#9: Can Leadership and Accountability Accelerate Your Business Growth? Insights with Brian J. Sielaff

In this episode of Brewing Business with Brady, host Mason Brady interviews Brian Sielaff, a business leader with a deep understanding of team accountability and operational efficiency. Brian shares his unique insights into building high-performing teams, leveraging key performance indicators (KPIs), and how accountability structures play a pivotal role in scaling a business.

This episode is a goldmine for anyone looking to refine leadership skills, build stronger teams, and foster a culture of accountability for sustained business growth.

Key Topics Discussed:

• How creating clear accountability improves team performance.
• The role of key performance indicators in maintaining company goals and growth.
• Strategies for building a team that thrives on responsibility and results.
• Tips on streamlining operations while keeping teams aligned with business objectives.

Connect with Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-j-sielaff-p-e-s-e-p-eng-7269407/
https://www.tamarackgrove.com/

Connect with Mason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/masonbrady/

Visit BradyCFO: https://www.bradycfo.com/

If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to rate, review, and of course, SUBSCRIBE!

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Have a business growth question you'd like Mason to cover in an upcoming episode? Email: info@bradycfo.com

Transcript

Mason Brady (00:00)
Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of accelerating lower middle market value. Today we have Brian on the show and we are so glad I've, I've been very grateful to learn more about Brian's story personally. And we are looking forward to hearing more about his business, his story, the motivations as to why he started his business and to learn about how he's growing and how he's adapting his business going forward. So thank you for, for joining us on the show today, Brian.

Brian J. Sielaff (00:27)
Thank you for having me Mason. I appreciate being here.

Mason Brady (00:29)
Awesome. Yeah. Brian is the founder of Tamarack Grove, driven by a passion for design and problem solving. His mission is to serve a need within the industry while leading with purpose. Brian lives his why every day making difference in the lives of his clients, their actions, focusing on building genuine relationships. And you'll learn relationships is a really big deal for Brian. but he has focused on building genuine, genuine relationships and trust beyond their expertise. It is.

a culture that Brian has built and a client experience that set them apart. Brian ensures that the value of relationships serving leadership, ethics, integrity, joy, and going beyond are embodied by the team and felt by the clients through intentional relationships, active listening and proactive solutions. Tamarack Grove delivers an ultimate client experience that helps their clients succeed. Well, yeah, Brian, we're just going to go ahead and get started here. question number one.

If you could you start by sharing the story behind founding Tamarack Grove and what motivated you to start the company that we'd like to hear the origin story that what motivated you to go out and start something on your own.

Brian J. Sielaff (01:38)
Yeah, so Bonnie, my wife and I, she's not an engineer, I am. I had the privilege of working at two full -time positions before we started Tamarack Grove, but in those two opportunities, I was taught a lot of just interface between clients, interface between your coworker, interface between your team and your community.

And really, know, through those 13, 14 years of me working at other places, I just had the ability to be a sponge and just take it all in. If you would have asked me in those probably first 13 years of would I want to start my own business, I probably would have said no. But we really just got to a point where in our life with family imbalance and, know, we just woke up one day and just kind of asked the question of like, gosh, and really.

Mason Brady (02:15)
You

Brian J. Sielaff (02:28)
being a person of faith, was just really God tapping me on the shoulder and asking me, who are you working for and why? And I was working 10, 12 hours a day and growing an office for someone else. And I just came home one day and I said, I can't do this anymore. It wasn't that I wanted to just go out and create my own business. I just wanted to have a different why. And I think in doing that, in those 13, 14 years, I had the privilege of meeting lots of people.

and really understanding the importance of relationships. so Bonnie and I just really walked in faith. We had three boys and she was seven months pregnant with our fourth child, our daughter. And the world would tell you, what the heck are you thinking of trying to come up with a And we went in full time in 2007. So as you know, back in seven, life was good, but then 2008 happened, but it was all part of the plan and all by design. And so we did that.

Mason Brady (03:09)
Yeah

Brian J. Sielaff (03:23)
and just really wanted to make a difference of just pouring into people. I had learned a lot along the way of how not to treat people, how certain situations where I was treated and just kind of that thought in the back of your mind was always of like, someday if I ever had my own business, this is how I would try to run it. And so really we just went all in with that theory and that thought process.

We went in to the deep end of the pool and because of all the relationships that I had created in the course of those 13, 14 years, I'll never forget it. I had one client that called me in this phase and just said, hey, Brian, at the end of the day, we don't care what the name of the company is in the title block on the side of the drawings. At the of the day, we want to work with you because of the relationship and what I bring to the table with just everything that goes into a client experience.

that really spearheaded us into like, hey, let's do this. And so that's really what we did. We dove in and within three months we had to hire two more people. And like I said, 2007 we grew going into 08, probably five of us. And then of course 08 happened, but it was fun to kind of go in there, but that was really our why, just to try to do something different and focus really more on people and the opportunity that we could do with having a business.

