[00:00] Jason Taylor: Welcome to this edition of the People's Playbook podcast. Today's an exciting day. have Tim Siders from Maple Ridge Living with us today who does a bunch of stuff with landscaping, with hardscape, with renovations. He's based out of Southern Ontario and quite frankly, he is all about client first approach. And more importantly, how does he actually lead and manage his teams to make sure that the client

is happy too as well his team's happy and they enjoy working for him so we're gonna get some really good nuggets on this session Tim welcome to the podcast

[00:33] Tim Sieders: Yeah, man. Thanks for having me. it. yeah, it's an interesting thing to go through. Never been interviewed on a podcast before, so hopefully you can give me some grace. But yeah, I typically have lots to say,

[00:44] Jason Taylor: Yeah, you've.

absolutely.

I trust me we're here to help and we're more grateful than you are because we know that you have some great leadership nuggets and stuff that you've done with your team along the way and we're just gonna try to steal and share those with many in our in our organizations and and in our in our audience I'll start with this listen. it's been over two decades that you started Maple Ridge, correct?

[01:05] Tim Sieders: Yeah.

[01:06] Jason Taylor: Yeah, what inspired you to do that? What inspired you to say, hey, I want do this? How did it all start?

[01:12] Tim Sieders: it's interesting. because I went to university and I thought I was going to have a white collar job and always worked in the landscape industry or construction to finance education. then when I got my degree and I pounded the payment for work, I just, I didn't always feel right going into a big tall skyscraper and

I had always pictured myself like working in that environment, but not when you actually go into there. was like, I'll think I'll miss being outdoors. but I never said I wanted to do that full time. So I was kind of like challenged. And then as far as being inspired, I think it was.

Like a lot of young 20 year olds or early 20 people, I'm sure students or those in the workforce, they have a hard time deciding what to do. So I thought about what I'm good at. What industry do I know enough about? And business training is one thing in the books, right? I knew not a lot about that, but what I did know is I wanted to work with people. So.

I knew enough about myself and I was confident enough in my skills that I said, why don't I start this, you know, you've probably heard of the E-Myth, ⁓ you know, have a bit of a technician entrepreneurial seizure, like I should start my own business. And I had always thought of that as a really cool thing that I could do. And I wasn't scared, but it was like the landscape.

[02:18] Jason Taylor: Yep.

[02:35] Tim Sieders: part was the easy part in my opinion. So sitting down in front of people and talking to them was, was exciting because I knew what I was talking about. and then I could always learn along the way. So I really just said, I'm going to give this a go and, I want to build a team. I don't want to be a one man in a truck. I never wanted to do that because I, mean, I enjoyed the creativity part of the work, but I was never like long-term. want to build. So yeah, it was, it was kind of like,

I had a lot of interests in a lot of different things and it was hard to pick but I found something that I was good at. I enjoyed and then I said let's give it a go.

[03:12] Jason Taylor: Unbelievable.

So when you when you started the company and again, you just said I didn't want to be a one man crew. How did the team start? How many people were on it and how many people are on it today?

[03:22] Tim Sieders: So year one was literally myself and whoever I could get to help. Like I had to get going. I actually worked still part-time for my company that I was working for. And then the first year full-time, I hired a summer student and then I was on my own in the fall and just, I had some maintenance contracts, but I was doing build projects as well. And I just grabbed extra labor. And then in year three or four,

I had connected with some people in my network and then I made my first full-time hire in 2006. And then today there is on and off. we do have some full-time seasonals. So we do lay a few team members off, but we have right now currently at our height, we're at 21. So.

Yeah, six or seven in the office between full-time and part-time and the rest in and out of the field. So, yeah.

[04:09] Jason Taylor: I could only imagine how probably nervous you were or scary it was to take that first step and say, hey, let's hire somebody full time. I've got to commit to this person. And now 21 people later, you must just feel like, yeah, it's not a big deal anymore,

[04:21] Tim Sieders: Yeah.

Yeah, it's funny because I do remember thinking, OK, I have to and I need to. But yeah, the first hire is and it was a full time hire. That was a big But still, every time you make a hire, it's still a, depending on whether it's a full time or a seasonal hire, you still have to plan and you still have to do the math. And you want to ensure that you can.

you know, because not everybody works out. Some people leave, some people aren't fit or they find something else. So yeah, over the years we've developed a system where it's a lot more comfortable now to know what team we have and to budget.

[04:59] Jason Taylor: for sure. You started with basically having a job for yourself, creating a job for yourself to now actually being an owner of a company and creating something that's going to be sustainable and be around for a long time. Yeah.

