John Wilson and Jack Carr‘s twice-weekly operator-to-operator show, recorded by two sitting chief executives while they scale home-service companies of their own, is recognized among the trades’ most influential business programs, alongside shows produced by national software platforms, coaching firms and private-equity-backed groups
TAMPA, Fla. – August 28, 2026, HG HomeClub, a national media platform dedicated to curating the most valuable stories, rankings and resources for the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries, today announced that Owned and Operated, the home-service business growth podcast hosted by John Wilson and Jack Carr, has been named the No. 2 most influential podcast serving home improvement, home services and outdoor living professionals. The recognition places Owned and Operated near the top of a peer set that includes shows produced by software companies, consultancies and coaching organizations, and marks it as the highest-ranked program on the list hosted by two active chief executives running multi-trade home-service businesses at the same time they publish.
A curated media platform built on “informed transparency” chooses the podcasts that actually move the trades forward
HG HomeClub was created to address a gap its founders identified in home improvement media: too much noise, not enough signal. According to the organization’s own description of its mission, HG HomeClub was “created from identifying a need in the home improvement media space to champion media back to its original purpose of ‘informed transparency.'” The platform pursues that mission by curating the top stories, headlines and “can’t miss” information across the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries, spanning articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, events and product recommendations from working professionals, in one easily consumable destination for homeowners and contractors alike.
The criteria behind the list: practical value over download counts, and why that favored a show recorded between operating decisions
That mission extends to original editorial rankings, including HG HomeClub’s list of the 25 most influential podcasts serving contractors and home-service business owners. Rather than ranking shows purely by download counts, figures that are inconsistently reported and rarely independently verified across the podcast industry, HG HomeClub’s editorial team evaluated each show on practical value to contractors, industry influence and recognition, the credibility of hosts and guests, depth and originality, consistency and longevity, and reach across audio, video, social media and industry events. Applied to Owned and Operated, those criteria reward an unusual combination: a publishing cadence most independent shows cannot sustain, paired with hosts whose material comes from decisions they are making inside their own companies that week. The No. 2 placement reflects that consistency, the size of the operating platform behind the microphone and the show’s documented influence on how home-service owners think about acquisitions, hiring and lead flow.
Why a show hosted by two working CEOs placed above programs backed by national brands
Most business podcasts serving the trades are produced by an organization that sells something else. A software company convenes its customers, a coaching practice broadcasts its methodology, a consultancy demonstrates its expertise. Owned and Operated is built the other way around: it is a byproduct of two people running companies. John Wilson is chief executive of The Wilson Companies, the third-generation Ohio home-services group he took over and has since expanded across plumbing, heating, cooling, electrical, restoration and septic work. Jack Carr is chief executive of Rapid Response Heating & Cooling, the Nashville-area residential HVAC company he acquired and has grown through follow-on deals. Neither host is describing the industry from outside it.
That structure changes what the show can say. The origin was explicitly remedial rather than commercial. “I wanted to create a resource that would have shortened my learning curve when I first started in the business,” Wilson wrote in a public post marking the show’s recognition by ACHR NEWS. “We talk about the industry, our own business and lessons learned along the way.” Episodes are frequently built around a number the hosts are looking at themselves, a stalled close rate, a call center that is losing bookings, a market that is not carrying its overhead, rather than around a framework being sold. HG HomeClub’s editorial team weighed that candor, and the fact that both hosts carry payroll for the advice they give, above the production budgets available to shows with corporate backing.
Twice a week for five years: the format, the archive and the platforms the show lives on
Owned and Operated launched in 2021 and has published without interruption since. Its official Apple Podcasts page lists the show as active from 2021 through 2026, updated semiweekly, with new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday and an archive of 388 episodes carrying a 4.7 rating from 95 ratings. The show’s own site describes the current output as three weekly podcasts alongside daily content, and its published description sets a plain remit: Owned and Operated is “the podcast for home service entrepreneurs who want to build larger, more profitable businesses.”
The format is conversational and unusually specific. A typical installment runs roughly 40 minutes and takes a single operating problem apart – a customer database that is not being mined, whether to go multi-location, how to structure a first acquisition, what a back-office cost reduction actually looks like in practice. Recurring subject areas span acquisitions and deal structure, marketing and lead generation across search and paid channels, recruiting and technician development, call-center and dispatch operations, key performance indicators, pricing and profitability, sales process, and the effect of artificial intelligence on both marketing and field operations. Video versions are published on the show’s YouTube channel, which now carries more than 1,600 videos and describes the program in its own channel header as a “Home Service Business Growth Podcast | Apple Top 200 Business & Entrepreneurship.” Audio is distributed on Spotify and the major podcast platforms, and written recaps of individual episodes are published on the show’s site.
