In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Brad Barkin discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"If you can be a provider or a source of expertise on something to the industry beyond simply insurance, then you're instantly a better advocate or a better provider then the next guy." — Brad Barkin
Connect with Brad Barkin:
Website: Embroker.com
LinkedIn: Brad Barkin
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
Brad Barkin 0:00
One of the reasons that we're here at in broker is because we know that people hate buying insurance is terrible. You know, it's too expensive. It's too confusing. It takes far too much time. And, you know, I think any kind of feelings people have towards it is that it's safe for the few special circumstances that it really stinks.
Narrator 0:21
You're listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin will take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time, greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretzin!
Steve Fretzin 0:44
Hey, everybody, welcome to the show. Be that lawyer. I'm Steve Fretzin. And if you're listening for the first time, I am a business development coach for lawyers. I've written a few books. I've got this podcast and I write articles for the Chicago daily law bulletin every month. So hopefully you can check me out there my website's frets and comm check it out. But more importantly, I have a great guest for today, an old friend of mine and past client, Brad Barkin, who heads up the law firm practice at Embroker. Brad How are you?
Brad Barkin 1:13
I'm great. Steve, good to be with you.
Steve Fretzin 1:16
Yeah, thanks for coming on the show. And I obviously didn't do justice or anything to your to your bio I just said your name and company worked for but would you mind giving our listeners a Reader's Digest version of what you do?
Brad Barkin 1:29
Absolutely. So as you said, I head up the law firm practice at Embroker. So Embroker is a technology company that happens to be operating in the insurance space. So we are insurance brokers, and we are in this kind of FinTech insure tech space, we think of ourselves as the tip of the spear in terms of those styles of companies. So what m Brooker is doing is trying to improve the way people buy insurance by making it more cost effective, more time effective, and just all around easier. Right now, insurance is a obviously a very, very necessary product. But there's a lot of pain there. Because there's so much confusion, it can be an awful buying experience. So I'm broker operates in several different industry verticals, our biggest industry vertical is technology companies. And then our second biggest industry vertical is law firms. We are a San Francisco based company, we are venture backed. And our second office is in Chicago, we also have offices in Boston and in New York. So our law firm team sits here in Chicago, which I head up.
Steve Fretzin 2:32
Very cool. Very cool. And just to keep things even a little more interesting than then insurance to lawyers. Is there something about your background that most people don't know that you'd be open to sharing?
Brad Barkin 2:44
Yeah, of course. So like so many people who wind up in insurance, nobody ever, ever dreams, I don't think of finding themselves in the insurance world when they go to college or when they start their career. So for me, and like so many other people that have you ever talked to them who were in this industry, I stumbled into it. Strangely enough, I was in a consulting engagement, which was tons of fun, met the girl who's now my wife still may have to get off the road. And I was weirdly recruited to come to the insurance world by somebody that I would see at the gym every single morning at 5am. And you just thought that purely based on the fact that I was disciplined enough to show up that early that I might be good at this insurance game. Low behold, he was right. One of the great, great decision was at that firm for 11 years, and then still continue to get out today. So I just think it's funny how people fall into this space. And here I am. It's been great in industry for me.
Steve Fretzin 3:39
Yeah, and I kind of I kind of feel the same way about sales. And, of course lawyers like to call it business development, but we know better. And, you know, I didn't grow up hoping to be a salesman or to get into sales or coaching or teaching sales. But that's, that's the weird world that we live in, we end up in, in things that that we never would have thought of. So as far as like, What inspired you to work with lawyers or get into that space? I mean, insurance is one thing, but insurance to lawyers, and working in the legal community is a little bit unique. How did you fall into that space?