Mason Brady (04:45)
Awesome. Awesome. yeah, I'm interested. We'll expand upon it more, but I think for our audience that, you know, I think so many people are looking for, know, like what's the number one tactic they can have in order to grow their business or, know, how to create a valuable business. But you've mentioned it so much to keywords, their relationships and people. And, you know, there's, there's not much new under the sun, but I mean, you know, even in the business I run in CFO services or, you know, professional services, accounting, et cetera.

I just tell people that, if they want to start a business, the best way to do it, just have great customer service and care about your clients. Like just be very proactive in your communication and care about the relationship more than the work itself. And, that's not to say you shouldn't care about the work. You should, you know, work diligently or yes should be your yes, et cetera, but, just care immensely about the relationship. And so the folks listening that definitely encouraged from what Brian said that, you know,

There's nothing new under the sun. It's just about, you know, going all in on the things that really differentiate yourself. And it sounds like Brian, you've definitely focused a lot on relationships. so, yeah, expand upon that for us. You have a very relationship driven philosophy. Can you explain how this philosophy shapes your company's culture and client interactions? Like tangibly, what do you mean by relationship driven when your team is operating and interacting with clients?

Brian J. Sielaff (06:06)
Yeah. Well, specific to that, starting with my team, it's all about your people. I care deeply about my people. And I heard many years ago of your ministry is what you make of it. so Bonnie and I really approached Tamarack Grove with, we have the opportunity to come in every day and be surrounded with an amazing group of people. It's taken us a while to kind of really get to this point of like right person, right seat.

But at end of the day, it's really defining your why. And my why is people. I focus on building up people, not businesses. And I feel like the rest of that works out when you pour into your people. I love and care deeply for my people. It's my life. I hate to use the cliche of Tamera Groves, Bonnie and I, second family, but it really is. We are a team. And the people that I surround myself with and Bonnie is really what then allows Bonnie and I to be in our lane and do what we do.

I, I follow a rule too, that, know, it's always hire the person, not the position. I think there are a lot of companies out there that just focus on, Hey, we have a position open. Let's just go out, do whatever, fill it. that's some of my previous companies, the seat would still be warm and they would just throw someone else in the seat specific to focusing on the role and the position. So it's really hire the person, not the position, but, and then on the whole relationship thing, I mean, whether you're a CFO.

whether you're doing structural engineering, whether you're selling insurance, I mean, we are gifted with the talent that God has given us. But I tell everyone that even comes into my business with an interview, whatever, is at the end of the day, we're doing structural engineering, but it is not the first thing we focus on every day when we come into the office. It's the opportunity we have to pour into those around us, to build up our clients, to just engage, create a community.

All those things that tie back into my culture. And yes, at of the day, we get to stamp and sign some drawings and give a client some documents to go get a building permit with. But that's not the first thing we walk in the door every day to focus on. And so I think I've really just instilled that in my people and our culture of really focusing on the bigger element of what our ministry is with just our team, with our clients, with our community, with our third party vendors.

Everything that pours into making Tamarack Grove Engineering successful at the of the day, it's really engaging in those relationships and being intentional with

Mason Brady (08:38)
Yep. Absolutely. That, I, I some call -outs there that it's interesting, you know, I mean, even, know, you, you've brought up your faith and we're both faith oriented people and, you know, our Christian faith is very important to us. And at the same time, even if you look at secular teachings, they, they talk a lot about like vision, mission values and your visions, your why your mission is how you do it. And, you know, what I've, what I've learned a lot or what I've heard from some of these teachings is your why really shouldn't change.

Your how can change. and so to your point that, yeah, today you're an engineering firm, but you know, by all means that you could sell widgets tomorrow, but their, why doesn't change the people and the relationships aspect of what you do. It doesn't sound like that's ever going to change for Brian and what you're trying to lead and what you're trying to do. And, so it's, it's great to hear that. And I, I agree with you that, you know, I, I try to approach hiring the same way. And I, I, I was very grateful to have started my corporate career. sounds like.

you know, you started from a story in which, you know, you didn't have that why and where you were working and wanting to establish it. And I was really grateful to work for a company that had a great why. And I got to learn and be mentored and to be a predecessor or a protege under that, and then try to go do my own thing. Right. But, what I learned a lot, and I would encourage our audience that definitely hire people for the cultural values fit. And I, my metric was if there's 60 to 70 % on the way there, a technical side.

You can train the rest of it higher on the cultural fit. If they're strong on that and they're 60, 70 % on the, on the technical ad, there's enough training out there. And if they are a motivated person, they're going to, they're going to figure it out. And, so yeah.