An audience the hosts have described in public, and a business model that pays for itself
Owned and Operated has not commissioned an independent audience audit, and HG HomeClub did not rank shows by download volume in any category. What exists are figures the hosts have stated publicly. Wilson’s own professional profile describes the platform as reaching more than 40,000 newsletter subscribers with more than 20,000 monthly podcast listens, framing the purpose in the same terms the show uses on air: helping thousands of owners demystify growing a home-service business. In the post marking the ACHR NEWS recognition, he described a platform that had expanded well past a single feed, a weekly newsletter, a private owners’ group, a video channel, and put the commercial result plainly: “Aside from helping smaller contractors grow we have driven MILLIONS of dollars of revenue for our sponsors and made a bunch of friends along the way.”
The economics matter to how the show sounds. Because sponsorship revenue funds the production rather than a parent company’s marketing budget, the hosts have no obligation to protect a single vendor’s positioning, and episodes routinely name the software, staffing, and marketing tools the hosts use and the ones they have abandoned. The audience is correspondingly self-selecting: owners at or approaching the revenue thresholds the hosts have already crossed, plus the vendors, lenders and searchers who sell to them. Wilson’s assessment of what the project became is characteristically flat: “What started as a small project has become pretty real.”
From a technician’s van to a $40 million platform: the career that gives the show its authority
John Wilson’s credibility is the product of a specific and well-documented arc. The family business dates to 1958, and he entered it young. “I came in right after high school during the recession, and for the first few years, saw a lot of people go out of business,” he told Home Pros News. “I went to college a few times, but it didn’t stick; I kept pushing in the business.” The transition was gradual and structured rather than inherited outright. “When I was 23, I started talking to my dad about buying it,” he said. “So we got it valued, and I bought 49%, ran it for a few years, and then bought another chunk. We ended up buying more companies from there, and the rest was history.” That sequence produced the conviction the podcast is built on: “That gave me the perspective that you can acquire to grow.”
The scale that followed is what makes the show’s advice load-bearing. Acquiring Minds, which profiled the arc in detail, described Wilson as having taken over the third-generation plumbing and heating business in Akron, Ohio in 2016 at 25, when it produced about $1 million in revenue with eight employees, and as having grown it 26 times over the following seven years while setting a stated target of $100 million. The Wilson Companies’ own site now describes a group grown from $3 million to more than $40 million in revenue, with more than 200 employees, more than $10 million in EBITDA and operations across multiple locations and states. The announcement of a new national partnership platform in August 2026 described the business as supporting nearly 260 employees across five distinct markets and as one of the largest independently owned home-service businesses in the Midwest.
What he says about that growth on the show tends to reduce rather than embellish. “The only way you grow a business is with more leads, and the only way you service those leads is with more people, my big focuses are lead flow and recruitment,” he told Home Pros News. “But that’s it, you have to get more opportunities and then put people in front of those opportunities. The bigger the business has become, the more simple we see it.” On the question that consumes most owners at his stage, where leadership comes from, he has taken a public position that runs against industry habit. “One thing I have a strong stance on is promoting technicians,” he said. “We’ve found that our success rate for promotions from within is like 90%. Our success rate with outside hires (for front-line leadership roles) is like 20-30%.” His summary of the motive behind all of it, delivered on Acquiring Minds, is the line the show keeps returning to: “You can build something big from something small.”
The co-host who bought his way in, and what he brought to the microphone
Jack Carr joined as co-host after Wilson had been publishing solo, and the addition changed the show’s center of gravity. Where Wilson came up inside a business his family had run since 1958, Carr came in from outside it: he left a corporate career to acquire Rapid Response Heating & Cooling in the Nashville market in June 2022 using SBA financing, then grew it through tuck-in acquisitions and additional service lines. He has since completed four acquisitions across two verticals in three years and two seven-figure exits, according to JackQuisitions, the acquisitions-focused show and newsletter he also runs, and he has guided hundreds of first-time buyers through their own deals.
That perspective gave Owned and Operated a second, distinct kind of authority: the search-and-acquire path, told by someone close enough to it to remember the mistakes. Asked on Acquiring Minds what he would tell a first-time buyer, Carr’s answers were blunt about valuation shortcuts. “The first one is, is buy right buy correctly,” he said, warning that a rule-of-thumb multiple applied to a small earnings figure “isn’t a real thing unless the business is a real business.” He was equally direct about the transition period that follows a close, when a handful of technicians can hold the balance of power: “Listen to your employees,” he said, “but don’t be held hostage by your employees. Understand your business from all aspects and make sure that you’re using leadership and solid, solid facts to go off of, to grow your business.” His view of ownership is that the accountability is not shareable: “I’m just saying at the end of the day, you’re the one on the hook.” And his argument for buying rather than starting is the one the show has made repeatedly to searchers: “No business is going to be perfect. Just find one that works and then you’ll be open to a slew of opportunities.” In 2026 the two hosts merged their commercial interests as well, using an episode to explain a partnership aimed at building a multi-market home-service platform together.