[05:04] Tim Sieders: Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's

a, I take it as a pretty hefty responsibility. But yeah, as time goes on, as the business grows and develops. Yeah, it just always seems to work out for I mean, there's dips in sales and stuff like that. But I've learned a ton along the way from peers in the industry and

seminars and just trial and error and making mistakes and yeah to a point now where I actually don't do the field team hiring anymore which is pretty awesome so the technicians that we need every year to bulk up our team for the bulge of the landscape season my ops manager does that I mean I support him but putting people in roles so they can grow

in leadership and direction has been really beneficial over the last five or ten years. It's all about people, it's all about team. We can't earn a living without people, at least in my industry.

[06:05] Jason Taylor: Yeah, I love that.

love that you said that also in your, just a second ago, you said that you take this as a big responsibility. Is that because you look at the team and you know you're responsible to have them make a wage and earn a living?

[06:17] Tim Sieders: Yeah, especially at the beginning, that was more on my mind. But as things grew, then it became a, you know, how do we create a career for an individual? Because I always looked at it as my career. And then, you know, the first full time hire, I'm like, and then the second and then the third, it's like, yeah, it started to grow on me that, okay, this is, we're providing employment opportunity for a career.

And now, especially when you go to seek employees, right, you want to attract by, you know, talking about a career path and laying things out and having a vision. And it's becoming second nature now. But yeah, it takes a bit to get there because you got to you got to learn a little bit by making some mistakes or losing some good people. That sort of thing. So.

[06:59] Jason Taylor: for sure.

When you talked about growth quite a few times so far, you mentioned it. So what does growth look like at Maple Ridge? So if I come in as a crew member, like what are my options? What are my paths to success? And like, what can I do? Can I make a career out of it?

[07:17] Tim Sieders: Yeah, especially so we do have a we try not to have a divide, but there's office team and then there's field team because on the social on the landscape side, but also the renovation side, which is still sort of in the infancy stages and developing. We definitely advertise for certain positions and then when the.

perspective hire comes in, we have a career path, we have a career ladder. That just shows the development like from let's say the lower tier of the crew to the crew leader to the like a supervisor. And I mean, we only have 12 in the field. So I have one supervisor, we have four crew leaders, but they have two points in every year where

[07:51] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[07:59] Tim Sieders: We sit down and look at their skills and their ambitions and then we see if there's a fit further or this is what you need to do. It's good to set goals. so if you're coming in, applying for a job, yeah, we ask those questions. Are you looking for a long-term or, because sometimes people just need a step along the way somewhere. And that's cool too, because

[08:20] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[08:22] Tim Sieders: typically hire first on character and you know attitude and yeah we want to find out what your passions are and what you're all about because skills can be learned right and yeah motivation so sometimes people are like you know what I'm a university student I just need a job for four months and but can I work part-time when I have

and can I come back next year? So, and some of those have turned into full-time employees, pretty neat when that happens. And then we offer, you the opportunity for learning if they do want to stay in the industry. There's all kinds of different things people like to learn and skills they want to acquire.

[09:03] Jason Taylor: Really cool.

You said something there that resonated and it was you hire on character. Can you go deeper into that? What do mean by that? You hire on character.

[09:10] Tim Sieders: Well, back when we were growing profusely in the, let's say in the first 10 years, I was focused on top line, right? And then in order to do that, you need to fill positions quick. So you go on experience, five years experience, three years experience, and then, you know, I don't like the term warm body, but it's essentially what you're looking for. then through that experience,

You realize, okay, I think I need to back the train up a little bit. I mean, just need to ask different questions. Right? Like what, what are you all about? Tell us about yourself. What are your goals? What are your, you know, what's on your heart? And then attitude. Like we used to call references and we used to do all that and we still do that. Especially if I know the reference or if it's another company in the industry, that's a peer of mine.

It's like, well, they're leaving your company. Why are they coming to my company or wanting to? yeah, and you still have to take a risk on somebody, right? Even if you think their attitude, know, certain interview questions or yeah, you just get a certain feeling from the conversation. we've, we found that it's better to base the hire on that. And we've hired on that over somebody with way more experience because of.

of that. Yeah, and quite, we also offered a referral program within our own team if they bring somebody from their network. We offer them a bonus. So a lot of our internal team members came through other team members, right? And a little bit of a stronger recommendation when that happens, at least to interview them and get to know so.