Brad Barkin 4:08
Yeah, good question. So the person who was setting up that that firm that I was with, that was that was their bailiwick was insurance for sophisticated law firms and accounting firms. And really the crux of it was that these firms have to spend a lot of money and a lot of time on on a very necessary product, which is their malpractice insurance, that can be entirely confusing. It can be entirely expensive. But if we were good at what we do are good at what we did. At that firm in particular, we could soak up a good bit of the market share, we were focused on nothing else other than legal malpractice insurance or accountants, professional liability insurance, those kinds of things are one in the same malpractice and professional liability for either clinicals or law firms. We were just extremely laser focused on that. And it seemed to work out quite well. So I kind of stumbled into the space but that was Back in 2005, and I haven't left it because it's been good to make for a variety of reasons. And I also like to add in specialty lines, which is a little more fun, at least from my perspective than selling homeowners or life insurance and things like this. Gotcha. Gotcha. And, you know, I
Steve Fretzin 5:13
know you mentioned, you know, expensive, and you mentioned, like, you know, challenging to get through and all that. What are kind of the, I mean, all lawyers need insurance? I mean, what kinds of challenges and issues do they typically struggle with? And how do you specifically help them at a broker?
Brad Barkin 5:28
Sure. So you know, I think it depends on the firm, we we tend to get at a broker, a lot of a lot of firms that are between, let's say, solo attorneys all the way up to 30 attorneys, then we have, you know, a handful of firms that are above that, and that buyer journey, or what they're looking to accomplish, varies quite a bit. So in terms of the confusion points, or the pain points, or why they come to us, it can be a couple of different reasons, sometimes people come to us because they, they just have a broker that they've outgrown, who is a generalist, and they really don't know, if they're getting good service, what that broker is doing to kind of earn their keep beyond us, sending them a quote and ask them to buy it every single year, they haven't stopped strategically about how to protect the wrist and because if something goes wrong, and really gets off the rails, the the equity value that all those lawyers have built, so many years building up can really get blown away. So sometimes firms are throwing that other times firms are just looking to kick the tires and see where they can get a better deal. And then other times, they are looking at somebody who could just do all the handhold that right, so they just realize that insurance is not something that they want to deal with, but it's that they absolutely need. So they're happy to kind of offload it to somebody as long as that person is trustworthy, or that entity is trustworthy, who can handle it and get it done for them. And then in terms of what we're doing at a broker, there's a variety of different things. So again, depending on what the customer wants, we can take a very hands on white glove approach and dive into the policy details dive into what the firm's exposures are, and how to make sure we get an insurance policy that handles their needs. That goes everything from the malpractice insurance policy to the cyber policy to their business owners policy, all these insurance jargon pieces that come together to protect it pretty nicely. And then on the other end of the spectrum, where people just want a policy that can be done quickly and very cost effectively. We have digital insurance products, which have been a tremendous boost to our company and to what we're doing in this industry.
Steve Fretzin 7:35
Gotcha. Gotcha. And, you know, one thing that I know your firm does really well is that you guys sort of practice what you preach. So there are specific business development tactics that you guys, you know, use to drive your business. And I think there might be some synergies with what lawyers need to do. And I obviously work with lawyers all the time. And, and so are there some technologies or some things that you that you use that you think lawyers would learn could learn from?
Brad Barkin 8:01
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously, your your podcast here is about growth, which I think is awesome working in that in a broker too. And, interestingly enough, me we think that we think of insurance as a way in a backstop, so that you can go out there and grow your firm and, and do it in a healthy manner and grow that type of line and the backstop, being insurance, you can make those practices. But yeah, because we are a technology company, we do things and have have adopted a lot of sales processes that I think a traditional professional services firm, like a law firm, wouldn't necessarily think of, but they have been massively helpful for us. So it really starts with an adoption of technology. So we use a broker, we use Salesforce, we use a number of other tools to help us you know, schedule, things as simple as calendar time and entry is when we book meetings, right things that are very, very basic, and then things that get more complex in terms of finding the right segment of people we want to go after and be very, very strategic, and our approach to them our messaging to them being specific in our messaging to them, and then helping them get into or into our fold, or at least we can now start having a conversation with them. And we also start thinking about things in terms of stages, and where they are in that buying cycle. So if you think of a funnel, we want to get the right number of people into the top of that funnel, realizing that some people are going to drop out because we're just not the right fit for them or vice versa. And then eventually bring them in as a customer and nurturing them and keeping keeping them as a customer for a long, long time. So because we are in this legal tech world, we also at least I do tend to see a lot of other tools that are out there. So for example, we are the endorsed or the preferred broker for for Clio, the large practice management software, and they have something for example, now called Clio grow, which lawyers can use and adopt that so that kind of technology That I think lawyers who take advantage of and start thinking strategically about how to actually grow their business is something that we've, we've been ahead of the curve on and has been very, very powerful for Natalie, my vertical, but the other verticals around us to the company.