Recognition beyond this ranking: a trade-press ranking, an Apple business chart and a national alliance
Owned and Operated has been recognized outside HG HomeClub’s list. ACHR NEWS, the long-running air conditioning, heating and refrigeration trade publication, named it the No. 2 HVAC podcast, a placement Wilson acknowledged publicly at the time. The show’s YouTube channel describes the program as an Apple Top 200 title in business and entrepreneurship, a category that includes general-interest business shows rather than trade titles alone. Its Apple Podcasts listing carries a 4.7 rating, a figure that has held as the archive has grown past 380 episodes.
The more consequential recognition may be commercial. In August 2026, The Wilson Companies was named the founding partner company of Titan Trades Alliance, a partnership platform formed with the founders of Guild Garage Group and Galaxy Service Partners and positioned explicitly as an alternative to conventional private-equity ownership for founder-led home-service companies. “We have a shared vision and know that together we can build something different and big,” Wilson said in the announcement. “I could not be more excited to help build what I believe has the potential to become one of the most dominant forces in the industry for years to come.” For listeners, the significance is that the host of the No. 2 show on this list is now helping construct one of the ownership structures the show spends its time analyzing.
A guest list drawn from operators rather than vendors, and what that pattern signals
The show’s guest roster reflects its editorial center. Tommy Mello, founder and chief executive of A1 Garage Door Service and host of the No. 1 show on this ranking, has appeared to discuss building a national residential service operation. Kelly Roberts, chief executive of Moss Heating, Cooling & Plumbing in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, has walked through the operating decisions behind scaling a mid-market HVAC business. Micah Findley, co-founder of HomeField Onsite Environmental, has discussed building in septic and onsite environmental services, one of the least covered corners of the home-services economy. Beyond individual operators, episodes regularly feature searchers closing a first deal, chief operating officers describing a specific system, and vendors questioned about how their products behave in the field rather than invited to present them.
The pattern is consistent: guests are chosen for what they can document about running a company, not for the size of their following. That produces episodes where the useful detail sits in the second half of the conversation, after the origin story is out of the way, the compensation plan that changed retention, the call-center script that lifted booking rates, the market that had to be closed. HG HomeClub’s editorial team treated that consistency, rather than marquee bookings, as evidence of depth and originality.
Beyond the feed: the newsletter, the shop tours and the summit the show has spawned
Owned and Operated has grown into a broader platform, and its live programming is where the audience becomes a community. The Weekly Insights newsletter distributes the same playbooks and frameworks in written form, and the show’s subscribe page offers them as Wilson’s own operating material rather than as generic advice. The events program is more distinctive: free shop tours where contractors walk another owner’s facility and then sit for a round-table discussion, workshops built around specific revenue thresholds, acquisition-focused meetups hosted by Carr under the JackQuisitions banner, and an invitation-only retreat for larger shops scheduled for November 2026.
The centerpiece is Catalyst, described on its own page as “the annual gathering for growth-minded home service owners and leaders,” with the 2027 edition scheduled to open on May 3, 2027. Its structure mirrors the podcast’s method: the program opens with a tour of The Wilson Companies so attendees can, in the summit’s own words, “see firsthand how one of the fastest-growing home service businesses operates,” then moves through main-stage sessions and tactical breakouts before closing with a deep-dive day inside the business. Wilson and Carr are both listed among the leaders on the program, alongside Brandon Niro, president of The Wilson Companies. Few podcasts in the category open their own operations to their audience; fewer still make the tour the first item on the agenda.
The consolidation story the show has covered from inside it
The most significant industry shift of the past five years in home services has been the arrival of institutional capital, and Owned and Operated has covered it from a position almost no other show occupies: as buyers. Episodes have examined why home-service businesses became so attractive to investors and why they remain difficult to operate, what deal structures actually look like for owners without institutional backing, and how to prepare a company for a sale that may never come. Wilson’s framing of the endgame, delivered to Home Pros News, is the kind of line that lands differently coming from an operator than from an adviser: “Long term, businesses only do two things: sell or shut down.”