[10:21] Jason Taylor: You can teach the skill, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, you talked about one person that you hired and now they're working full time for you. What did their road look like and how long have they been with you now for?

[10:51] Tim Sieders: So yeah, one of them, I'll just say one specifically, my operations manager is on his 10th year. So he came in 2015 as a summer student. So he was in the university, tried to finance his education, wanted to work lots of hours. There's lots of hours in our industry, especially in the spring summer when school's out.

[11:01] Jason Taylor: Wow.

[11:15] Tim Sieders: But I could tell early that he was really into the whole process of what we do. He's also a business major. So I remember when he was graduating and I was like, hey, what are you doing after? Like, are you looking to go into accounting or marketing or? And he's like, you know what? I'm really drawn to what we build and the technical side. But yeah, and he had a lot of skills that I saw as a crew leader.

So when it came to his path and our growth, just, I kind of put things in front of him to see if he felt he could do, you know, an estimating role and like start doing things in the office and managing projects. yeah, now he's, he's a, he's a,

very skilled integrator. does all our estimating. He runs the field team and you know, all the things an operations manager does and he's 30. So it's like, yeah. Yeah.

[12:04] Jason Taylor: Wow, good for you. What an unbelievable story. I

want to shift it now to the client because when you talk to your clients, they're very happy with the work Maple Ridge does, but they're also happy with the service. And they talk about how you're above and beyond other companies that they've dealt with. So how do you approach the client relationship in totality? And what makes you do it differently than other firms like yourself?

[12:28] Tim Sieders: So I'm not privy to how all the other companies in my network or in my market do it, but we do get quite a bit of feedback from time to time that, you know, when clients reach out, we don't ask them right away, what are you looking to do? Like,

[12:36] Jason Taylor: You

[12:46] Tim Sieders: What do you what are you after right sometimes they tell you sometimes they just say hey, I need this So we kind of have a set list of questions that we approach it with, you know How long have you lived in your home? What are you looking to achieve out of? living in your home or outside of your home have you worked with a design-build contractor before and from those Answers we get further questions into the the nitty-gritty

And then usually it's if we get a if we get a initial visit quite often it's we just want to listen. So and I think I think or actually I believe that that not every contractor does that based on what I've heard from clients who've used other contractors and then when they moved they wanted a different experience and they've

They've received our name through a referral or just through our pre-qualification process. So it's listening and I think asking them questions that they wouldn't typically expect to hear. So how long are you going to stay in your home? We talk about the value of their home, right? Like the real estate value.

[13:35] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

Sure,

[13:50] Tim Sieders: I think they right away expect a contractor to come in and just start saying, we can do this and we can do that and we can make it amazing and we can do it and it'll be the best experience. before that, because we really pushed design, we really encouraged starting with design. And there's a bunch of reasons for that that I think set us apart. I know there's a few of my really qualified peers that are in the same mindset in our industry, but.

[14:16] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[14:17] Tim Sieders: Yeah, it's asking the questions that they kind of stay back and they're like, how come you're asking me these questions? I'm kind of like, well, we're on your side. We, we want to help you invest in your home as if we were investing in our own home. And I want to get you the living experience that you're looking for. And I can only do that if I know and ask these questions and then I'll actually let you know my opinion, whether that's a smart investment.

So I guess it's perceived as we're not just looking for the sale, we're looking for them to have a wise decision and them to enjoy the project and for life because I realized pretty early on through trial and error and experience that, I mean, it's people's home. It's where they live. It's where their safe zone is.

[14:48] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[15:03] Tim Sieders: It's their biggest asset in most cases. Not everybody owns a business. So it's kind of like when at the end of every day, this is where I can be. So yeah, I think, and one of our main core values is about caring. It's about asking those things. I think good contractors in our network do that well, and there's a lot of bad ones. And I don't, yeah.

[15:12] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

Yeah.

I get it, yeah.

I like what you're saying. Basically you're saying be curious. Right, be curious. Ask a lot of questions along the way and it's amazing what happens when you listen, right?

[15:38] Tim Sieders: Yeah, that's part of it, but it's also letting them know our goal is to achieve your goals with you so that you can sell your home one day for an increased value and you can enjoy it along the way. Exactly how you pictured living in it, right?

[15:50] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

Yeah, unbelievable. If you had to go back, so it's been like we said, it's been over two decades now. So if you had to go back and say, hey, I wish I learned this leadership lesson earlier in my career as opposed to later in my time at Maple Ridge, what would that lesson be or what would that leadership kind of style be that you wish you picked up earlier?