Brian J. Sielaff (10:18)
Well, you're exactly right. I culture is so big to me and I really go into defining my culture really by six topics. We've talked about a lot of these already with the questions, but like really,

My culture is based on number one, my purpose, my why. Why am I doing this? I said that I like to build up people, not businesses. So I focus on my people. The second thing of that is my values. You you mentioned that at beginning of the show of just, my six values of relationships, servant leadership, respect, integrity, joy, and go beyond. In defining our core values, then that gets me to the third element of my people. You know, who do I want to hire and bring into our fold based on...

values that we set. And then really the fourth is just branding. I think you know we're big on branding with everything we get to do with our touch points with social media or website things like this. And then I think the fifth is intentionality for me. A lot of companies will do things but then perhaps the intentionality falls by the wayside or you don't focus on things or in some cases things are written down but you're not actually playing those out. So intentionality and everything we do has to be key.

And then number six for me to last is just ministry. It's something that I focus on again with the opportunity and the platform that I've been gifted with.

Mason Brady (11:34)
Yep. Awesome. so I'd love to, to tangibly, you know, talk through this, that especially, for our audience that, know, that relationship driven mentality, how does it play out? Because, and no offense, Brian in any of this, but relationship driven, those, I think some people can feel like, you know, those are vague or kind of gray words. Like what does relationship driven really mean? and I, guess I'm, I'm interested to understand for our audience, like, how does it play out?

Brian J. Sielaff (11:38)
So you can talk through this.

Mason Brady (12:04)
And, you know, business development, you know, trying to get a new client or trying to serve existing clients, like exactly what does relationship driven really play out and tangibly mean? Like how does your team, you know, what does that tangibly look like on a day to day, weekly, monthly basis with new clients, existing clients? Can you, can you elaborate there for us?

Brian J. Sielaff (12:24)
Yeah, I think to me it comes back to what is your motive? And you and I just talking, you know, you and I, when we first met, I cared about learning more about you as a person, your family, your kids, like where you live. and I try to take that and teach that to everyone in my office. And I've had some people come in where they're just thinking, you know, like in the marketing mindset of, we got to go out and sell structural engineering services. It's like, no.

Again, what I said earlier is end of the day, that's what we do, but we're not seeking out to do that. I have many examples of clients that I just got to know them over the course of five years. And then someday that someday rolls around with, hey, know, like an opportunity rolled up, let's work together. That's awesome. But my intentions and what your motive is, is to just really connect with people. And to me, that embodies the whole definition of a relationship.

What are you expecting to get out of that? think again, that goes back to your motive of like at the end of the day, I want to meet someone. I want to learn more about them. I want to honestly just know who they are, their story, their background. You know, they're sending my Christmas card every year because that's what it's about. And at the end of the day, if you get to engage your work or do things, that's the added bonus. But it's really connecting with people and we just really embody that through our whole culture.

And that tagline of being relationship driven is that's what we teach our staff to be and act and everything else will work out itself in the end.

Mason Brady (14:01)
Yep. it reminds me, I'm part of a round table group and at one point in time we had a member that, he was a farmer and, you know, I forget exactly where in Canada, but he was a farmer and ran some farm operations and had different other, you know, businesses and operations going on, but he had just lost his mother -in -law. you know, his mother -in -law passed away and, he told the story of how, I guess it was just a small little farm town where people had access to houses, cetera, but.

He showed up, you know, one day, you know, that the funeral hadn't quite passed, but, his CPA that he hadn't told any of this to a CPA showed up, with a plate of, you know, hand baked cookies, just to give to him and his family. And just, it was like to him that it didn't matter whether, you know, the tax strategy was absolutely perfect or something like that, or that, you know, this and this and that. but he just said that that just odd him that that will be his CPA for life, you know, and those types of things.

Brian J. Sielaff (14:44)
Is this?

Yeah, but that's the intentionality. I said, that's intentionality. It takes that thought process to be like that. And it's sincere.

Mason Brady (15:00)
so it's

Yep. Yep. So I guess I am interested personally. what does that look like? So, I mean, you've talked a lot about the intentionality and especially wanting to understand the person and to build a personal relationship with the person. How does that translate actually into the delivery of your work that I think, you know, and I'm saying this, even in my personal experience, like, you know, I've had vendors try to sell me on stuff and that

They've been very relational that, I felt like I could get along with them great. Like they were the people that I would invite to the weekend barbecue and invite over to, you know, my girls, you know, birthday events, cause they would have kids too. And it felt like we could share life together. then sometimes my, my experience of actually working with them is yeah. And they were in charge of sales, right? But the operational aspect of say their delivery of the product services, et cetera, there was just a lot left to be desired. Right. So,

Yeah. How do you carry that over from wanting to have a personal relationship to doing great work and great delivery and what you're doing and having that be relationship, and, carrying and driven in that too.