Carr’s contribution to that thread is the buyer’s side of it, and his advice to searchers is consistently about community rather than spreadsheets. “Make sure that you’re just, you mastermind with like minded people,” he said on Acquiring Minds, adding that “it’s a big part of running and owning a business is making sure you have a community around you of strong individuals.” Between the two hosts, the show has effectively documented both directions of the consolidation wave, the family business acquiring its way to scale and the outside operator buying his way in, while the rest of the category was still explaining what an add-back is.
Why the methodology rewards this show
Read against HG HomeClub’s criteria, the No. 2 placement is straightforward. On practical value, Owned and Operated delivers operating detail at the specificity level owners can act on, from people who will live with the same decisions. On consistency and longevity, it has published twice weekly since 2021 and its archive has grown past 380 episodes, a cadence no coaching-owned or vendor-owned show on this list has matched over the same period. On host credibility, both hosts are sitting chief executives with documented growth records, and one is now a founding partner in a national ownership platform. On reach across formats, the show spans audio, a video channel of more than 1,600 videos, a newsletter, an owners’ group, shop tours, workshops and an annual summit. Where it gives ground to the show above it is individual profile and audience scale: the No. 1 program is fronted by an operator with a nationally recognized consumer brand and a larger media apparatus. That single distinction, comparable substance, narrower personal footprint, is what separates No. 1 from No. 2 on this list.
What the ranking means for a trade being bought, sold and rebuilt at the same time
The recognition arrives while the industries HG HomeClub covers are being reshaped by capital, consolidation and technology at once, and while thousands of owners are trying to decide whether to buy, sell, partner or hold. In that environment, the most valuable media is not the loudest but the most specific, and the most credible narrator is someone still carrying the risk. That is the standard HG HomeClub’s editorial team applied in placing Owned and Operated at No. 2, and it is the standard John Wilson set for himself long before there was a ranking to win. “I was a plumber who dropped out of college a couple times a decade ago, and I’ve been able to impact thousands of lives,” he told Acquiring Minds. His stated reason for continuing is the same one that turned a private learning curve into a public one: “I want to build something meaningful and be a force of good in the lives of the people around me.”
The complete ranking: HG HomeClub’s 25 most influential podcasts serving home improvement, home services and outdoor living
The full list of shows recognized by HG HomeClub, in ranked order:
- The Home Service Expert – hosted by Tommy Mello
- Owned and Operated – hosted by John Wilson and Jack Carr
- PowerChat – hosted by Greg Cummings
- Contractor Evolution – hosted by Danny Kerr
- Toolbox for the Trades – hosted by Jackie Aubel and Amanda Salvatore
- To The Point: Home Services Podcast – hosted by Chris Yano and Chad Peterman
- Waste No Day – hosted by Brian Burton and Nate Minnich
- Service Business Mastery – hosted by Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch
- The Wealthy Contractor – hosted by Brian Kaskavalciyan
- HVAC School – hosted by Bryan Orr
- Roofing Success – hosted by Jim Ahlin
- The Strong Roofer – hosted by Adam Bensman
- Remodelers on the Rise – hosted by Kyle Hunt
- Can’t Stop the Growth – hosted by Chad Peterman
- PowerTips Unscripted – hosted by Victoria Downing and Mark Harari
- Contractor Growth Network – hosted by Logan Shinholser
- Hammer & Grind – hosted by Brad Huebner
- Roofing Road Trips – hosted by Heidi J. Ellsworth
- The Green Industry Podcast – hosted by Brian Fullerton
- Contractor Fight TV – hosted by Tom Reber
- Pest Control Legends – hosted by Dan Leibrandt
- Profits for Sanity Podcast – hosted by Dominic Caminata
- The Construction Leading Edge – hosted by Todd Dawalt
- The Build Show Podcast – hosted by Matt Risinger
- Modern Craftsman – hosted by Tyler Grace, Nick Schiffer and Johnny Hourihan
About HG HomeClub
HG HomeClub is a national media platform serving the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries. Created to champion media back to its original purpose of informed transparency, HG HomeClub curates the top stories, headlines, rankings, videos, podcasts, webinars, events and professional recommendations across the industry and presents them in one consolidated, easily consumable destination, helping both homeowners and professionals make better-informed decisions. More information is available at hghomeclub.com.
About Owned and Operated
Owned and Operated is a home-service business growth podcast hosted by John Wilson, chief executive of The Wilson Companies, and Jack Carr, chief executive of Rapid Response Heating & Cooling. Launched in 2021, the show describes itself as “the podcast for home service entrepreneurs who want to build larger, more profitable businesses,” publishing new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday on subjects spanning acquisitions, marketing and lead generation, hiring and leadership, operations, sales, finance and artificial intelligence. The platform includes the podcast, a video channel, the Weekly Insights newsletter, an owners’ community, shop tours and workshops, and the annual Catalyst summit. More information is available at ownedandoperated.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who is HG HomeClub?
