Right out of the gate, Pete Shau from The RTO Show Podcast sets the tone: this episode is practical, personal, and aimed at what actually works when you’re responsible for more than one location.
Sean Knupp, Regional Manager for APRO member Arona Corporation, dba Arona Home Essentials, joins from southeast Missouri with snow piling up outside his window and leadership lessons sharpened by real-life pressure. The conversation quickly lands on what Knupp sees as the core engine of performance: team, trust, and a steady mindset when the numbers get weird.
Shau frames a familiar industry squeeze: revenue can creep up while customer counts drop. It looks like growth on paper, but the math can hide trouble underneath. Knupp’s answer is not “push harder,” it’s “zoom out.” He talks about keeping the “camera panned back,” coaching GMs to look at the full year instead of spiraling over a bad week. His message to the team is simple: “Today the bear got us. Tomorrow we turn that bear into a rug.”
Knupp’s leadership philosophy shows up in the way he describes his role: he stands beside his people, not in front of them. He gives freedom with guardrails, and he tries not to “tie up the process” with unnecessary conflict. That approach comes straight from his background spending 13 years in a postal union, eight as president, where he learned to sort problems into two buckets: coaching vs. discipline. If accountability becomes a slap on the wrist, you lose buy-in. If it becomes a plan the employee helps build, you create ownership.
That “ownership mindset” is a recurring theme, especially in how he views Arona’s expectations for GMs: transparency down to the penny, and a clear priority stack. Employees first. Customers second. Store third. If you lead those first two well, the store tends to follow.
The episode closes with rapid-fire clarity: don’t compromise on ethics, don’t become so controlling that you choke the team, and remember the basics. At the end of the day, Knupp says it plainly: “We rent and we collect.” Multi-unit leadership just determines whether you do it with chaos… or with a crew that believes in the mission.
Listen to the full episode of The RTO Show Podcast, proudly sponsored by APRO, on Spotify or watch it on YouTube.