Brian J. Sielaff (16:18)
At the end of day, it has to work. You have to deliver. Whatever business we're in, you know, we can have a great relationship, but if my customer service is horrible or I'm missing deadlines or I'm over promising or the quality of work is horrible or we submit stuff and every time we just get tons of building department comments back and it's just the schedule is prolonged. Like at the end of the day, I wouldn't expect anyone to hire me.

And so this is a constant communication in my office of the client experience is everything. And we never take anything for granted to your point of just even working with some clients. I tell all my staff never take the attitude of, we'll just always get their work. That will always be their number one structural. You know how it works. As many times that we're working with a client for many years.

There's five, six other companies out there knocking on their door like, hey, try us. Hey, we're licensed everywhere. Hey, we can do this. you always have to have the intentionality of just making sure that you're delivering. Because I've had some clients along the way where they just, get that call and they're like, hey, gosh, I love you, Brian. But man, just haven't had great experience working with Team XYZ. I try to walk away from those situations of what do we learn? How do we get to this point?

What do we need to make better and do better? How do we make sure this doesn't repeat itself? But I think that's just life of how you take those lessons in life and you try to learn from them and get better. But it has to work at the end of the day.

Mason Brady (17:50)
Yep, absolutely. Yeah, no, it does. Yeah, can be very relational and that's wonderful, but yeah, yes has to be a yes, right? And no has to be a no.

Brian J. Sielaff (18:02)
think humility plays into that too, because if you don't have humility and you just think, what's their problem, or like, we're the best out there, like, that's certainly not a framework of being humble. You always have to come to the table with anything in life, of how do I get better? How can we get better?

Mason Brady (18:16)
Yep. think the reality too, like, I mean, yeah, you can get to know the person, but your work is a ministry too, right? That I know you and I can, you know, talk a lot about this because of our faith, but you know, it's one of the most disappointing things that I can ever, you know, experience is when a Christian doesn't follow through on what they say that they're going to do, their yes is their yes or their no is their no or yeah.

Brian J. Sielaff (18:38)
And I've been burnt before. I've been burnt by people that have the fish on their business card. So it's not, it's just, yeah, I get it 100%.

Mason Brady (18:46)
Yep. Yep. So, you know, kind of expanding, I mean, I'm sure that the relationship driven philosophy is going to weave into, you know, some of these next questions or your answers related to these, but, I'd love to understand you. You talked about that people are an incredibly important part of what you do, your why that you build people, you don't build a business, you build people. and so, you know, our next question revolves around that, that how do you build a great team?

to get you from point A to point B and for the audience to understand before we even hit the record button, Brian and I were actually talking about, know, there's team members that help get you from point A to B, but they're not the right team members to get you to see, right. To point C after, after being so, I'd love to understand Brian that in your experience, what roles have been critical to your growth today and at what stage in your business did you determine that you needed them and why.

Brian J. Sielaff (19:40)
A few years back I heard the word strategic and honestly prior to probably 2018 I didn't really know what that meant. We have always been very successful growing Tamarack Grove organically but around 18 -19 I just I met certain people, I met certain companies, kind of really plugged myself more into the industry as a whole of just AEC. Started going to conferences and in that just really learned of

just the notion of strategic hires. For many years as we were growing the business, wearing a lot of hats, I got to a certain point where I came into the business every day and I was like, I just cannot operate at this speed anymore. I walk in the doors at 730, I'm in fifth gear and when I go home at night, I'm in fifth gear. And just what it was doing to my mind, physicality, spiritual, everything, my mindset, I was just exhausted. But the timing of meeting certain people in my life,

really came on this notion of making strategic hires. What if I created a director of operations for our business? We're chugging along at 25, 28 people now. There's a lot of moving parts. Everything's important. But at end of the day, if I don't get to this stack of documents on my desk, the business suffers. So I just have got to get someone into this. That same thing was huge when I created my marketing and business development team.

I am so passionate about marketing and business development. It's still a hat that I enjoy today, but again, got to a certain point in our business. Like I need to have someone that is in our business day in and day out focusing on this. And so I created the whole director of business development and it's literally changed the game of our business. But I think just realizing as you're growing a company of like, you can only do so much and some people might think of it as well. That's, that's overhead.

You know, we don't use that word at all in our business. It's not overhead. It's a strategic position. And you really have to step back as a business owner and say, hey, how do I get better? What would make us better as a team? So strategic hires, just even strategic business decisions of what we're doing, being just even a growth mindset business. We've all heard the phrase, if you're not growing, you're dying. But just being focused on growing. again, I think.

