Living the Dream: Roy Arms

We all know that it takes 10 years to be an overnight success … and we are five years into the journey. I can assure you the journey is much better when you are surrounded by good people.

Like all businesses, we have faced numerous challenges along the way. We found that the easiest way to overcome those challenges was to focus on building a great team of likeminded people — people that will join the fight with you and always look for a solution. That way, during the inevitable cloudy days, we will always be looking for the sunshine.

I’ve worked in a few careers and spent time in Iraq during my enlistment in the Marines. So when we started Boggy Boon I honestly thought it would be hard work, but easy. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Nothing in this industry is easy, and this is a journey you don’t want to take alone. My brother and I built our entire 24,000-square-foot facility. As we got toward the end of the buildout, we hired a couple of people to help out. As we got to final licensing, we knew there was more work ahead and that even the two of us working 80 to 100 hours per week wouldn’t be enough.

We use a boots-on-the-ground, attack-the-problem style of management. So instead of outsourcing hiring, I’ve personally called every single applicant that met our hiring criteria — literally thousands of phone calls. I’ve interviewed more than 1,000 prospective employees in person. I did that because people are important, and I know that if I want to find people to work with me for five years, it’s worth the few hours or days that it takes to find them.

We developed a solid, multi-step process to evaluate potential employees against our criteria and values. During interviews, we focus on finding people who fit into our culture. We want to work with people who are dreamers, people that go after lofty goals and will do the work necessary to achieve them. Even though we work in different sections, we are all on the same team. We take care of each other by first taking care of ourselves and our work. We hold that standard in our hiring process. We convey that it will be hard work, everything matters and each person is responsible for their individual role in chasing greatness together.

In order to be an effective leader, you need time. You need time to evaluate, brainstorm, test, market and optimize your workflows and ideas. You can’t focus on any of that if you don’t have the right people beside you. The team makes all the problems smaller and they make the final product better. They make it all possible. People are critical.

We take the time to find the good ones, and it’s worth it.