HG HomeClub is a national media platform focused on the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries. It was built to curate the most valuable stories, rankings, videos, podcasts and events across those industries in one place, with a stated mission of restoring “informed transparency” to home improvement media, helping both homeowners and professionals make better decisions. More detail on its mission is available on the HG HomeClub About page.
2. Why did Owned and Operated rank No. 2 rather than higher or lower on the list?
HG HomeClub’s editorial team weighed practical value to contractors, industry influence and recognition, host and guest credibility, depth and originality, consistency and longevity, and reach across formats. Owned and Operated ranks at or near the top on consistency, host credibility and practical value: it has published twice weekly since 2021, and both John Wilson and Jack Carr host as sitting chief executives of operating home-service companies. It places behind the No. 1 show on individual profile and overall audience scale, where a nationally recognized consumer brand and a larger media operation carry more weight.
3. Who hosts Owned and Operated, and what is their background?
Owned and Operated is hosted by John Wilson, chief executive of The Wilson Companies, and Jack Carr, chief executive of Rapid Response Heating & Cooling. Wilson entered his family’s Akron, Ohio plumbing and heating business, founded in 1958, after high school, bought in progressively starting at 23 and has expanded it across plumbing, heating, cooling, electrical, restoration and septic services. Carr left a corporate career to acquire a Nashville-area HVAC company in 2022 and has since completed additional acquisitions, and he also hosts JackQuisitions.
4. What kind of content does Owned and Operated produce?
Owned and Operated produces operator-to-operator conversations and interviews for owners of HVAC, plumbing, electrical, septic, roofing and restoration companies. Recurring subjects include acquisitions and deal structure, business growth and profitability, marketing and lead generation across search and paid channels, hiring and technician development, leadership and management, call-center and dispatch operations, key performance indicators, sales process, finance and exit preparation, and how artificial intelligence is changing marketing and field operations. Many episodes are built around a decision one of the hosts is making inside his own company.
5. How large is Owned and Operated’s audience?
Owned and Operated has not commissioned an independent audience audit, and HG HomeClub did not rank shows by download volume. John Wilson’s professional profile describes the platform as reaching more than 40,000 newsletter subscribers and more than 20,000 monthly podcast listens. Its Apple Podcasts page lists 388 episodes and a 4.7 rating from 95 ratings, and its YouTube channel carries more than 1,600 videos. Wilson has also said publicly that the platform has driven millions of dollars in revenue for its sponsors.
6. What is Catalyst, and what else has the show built beyond the podcast?
Catalyst is the show’s annual summit, described on its own page as “the annual gathering for growth-minded home service owners and leaders,” with the 2027 edition opening May 3, 2027 and beginning with a tour of The Wilson Companies. The broader events program includes free shop tours and round tables, revenue-threshold workshops, acquisition meetups hosted by Jack Carr under the JackQuisitions banner, and an invitation-only retreat for larger shops set for November 2026. The platform also publishes the Weekly Insights newsletter and runs an owners’ community.
7. Has Owned and Operated received other industry recognition?
Yes. ACHR NEWS named Owned and Operated the No. 2 HVAC podcast, a recognition John Wilson acknowledged publicly. The show’s YouTube channel describes the program as an Apple Top 200 title in business and entrepreneurship, and its Apple Podcasts listing holds a 4.7 rating across an archive of past 380 episodes. Separately, The Wilson Companies was named the founding partner company of Titan Trades Alliance in August 2026.
8. What role do the hosts’ operating companies play in the show’s credibility?
They are the source of the material. The Wilson Companies describes growth from $3 million to more than $40 million in revenue with more than 200 employees and more than $10 million in EBITDA, and Titan Trades Alliance’s formation announcement described the business as supporting nearly 260 employees across five markets. Rapid Response Heating & Cooling gives Jack Carr the acquire-and-integrate perspective. Because both hosts carry payroll for the decisions they discuss, episodes tend to include the costs and failures that vendor-produced shows leave out.
9. Where can people listen to or watch Owned and Operated?
New episodes are published every Tuesday and Thursday. Audio is available on the official Apple Podcasts page, on Spotify and on major podcast platforms. Video versions are published on the show’s YouTube channel. Written episode recaps, the Weekly Insights newsletter and the events calendar are available at ownedandoperated.com, and Jack Carr’s companion acquisitions show is at JackQuisitions.