You have to just as a person in any role, just challenge yourself of like, want to get better. I come in every day of like, what can I learn from my staff, from my clients, from my vendors? Like, how does that make me better as a leader? And so I think you just have to have that mindset. I think at the end of the day too, you and I talked about this beginning of you always have to do what's best for the business. And from bringing in the right person, the right seat, they might be great from A to B, but then strategically, you know, we're in that ad of like, okay guys, we got to shift.

We are now going from B to C as a company. We are growing other offices. We are doing whatever that may look like. We're taking on more clients, but what do we have to do to do what's best for the business? Knowing that mindset, now we're going from B to C. Internal staff decisions, internal relationships with clients. Maybe there's some clients that are just flat boggling us down and they were a great client for 10 years, but they're just like high maintenance now and we're.

or just they're taking too much of our time. And so making key decisions like that even of like just your client base, but just all those things I think you have to come back and be real with understanding what it takes to run a business. And sometimes obviously stepping out of being in the business and always wearing that hat of working on the business. But it all comes back to just how and what is best for your business.

Mason Brady (23:28)
Yep. Awesome. so I mean, you've definitely, I mean, you're the visionary of this business, right? And, and the idea of, know, you're creating the vision of where this goes, you know, what this becomes that, you have a big focus on people relationships. And it sounds like as you've had this evolution and building your team that, you know, you were doing many of the things that a visionary did, you know, did at first that you were doing a bit of delivery while trying to grow the thing. then.

You were able to figure out how to get less of the delivery off your plate, go hire a director of operations, and you could continue to focus on more business development. And then as the business needed, you know, somebody to be solely accountable for that, then you offloaded that and you're, you're continuing to move and migrate yourself as a visionary into where you have these operators, you know, delivering and responsible and accountable for these specific areas. And so I'm interested in understand, you know, what are you focusing on now that you talked a little bit about what happened historically, but like,

What are you focusing on now as you continue to build your team and grow? How do you plan to continue to elevate yourself in that visionary role?

Brian J. Sielaff (24:34)
That's a great question. I think again, the last five, six years, I've really been fortunate to understand what lane I should be in. And there's many things we've implemented as a company, but I felt like at times there were four or five, six of us in leadership that were...

I kind of projected as an image of driving down a six lane freeway and we were all just cutting each other off and cutting into lanes and like we were still moving the company forward but we were just all over the place. There was no clear direction or definition of the boundaries that we should be in. I think with some of the things we've implemented we've really...

gotten better of staying in our lane. And I was challenged probably a couple years ago by Doug, the other owner, of just really embracing the role of CEO. I've never been a person of titles. We all work hard in our lane and do what we gotta do, but I think with just focusing on the right person in the right seat, getting the right team in place, the right leadership, where then I can 100 % count on people to get stuff done that I need them to as I delegate, it's really allowed me to then take that

position of CEO with all the, and I hate to call them high level, but they are high level decisions, thoughts. We're moving our office this year. I kind of just focused on coming out of the gates in January. Like what is the next step for us here in Boise, Idaho? We're growing, sending a couple people out to grow other offices. So I've really enjoyed having the confidence in the team around me, knowing that they're getting their, their position done and moving us move forward as a company.

which then confidently I can stay in my lane and focus on some of these other initiatives that we need to do as a company. And so I think that's been really huge for us in the last couple years.

Mason Brady (26:18)
You know, some of the things I heard there, you know, it's, like, you're focusing on building these, you know, offices and, and, you know, building up these offices in regional areas, et cetera. And, know, the idea that you're thinking through the strategy of that and trying to get the people to do that, right. Like as a visionary that you're not, you know, going and getting the clients yourself anymore and trying to go, you know, go bid on the new client job that instead it's a continued focus of like getting the right people.

In terms of growth getting them regionally in the right area getting the right people involved and setting up the systems and structures for them to be successful Is that right?

Brian J. Sielaff (26:52)
Mm It's so huge and it's really empowering people, give them the keys. Trust is huge for me. I tend to be more that, you know, like you come in, you've earned my trust out of the get -go and it's for you to kind of maybe burn that to where then I don't have the trust versus, hey, I don't trust this person, you got to come in and prove yourself and then you'll gain my trust. But I think it's just empowering people and then you're just at the end of the day, I mean, I heard just even a quote yesterday that...

The good leaders try to get people around them to think that they're great or they're good. Great leaders get people around them to just focus on themselves to where they're great. And I just really tried that mentality of trying to focus on that. But I think you just have to always keep those kind of things in mind.