[16:15] Tim Sieders: Um, so that's a tough one. And I read it earlier and I was like, there's so many decisions that I obviously, if I knew then what I know now, um, I think on the leadership side, so just before the pandemic, which is when we saw a ton of growth and we were just at that stage, uh, I, I, I was on a seminar or a podcast or something, or I read an article about giving people ownership of their roles.

[16:20] Jason Taylor: Okay.

Yeah.

[16:44] Tim Sieders: So, and I didn't know what that meant in 2005 or 2008, but in 2019, it really resonated with me and I'm like, okay, that's what I would want as an employee, but that's also what I believe all the full-time members of my team need. So I specifically went on that course where I was like, and it was...

[16:44] Jason Taylor: Okay.

[17:09] Tim Sieders: Freeing for me too because it meant delegating some things that I was maybe holding on to so I Wouldn't call myself a micromanager because I never learned that way the my my former employer was very free at being like trusts go But that was more with the build stuff. So as a leader, I wanted each of them to and I sat each one of them down and talked to talk through it over the the performance review or whatever that I wanted them to

[17:24] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[17:37] Tim Sieders: look at it as their role and get excited about it or get nervous about it. Just tell me how you're doing. So if I if I could have fast forwarded that or rewind that to like five to ten years earlier, that would be one thing that I learned from another peer in the industry of who had been in business for three or four decades, right? So

[17:58] Jason Taylor: Yeah, yeah, I love that. What made it so hard to delegate early on in your career? You said, you know, I had to learn. You said something key that stuck with me was it was freeing for you because you had to, you're almost forced to delegate things as opposed to take it on all yourself. what made it difficult to delegate in the early years?

[18:15] Tim Sieders: Yeah, good question. think delegating certain tasks. So I wanted to, it probably was harder for me because I wanted to ensure that the quality was there for the client. So if I left the site and you leave it into others arms, it's like, and I'm not, I don't find myself to be like super confident, arrogant. It's more like, I just want to make sure that they are left. The client is left with what, how I saw it.

So I had to learn that and then as you do that more, you learn more trust. Cause you can, you can always go back and review and discuss, but yeah. On the business side, it was, yeah, just being a little bit more, I think it would be, maybe I wasn't as confident in my numbers or in my abilities. So if I gave it to someone else, maybe I was like,

Maybe they would perceive like that was a bad leader or that I didn't know what I was doing. Right. So I think it's like head trash a little bit. Yeah. Until you learn those things and you talk to peers and mentors and they, kind of give you that.

permission, so to speak, to let those things go.

[19:19] Jason Taylor: good for you because it's,

yeah, yeah, good for you because you just said something that was incredibly self-aware and saying, listen, I didn't know the numbers maybe as well as I should have or whatnot and you said, I didn't want to betray that basically, right? So by actually becoming a little more vulnerable and exposing yourself that way, all of sudden the team kind of rallies up around you, right?

[19:40] Tim Sieders: Yeah, or they sense that I'm more confident to let that go and put that trust in them. That to me, they look at me more as a leader, right?

[19:51] Jason Taylor: Yeah, I agree. How do you build trust within the team, Tim? Because you said that word many times in the discussion today. what do you do? What metrics or what kind of things do you do to build trust within the team?

[20:03] Tim Sieders: So building trust. So A, I think you said it earlier or you recalled it earlier. I think it's being vulnerable. think I'm a big proponent of just being honest. So whether you think you made a mistake or you like, let's not hide anything. Let's look at the truth. So I try to emulate that by diving into hard discussions and

If somebody's done something wrong or they feel like they've made a big mistake, it's how you deal with it. So support, encourage, saying guys, truth supersedes, honesty is the best policy. And even with client relations, if my young project managers were having a battle in their mind about how to treat a client or how to respond to their complaint or whatever it was, I think me showing them.

I would react and then letting them do it the next time. I think that's one way. We also have not strictly specifically open book management, but open financial reporting to the entire team is something I learned over the last few years, which is

You know, guys, I trust you or team. trust you with this information and we're actually a team together. It's not like if we don't hit our mark on a project, it's not your fault. The whole team. So I think it's just communication as well. Communication builds trust, honesty, doing the hard things and not pointing a finger is a big one.

[21:25] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

Yeah, unreal and giving permission to make mistakes, right? Yeah, we all have, right? If you look at your team and it sounds like you have a really strong team culture, how do you keep things fun and how do you keep them motivated along the way?

[21:37] Tim Sieders: Yeah. Yeah, I've made a lot of. Yeah.

