number.

[John]

Save their number.

[Amir]

Yeah.

[John]

Tommy Mello was talking about this when we had him on the show, and it really stuck with me. But he used to do all the site visits himself. And, like, he'd be like, oh, man, this company's doing something crazy. I got to go out there and, like, see what they're doing, then bring it back. And what he said, he's like, I don't remember when it changed for him, but he said, eventually I started sending my managers because I felt selfish because I was getting all the information and they weren't advancing. And so we have really potentially gone overboard on that. And I actually haven't gone on site visit in a while, and I have a manager on a site visit once a month. We had one, and we had two in Vegas a couple weeks ago. We have one in Georgia right now. We've done Dallas. We've done a few, like, a lot. And we're just continuing to find more and more opportunities. Chicago, we're finding more and more opportunities to, like, how do we draw out and, like, get. Get more information in. What has been challenging is there are just not many companies left much larger than us that will let us in the door. But there are. I do want to. 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. 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 at Sale, it's marketing, it's culture.

[Amir]

It's.

[John]

You know, 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.

[Amir]

I'm super interested in that. I think I would love to visit Reg's shop or in one of the foundries that he has. Just manufacturing in general interests me because you have to be very efficient. Yeah. Especially if you're manufacturing in the usa.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

So that. That always is interesting for me. And I haven't reached out to either him or Josh. But just like visiting here and connecting through you. We built professional relationship where I could reach out. But definitely something that I'm interested in learning from other industries and how you can apply it to your own. I do want to touch on one more thing as far as shop visits. Exactly why I prefer never to do a single job visits by myself. And at least going with a team member or 2. In this case 3. I love being able to talk to them about it as it's going. As we're traveling back, come back with notes.

[John]

What'd you pick up?

[Amir]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's our gap is sometimes we'll send someone alone. Like we had Ali do a site visit of 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.

[Amir]

Yeah.

[John]

And I think that that would have been huge.

[Amir]

Keeps you accountable too. Because if you're going by yourself like you might not. Yes. Focus to capture everything. Someone is also has your blind spot that you asked is.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

What did you get? You know, I forgot that. Let me ask that.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

If you. Everyone to come down to Northwest Arkansas.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

They recommend.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

I think Cassandra would benefit from it.

[John]

Okay.

[Amir]

Because she's. She's your people manager.

[John]

Yep.

[Amir]

She will definitely work well with. With Sydney and now Macy that we have joined our people and culture department. So. And you know I talk about that department not department talk about them quite a bit because they're so. They're drivers of change and revenue and people. And there is no business that is not reliant on people. So it's very top of mind for me to have a really good culture and strong like people and culture team within it.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amir]

And the managers see that it's a. 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 give a raise or I need to discuss comp or job description. It is awkward. It's difficult conversations. But at least they're very open one. They're open to having those conversations. But open to be coached on it. And now they have that resource that I don't need to be involved.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. So you're developing a program. What's your timeline?

[Amir]

Well, we gave ourselves probably not enough of a deadline, but we said this is the year and that we're going to work on it. So let's just find.

[John]

It took us a long time.

[Amir]

So, you know, we talked about this yesterday and we jumped the gun at Snowball by building a snowball university. And we built it or home service yet. We had commercial new construction, we had residential new construction. We had commercial service, and residential service was at best 20 to 30%. Now we're building this whole pouring resources into something that only 20% of the company. Companies would have benefited from.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

So we took a step back from that and decided like, hey, let's. Why rent the wheel? There's nextar, there is service mvp. And right now we're using and sba, which is service business excellence. So far, we like their approach and it's a great tool, both on demand and coaching. And so we're also. Right now it's a bit of a learning as we're building a mode and just trying to create our version of it, but have these resources kind of like sitting on the sidelines with us as we build our. Our way of doing leadership training and management training.

[John]

Yeah, yeah.

[Amir]

So it is a. It is a year. Seems like, hey, is that a really defined deadline? But for us, it's also like, hey, there's a lot that happens quarter over quarter.

[John]

Well, there's a lot that goes into it.

[Amir]

Yeah.

[John]

I mean, it took us six months of like, diligent effort and a year and a half or two years of talking about it, but six months of energy. I mean, there's slideshows, there's present, you know, there's like breakout sessions. There's a lot that went into it. 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 9:30. It's like, very consistent. It's just. It didn't take its current format until about six months ago.

[Amir]

Okay.

[John]

And that's when we leveled up.

[Amir]

And this looks good. Yeah. He seems very comfortable too, when he's going over it.

[John]

So, yeah, he's in his element. This was awesome. So we talked about your emerging leadership training. You gave me not really any things to improve on mine other than timing.

[Amir]

I'm sure something will Come up.

[John]

Okay, text me later. You always want to get better. Any. Any final words for somebody thinking about developing their team and being better versions of themselves?

[Amir]

It's be patient. It's worth the investment. It will always like everything else will take longer than you think, but you will be surprised where the benefits are. Come through with it and lead through the organization.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

Because unless you want to stay small, which is okay too for a lot of people, that's what they would like. There's actually a shop that purposely said I can, I will only grow as far as I remember every single person's name.

[John]

I'm 145 and I still know him.

[Amir]

And actually, you know what? His side was about like 35 million revenue. So maybe that translates. But that was his constraint. Like as long as I can remember people's names, that's my growth. Something odd. But that's his version of it and that's okay. So yeah, it's for us, it's just. Well, I forgot the actual. The original question.

[John]

Oh, just like, what's a final word for like someone who's thinking about going.

[Amir]

Just patience. Yeah.

[John]

Yeah.

[Amir]

Really? That's the biggest thing you would need. Continue helping them through it.

[John]

Well, sounds like deliberate too.

[Amir]

Yeah.

[John]

Because you were. You were deliberate. You talked about color codes, you talked about, hey, I want to. I want to be empathetic when they walk in the room so that it takes like a level of deliberate and.

[Amir]

Define what's a good outcome for it looks like. Because then you can start iterating and adding things. Knowing that, hey, these are the four traits that are important to me. And for me it's empathy, a sense of urgency, financial attendance and humbleness. And knowing that those are the main four things you want to be able to make sure your leadership program develops and coaches through and then you can adjust based on the, hey, are they reaching this outcome or not?

[John]

Yeah. Yeah, this was awesome.

[Amir]

Same.

[John]

If people want to get a hold of you, how can they find you?

[Amir]

You know, probably the easiest thing is just right now my email, it's amirnowballinc.com awesome. Or I don't even mind putting my number there.

[John]

Oh, but we'll keep your number off the Internet and active on LinkedIn and Twitter. Yeah. Yes. Awesome.

[Amir]

More Twitter than LinkedIn, but honestly more as a listener, leader and a sidelong observer. Exactly.

[John]

Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on today. This was awesome conversation.

[Amir]

Same here, John. Thank you for having me.

[John]

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