Ready Fire Aim

Ready Fire Aim

ENTREPRENEURS by Mark Gordon | Managing Editor

The story of how Joe Brachle went from being more than $50,000 in debt to building a near multi-million dollar computer company from scratch has to end with a punch line.

How could it not?

Brachle's day job, his business calling, is being the entrepreneurial visionary behind CSI Networks, a Sarasota-based computer systems and Web site design firm. The firm has grown at least 30% a year in each of the last three years, finally surpassing the million-dollar revenue mark in 2003 after being stuck at around $900,000 for four years. It currently has 12 employees and had 2005 revenues of $1.7 million.

But in reality, Brachle is a gregarious, wisecracking, joke-telling, singing-in-public, community college dropout. He's also a former Realtor, Alaskan school bus driver, manure hauler, pool builder, computer salesman, '70s rock band keyboardist and singer and, most unforgettably, he served a six-month stint as a consultant to help businesses avoid IRS problems.

With an extensive adventure-seeking resume like that, it's hard to believe Brachle, 51, has stuck with CSI for 16 years. The company itself can even trace its birth to a fluke, when, in 1991, a then-unemployed Brachle accidentally left his resume he was photocopying on a machine in an Office Max. The manager chased him down in the parking lot and that chance encounter led to a job selling and installing computers.

Brachle, though, is about more than telling funny stories and singing Willie Nelson hits a capella, both of which he does plenty of at the dozen or so networking events he emcees each month, sponsored by the likes of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and Business Network International, a referral group.

He's also a savvy entrepreneur who built a thriving business in a competitive environment. His bread-and-butter includes perseverance and an ability to regularly change his business plan to meet long-range goals. He's also a gung-ho backer of the art of networking, using the practice to build up a name for himself, and CSI Networks, in the Sarasota-area business community.

'Out of the hole'

There was a time when Brachle had no need for networking his business. In the mid 1980s, he was working as a pool builder, running a company with a friend. Business was booming in the growing Gulf Coast, as many new homeowners wanted pools. He was making a good living; his wife Cindy was able to stay home with their young son and daughter. He had that "whole American Pie thing," he says.

Still, he grew weary of the pool business. He looked at some of the old-timers digging holes on jobs with him, and thought he was going to end up like them, a "giant skin cancer waiting to happen." So on a family vacation to see relatives in Northern Illinois in 1989, Brachle made the decision to "get out of the hole" and change careers.

That turned out to be easy part. A stint as a Realtor didn't take, and after some odd-job failures, Brachle soon found himself out of money. What's more, Brachle got behind on mortgage and car payments. He had to borrow $50,000 from his family to get by.

When Brachle went to the Office Max in Sarasota 15 years ago, he was at a crossroads. He brought two resumes with him to copy - one for construction work and one for computer jobs, feeding off a computer class he recently completed. The manager who hailed him down in the parking lot said the store recently sold 12 computers, a big deal for the time, and needed someone to help with the installation.

He would pay Brachle $5 an hour. Not exactly the lucrative job Brachle was looking for. "I'm thinking it's a lack of focus and I'm perpetrating a bad thing," Brachle says. "I couldn't have been more wrong."

Brachle took the job and quickly he was selling computers from the floor and running weekend training classes. Soon, the affable Brachle had so many contacts in the Sarasota business community, he decided to go out on his own, running a computer services firm. He started with no money at all and built up a client base as he went along.

One of Brachle's first employees was his sister, Hope Brachle, but the relationship sputtered as the two entrepreneurial-minded people butted heads.

Head-butting with others in the early years wasn't uncommon, as Brachle says his initial business philosophy was of the ready, fire, aim variety. He frequently came up with new plans, targets and visions to stay ahead of the competition. What he needed was someone to reel in his ideas. "I'm my biggest cheerleader," he says.

With counsel

In 2000, Brachle needed a lot of cheering, as CSI Networks was floundering. Brachle says he made some poor decisions that put the company behind on some bills. He thought he might have to shut down. At the same time, some senior employees approached Brachle and said for CSI Networks to prosper, they would have to be more involved in decision-making.

For Brachle, an admitted control-freak who has to be involved in every decision, bringing people in was a hard change. Still, one of his first moves turned out to be his best.

Brachle developed a Friday morning meeting he called Counsel, which he says he patterned after Proverbs 15:22 of the Bible. He thought the philosophy stating "where there is no counsel, plans fail," was perfect for what CSI Networks was going through.

The idea was for Brachle and his senior staff to go over balance sheets, customer data and other issues and problems, with the idea of coming up with a regular plan of attack for each day, customer and crisis.

The sessions were a success. Brachle says he and his staff, especially COO Scott Eshelman, now consider the meetings a religious experience - literally. The meetings have become so embedded in Brachle's routine that he feels out of whack when he misses one.

Their remains challenges for Brachle and CSI Networks. As the firm grows, employees are looking to diversify their client base, a lesson Brachle learned in 2003 after losing a good chunk of business when Arthur Anderson shuttered nationwide, taking its Sarasota office down, too. That shaved roughly 15% off of CSI Networks' annual revenues.

The firm is also regularly seeking ways to differentiate itself from the competition. "We have to make sure people know who we are and what we do," says Shelby Tudor, an account representative for CSI who often attends networking sessions with Brachle.

Brachle has taken to letting others do their method of managing, too; he recently read a book about how Henry Ford's micro-managing style curtailed the growth of the car company in the early stages.

Giver's gain

Joe Brachle got confused looks when he first hit up loyal customers from his pool-building business about his new computer venture: "What does a concrete hole digger know about computers?" was a response he often heard.

So early on, Brachle realized to grow like he wanted he would have to figure out how to network his business. Still, it took him six months of going to breakfast and lunch outings to really get networking.

The outgoing Brachle had no problem talking about his business or joking around to lighten up the mood in a room. Public speaking wasn't much of a stretch either - Brachle was awarded a scholarship to attend Manatee Community College for public speaking in 1979 after a teacher was swayed by a debate performance he gave.

But it took a while for Brachle to realize that good networking requires more listening than talking, he says. By listening, he found out about other entrepreneurs and professionals in dozens of fields, so he could refer them to people. Those relationships helped him get in with potential clients.

Brachle now helps coordinate and run a series of networking lunches sponsored by the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. Working the room on most Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, Brachle encourages other entrepreneurs and small business owners to use networking like growing a garden, in that you only get what you plant. He preaches the catch phrase "giver's gain," a slogan heard regularly at meetings run by Business Network International, another group he's involved with.

Brachle also encourages networking participants in the Chamber sessions to come up with memory hooks about their enterprise, something unforgettable for the crowd. Brachle's most recent on CSI Networks: "We take the SH out of IT."

(Contact the greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce at (941) 955-8187 or www.sarasotachamber.com for more information on the Power Networking Lunch series).

-Mark Gordon