Mason Brady (27:39)
Yep. Awesome. you know, you kind of brought it up a bit. I think, you know, a lot of businesses in the lower middle market, you know, business value is, you know, a measure of like, you know, what are your margins in your business and the multiple that you can put on those margins, right? And, know, how risky is your business? And one of the risk factors is how much of the business is dependent upon the owner themselves that, you know, do they have, significant influence in the

major client relationships, or they actually the top salesperson, those types of things. So if, you know, anything happened that business, if that owner, you know, dropped dead the next day or God forbid, you know, something like that, but you know, does the business just deteriorate as a result of that happening? And you kind of spoke about it. So, you know, you you hired a business development, a head of business development and marketing. but I, I'd love to understand more. Cause I think there's a challenge, especially in professional service firms.

that there's a relationship between owner and client, you know, that that's a lot of where the relationship lies. And, but how do you do business development so that the relationship with the client is a relationship with Tamarack Grove instead of a relationship with Brian, or even a particular team member, if that matter, it's, it's really relationship with your company, your brand.

Brian J. Sielaff (28:55)
Yeah. Another great question. I saw many examples of mentors or people here in the Treasure Valley that, and maybe they didn't know any better, but they took the attitude of this is my business. These are my clients. All that interface is between me and them. The very first company I worked for, that's really what drove me to understand them. Like I really like marketing and talking to people, but I didn't have those keys.

I literally had to sit in the corner and do my job. others had all the relationship with the clients. Out of the gates, it was me and Bonnie and I, that was a concern of us as we grew the business of like, hey, Tamarack Grove Engineering is Brian and Bonnie Feilof. And some people will say if you died tomorrow, or I like to think if you won the lottery or something like that, that changed your focus. But I really have worked hard the last probably 10 years of our business to make Tamarack Grove Engineering.

Mason Brady (29:46)
Yeah.

Brian J. Sielaff (29:54)
Tamarack Grove Engineering. We are a body of 42 individuals that are moving our company, growing our company. I always just took the people in my office with me on marketing trips, business development trips, and I would plug them in because A, I wanted my client to know, like, the end of the day, you're working with a Doug. At the end of the day, you're working with a Brendan. At the end of the day, you're working with a Trevor. This is who you're gonna be talking to day in day out. You're not talking to me. I I value our relationship, but...

You two are in the trenches. so, and then the opportunity to be one -on -one with that individual on a trip, which is huge, I could pour into that person. And then I could show them how business development worked. Because at end of the day, I want to give them the keys. I want to teach them on, I want you and I need you to do this yourself to continue in your lane as you grow your team or you grow your role within the company. And I was shocked to how many people didn't do that, or they just took that attitude of my relationships, my clients, my business.

Mason Brady (30:46)
Yep.

Brian J. Sielaff (30:53)
And it really came back where I saw a lot of failures in that approach of more often than not, people are like, well, I wanted those keys. You never gave them to me. I'm going to go across the street and start my own business. So I've really been focused on giving really everyone in my office the keys of relationships. with where we've gone with our branding on social media, with everything that we're doing, teaching so many of those around me the keys and the things that we need to do to be successful as a business.

I really feel like we're at a great point now where Tamarack Grove is Tamarack Grove. And we are all very key in the lane that we're in with the hats that we have to wear and the titles if you want to use that. But we are a team. And I pushed that in my business from day one with everyone that comes in. As we win as a team, we lose as a team. Many companies you'll see out there kind of just use the overhead or the O word of like, like, that's an overhead position. But it's like, you know, if my marketing business development team isn't doing what they're doing, we fail.

If our front end administrative assistant isn't answering the phone and greeting our clients on a daily basis, we fail. If my finance team isn't following up with AR and sending out invoices, like we fail. If I don't do what I need to be doing every day of focusing on the business, wearing that visionary hat, trying to propel the company forward, we fail. And so I'm shocked at how many business owners and companies out there don't share that attitude and just kind of...

try to just not show their cards. And I think that's a failure in running a business.

Mason Brady (32:25)
Yep. Our next question, and I appreciate it, kind of lead into it a little bit. Your brand is a significant brand in the marketplace, and that you've invested a lot in the marketing and business development. Like you said, the past 10 years have been building Tamarack Grove, not building Brian, or Brian and Bonnie, that it's very much so building Tamarack Grove.

You your marketing team leader that he just won an award for his team success in marketing a professional service firm like yours that saw a lot of the post on social media. so congrats to him. But a lot of businesses struggle in their marketing efforts that, or they don't have much marketing department like in our CFO business. I just introduced a outside marketing agency to.

a client of ours that is a 60 year old business that has literally zero social media presence, has an updated their website in 10 years type of thing. there's one, they're wondering, hey, why am I not growing? Yeah, why is my business not growing? And I said, this is just gonna be a quick way to put some new revenue on the board. If you get one client as a result of this, this is ROI is there. But yeah, I'd love to understand, I mean, you have elaborated on it.