Yeah, I put them in the driver's seat on some of those things too. We have what we call team build events. We started that, well, actually way at the beginning, right? Like, let's go out and have a few beers together or let's go bowling or that it was like the odd fishing trip with a small team. can do that stuff. And then what we did in the last four or five years is have the last Friday of every month, we have a team get together, simple.

food. Not everybody sees each other all the time. Quarterly, do team build events. So it's a bit more like a half day or a full day. In the fall, we do a give back. In the winter, we try to get together for something wintry. then like we just on Friday, we just had a nine and nine golf event where we had a client host our team after we did nine holes as a team and prizes for best dressed and we do a

[22:18] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[22:42] Tim Sieders: We do a Monday morning kickoff meeting with everybody and everybody gets to share a win from the previous week. And there's a photography contest and I actually learned this from my mechanic. Someone picks an employee of the week and the next week they have to pick who was the employee of the week and say why. Yeah, and just a team chat and you can do these things with a smaller team, right?

[22:47] Jason Taylor: That's great.

Yeah, yeah for sure. You just build on that momentum and build on that culture. I know you're a busy guy and you've been generous with your time. We just got a couple more questions before I let you get back to your busy day. if I had to ask you what has been the proudest project you've worked on or built or designed so far and why, what would that project be?

[23:26] Tim Sieders: Like as a team, think, well actually, I think I was talking to you earlier before we went on a project that went into design in 2022. We just started it last August and we're just about to wrap it up. so the largest project that we've ever done and that's not why I'm the most proud. It's easy to pick the largest one, right?

[23:27] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[23:49] Tim Sieders: the most technically difficult one. It actually wasn't a lot of technical difficulty. It was just a large scale. But the reason it's the one I'm most proudest is because from design to scope to budget to setting up systems. And there was a few challenges, things we had never done at that scale. Just seeing how the whole team executed, I knew we could be, I knew we were able to do it.

[24:15] Jason Taylor: Yeah.

[24:18] Tim Sieders: And then you measure yourself up against multiple trades that are on this, you know, high point company that you put on a pedestal. And then you realize that we're actually right there with them if not, and sometimes something's Yeah, it was pretty, and I think seeing them realize it, because some of my key team leaders were like,

[24:31] Jason Taylor: amazing,

[24:39] Tim Sieders: Okay, wow, this is okay. Like having a hard time being like, and they were always confident, but when you see halfway through it and now at the end, their self-realization, it's like, that's a pretty proud moment because...

[24:53] Jason Taylor: Yeah, you're

not just a two man crew anymore, right? Now you're natural company, right?

[24:55] Tim Sieders: No, oh yeah. Well,

and also just some of the trades that we work with and the vendors, they continuously communicate to us. like, you're our favorite company to deal with. And I know why. I know it's because we're organized and we communicate, but they also enjoy dealing with us, which means.

It's easy and it's fun and it's yeah we're all here to help each other so that that makes me proud and this this project there was a lot of that a lot of interaction with you know 10 or 20 vendors and subcontractors the entire time so it was a really enjoyable experience so

[25:36] Jason Taylor: Unbelievable, what a great story. Tim, last question. So I want you to think of yourself 20 years ago when you're starting this business. If you could give yourself one piece of advice, or you're looking at somebody 20 years younger than you starting their own company right now, what piece of advice would you give someone starting out in this business? And hope that they take from you.

[26:00] Tim Sieders: Okay, so the technical advice I would be like, don't start with too small of a truck.

[26:05] Jason Taylor: Okay. Okay, yeah.

[26:07] Tim Sieders: Yeah,

get the right vehicle and piece of equipment. Get the tools you need.

Get have have a mentor so have have peers be open be vulnerable and There was another thing I was thinking of Do you want to own a job or do you want to own a business so if you love building build and if you want your own business hire a manager or something

[26:24] Jason Taylor: Great.

[26:32] Tim Sieders: If you love business and you don't want to build, you have to know that going in.

[26:36] Jason Taylor: Yeah, what a great piece of advice. Tim, with that, again, lots of nuggets here for young leaders and leaders as a whole to take from your experience over the last 20 years. So I thank you for your time, my friend. I thank you for being a great leader and thanks for spending some time with us on the podcast today.

[26:54] Tim Sieders: Yeah, I appreciate it. Thanks, Jason. Yeah, hopefully this helps others and hopefully it's good content. I really appreciate the discussion. It's fun.

[27:03] Jason Taylor: Yeah, for sure. Perfect.