Brian J. Sielaff (33:27)
this is not working.

Mason Brady (33:45)
Why do you invest so much in marketing that you've already given some answers, but yeah, I would love for you to elaborate on that further.

Brian J. Sielaff (33:52)
I, end of day, love marketing and business development. I'm an engineer at end of the day, even in the lane I'm in right now as CEO, I still do a great portion of business development.

We've plugged ourselves a lot into SMPS over the last couple of years and have just learned a lot through that organization. yeah, Duncan has been an amazing hire. I share the story when I brought him in first day. said, hey, what do you know about the AEC business? And he was like, zero. And I was like, can you spell AEC?

Mason Brady (34:22)
Hahaha

Brian J. Sielaff (34:26)
He said, yeah, yeah, I could probably do that. So literally that was day one in Duncan and I's conversation, but he was very moldable, teachable, coachable, and he has taken this role and embraced it going on over five years now. yeah, he did win the Emerging Leader of the Year Award through SMPS National, which has been amazing for him. But I'm passionate about marketing media. We sit down and Duncan and I talk daily.

Mason Brady (34:29)
Thank

Brian J. Sielaff (34:50)
I am shocked at again how many companies across there, like a lot of times the C suites can be like on the sixth floor and everyone else is down on the lower floors and the communication gap there is just crazy with how not often they talk. And a lot of marketing individuals out there share, like they just really feel like they're on an island, but you know, they've been hired by this company. They've been given tasks to go out and market and BD and you know, try to get, you know, award that next big contract.

But there's such a disconnect between the two. And I, getting back to the whole relationship thing, love business development. I love going out and meeting people. It's a challenge for me to go to a conference and just walk into a room with just opportunity. And again, just with the intentions there of like, who can I meet here? Who can I start a new relationship with? And really just leaving every situation with that attitude and going into it with that same attitude. But...

So Duncan and I talk daily, like he has a team now. We are a company of just at 40. And you could sit there and say, hey, for a company our size, more often than not, the marketing BD person is still a CEO. They may or may not have a strategic position for that. We not only have that position, but Doug and I went into this year of putting two more people around Duncan. So his team is a total team of three. This summer they had an intern. So technically for the summer it three and a half.

Mason Brady (36:14)
Awesome.

Brian J. Sielaff (36:17)
But with what I've seen them accomplish with giving them the keys, just running our business, we chase clients. We don't chase projects. And there are some companies out there that chase projects. But we chase clients with the whole intention of building a relationship. But I'm passionate about it. And Duncan would share that same mentality. But him and I have just worked shoulder to shoulder through these five years. And I've just loved to see.

what's come out of that. You have to have that alignment between your CEO, C -suites, and your marketing BD team. And if not, I don't understand why you would not.

Mason Brady (36:58)
No, it's, you know, a couple of points there. I love that, phrase. We chase clients. don't chase projects. and so that just drives back to the relationship driven philosophy or it goes back to that. so for our audience, that, that is a wonderful, you know, quote there that we chase clients, not projects and that intention that, yeah, I, take years sometimes, right? That, it takes, can take a long time, but

even, know, in, our business and Brady CFO that, know, we realized that, that one phone call, if you have, you know, a follow -up once a quarter, it will likely turn into something at some point. You don't know when, but you just have to, know, you have to invest in that and that, you know, it's not just about, okay, I'm going to go seek this little opportunity and try to go bag this. Like, you know, surround yourself with the people you want to work with and the types of clients you want to work with and just invest in. may not be the right time now, but the right time will come up. so.

Brian J. Sielaff (37:35)
Mm

Yep. 100 %

Mason Brady (37:54)
I What I love about you know your marketing I Feel like some companies get this wrong here. They have a non -existent marketing department overall like nothing nothing is there or You know, I grew up in you know, or a lot of my corporate career started in fresh produce and what I would see You'd see these fresh produce firms where they have you know somebody in marketing usually it'd be a gallon marketing that was just doing social media posts, but

You've linked marketing business development together. and that's the thing is like a lot of businesses, they'll, they'll have somebody in that role doing posting, but the concern is, is it's like, you know, but what new business is that driving that, you know, we're spending dollars on one, salary here, the team here, you know, potentially they're working with outside agencies to do a lot of the graphic design, et cetera, or to help manage the website because.

Even a marketing person can't do it all right that they can't be a jack of all trades and good at particular things. so, you know, I've loved how you've linked marketing and business development, but how do you determine the success of your marketing that like, it's doing what it is meant to do that, you know, that all of your efforts in social media, your branding, you know, any other initiatives that you're doing that it is driving results of what you're looking for and the investment that is worth it. How do you determine that?

Brian J. Sielaff (39:20)
Yeah, I mean, that's something that quite honestly, you know, Mason has been very organic through this process, but the last couple of years, you know, in terms of KPIs and metrics, we've, we've tried to just put boundaries in place and set goals for Duncan and his team. We have brought in a whole CRM thing, maybe two years ago, it was part of our ERP system, the internet. But we again, try to get better every year with him now having to your point of his team being three.

Ben is kind of overseeing most of the marketing now with all the social media stuff. And then it's Vic and Duncan that are in that business development seat. We have kind of gone into this year of like, what should that look like with key metrics and things that you know, hey, this is what I'm striving for. We've always had goals on how much new business, like we went into this year and we have the total goals of company. And out of that, it's broken down into two things. You know, how much

Existing clients can we strive to get better at and get more market share from that particular client on just building upon the existing relationships we already have. And then the second part of that is just what do we give Duncan and Vic with how much new business, how much new relationships, new clients that we haven't worked with before that they bring in. So we set those goals. We do EOS, you know that, but we sit around the table every week. And part of the scorecard for Duncan is how many touch points he's had for clients.

many new opportunities he's put in each week with what him and Vic are chasing and doing on top of what the other team leaders are doing. But we're monitoring all that and we are on track to have our best year ever again for Tamarack Grove. I mean, since 2011, every year has been our best year. But again, to what we talked about before, we just try to take new things every year and implement it. And we try to get better with just talking, A, to others that have gone before us.

I'm excited for just even our new tax advisor, CPA, just getting to know David over the years. His company has so much geared around KPIs and metrics for not only team leaders, but on the marketing BD side. so again, it's just always trying to get better and learn from others that have gone before you and try to implement that in your business with what works.

Mason Brady (41:39)
Awesome. Yeah. I love, you know, what you talked about the KPI metrics and scorecards that for our audience, you know, if you, and I've heard of examples of this, where I've worked, you know, with some clients where all they began doing, while it's, I think it's important to have a KPI and a goal metric that sometimes just measuring activity creates a result to a very, you know, promising result just once you start measuring it. But I appreciate what you said that it's like Brian and his team, I'm sorry, Duncan and his team.

have specific touch points that they're supposed to be making on a weekly basis. And they have a scorecard related around that. And, you know, it's So many people kind of wonder like, Hey, why I'm or companies, should say, and owners, why am I not, you know, producing better sales? What's happening? It's like, well, you know, you have to have a set amount of actions that you and your team are committed to every day. And you're following through and doing those. If you want to achieve the results that just like working out, right. That if you want to lose weight, you got to go to the gym and you got to do these certain things every day. And if you do those consistently.

Consistency is the key, but eventually the results show up. just, you got to do something, right? And you have to be consistent with it. And accountability is a wonderful thing of a scorecard too.

Brian J. Sielaff (42:46)
I'm just gonna say it all gets around, it all revolves around accountability. You have to have a clear definition of what that accountability looks like, but like whether that be goals, boundaries, metrics, KPIs, like it all comes back to hey, this is what we set and this is what you're accountable for. And in our structure, I mean there's certain things where I think this has been great if certain people don't do their certain parts from accountability. Sometimes that can keep me from doing what I need to do on my accountability chart, on my list, so.

It's just great that we have kind of implemented these new things this year. but yeah, everyone has to have a goal and metrics versus just like, Hey, just come in today and work hard and we'll try it again tomorrow. But, we're in a good place right now. I've been really blessed for sure.

Mason Brady (43:30)
Awesome. Yeah. Well, we always like to wrap up the podcast, Brian with, one final question to our guests. And that is what's one piece of advice you give to CEOs and lower middle market who are looking to accelerate their company's growth and create lasting value. Obviously you've, you've given a lot here, but what's the one key takeaway you want our audience to know and to understand.

Brian J. Sielaff (43:52)
I would end by saying you have to be humble and you have to surround yourself with great people. And that's not only your internal team, it's amazing vendors, it's amazing just people outside of your four walls, but I think that's my biggest takeaway or input to those that are maybe sitting there like, gosh, how does this work? But just having a humble mentality mindset and then just how do you learn from others as well?

Mason Brady (43:57)
Awesome.

Yep. Awesome. Well, yeah. Thank you, Brian, that really appreciate having you on the show that, yeah, this was great and glad to know about you and more of your business that I'm sure we'll have, you know, many more conversations to come, but just so grateful for your time.

Brian J. Sielaff (44:31)
Thank you, Mason, for having me on there. I'm excited for who you are, what you're doing, and I really, really appreciate this opportunity. All right, thank you.

Mason Brady (44:37)
Awesome, thanks.