Steve Fretzin 10:14
Gotcha, gotcha. And, you know, technology is one thing, but I know that also networking is something that you are very active in, and I thought maybe is a fun exercise. You know, we could just, you know, talk through what are some, you know, really good ways to network to try to find new business or try to identify good strategic partners. So, if you if you're okay with it, if you're willing to take me up on this, I think, you know, between us, we could probably come up with five fairly easily. Is there is there one that pops into your head that you do on a regular basis to ensure that you are getting in front of new people all the time?
Brad Barkin 10:52
Oh, sure. Um, yeah, I mean, the one that I don't that I do crap, but the one that I do not do well enough that I probably should, because it always helps is asking the new customers and current customers kind of after they've made the purchase, how we did, and then it just reminded them, or asking them that, hey, if you think we did a pretty good job, but you know, tell your friends, or are there certain people that you think might benefit from this, too, I'm happy with myself when I do it. And it almost always yields one or two referrals. And I kind of kick myself when I'm when I'm in a, you know, kind of a groove of not doing it well enough. So that would be first and foremost, I think.
Steve Fretzin 11:30
Yeah, I think that's good. And then also, I don't know if you do this, but I also like to ask for, you know, for ask for like a LinkedIn recommendation or testimonial, if they're willing to say, look, this was, you know, for you would be like this was super easy. You made you save me money, you made this like a totally different experience. And they're telling you that like it's the perfect time to then say, Well, look, if you're so happy, and I appreciate that I'm thrilled, you know, would you be open to you know, writing a nice recommendation on my LinkedIn, or from my, you know, from my company's website or something like that, have that is that something you guys have done?
Brad Barkin 12:06
We have an extra we've taken it, we've taken it a step further, especially in their early days, because E,broker said, we're a venture backed company, we're still fairly young, we're about five years old, we really did a lot of case studies early on. And those were awesome. So what we did was, we would go out to a new client, and we kind of had a formula in terms of what we call the buyer journey. And we would just help fill in the blanks for them say, like, how did you come to us? What was the current state? What was the end state after we got involved, and you know, here's how you felt after having moved to us. And then we would publish those on our website, a lot of them are still there. And those were great. That's another one we probably should do a little bit more of. But yeah, those those case studies were were great for us. And I recommend it to anybody, it's super easy to put up on a website, super easy to kind of pass around as a PDF, to just show people what you've done.
Steve Fretzin 13:02
Gotcha. Gotcha. And I know was something that you and I have done. And I think is a great networking tactic is getting together with someone who has a similar client base, you while you work with lawyers, I work with lawyers, and actually, you know, talk through lawyers that I know and lawyers that you know, and try and identify a couple that, you know, are kind of fit the fit the bill or fit the, you know, the the profile of who you're looking to meet. So, you know, sold out at 2030 attorneys, you know, do I know the managing partner? If so, who's that? And then maybe getting coached in how to how do I introduce you in because obviously, you know, they already have insurance if they're established, but again, to identify maybe some pain points, or some reasons why they might be open to looking at a different, you know, different or going in a different direction. So, is that something that you that you try to do? Or do you have another angle on that?
Brad Barkin 13:55
We do that a little bit. And I think something you taught me just years ago, when you worked with us was, you know, you can't be you can't be greedy. And so anytime I've tried to do this, I've tried to be the one who is always offered and never asked him. And then it seems to be that you know, what goes around comes around, right? So that was one of the key things that you instilled in me early on was just to be a good source for people to really look to help them out. And if you do good, if you do good by people, they're going to do good right back by you. So yeah, I mean, at a call like that. Earlier this week, there's somebody who is in the Chicagoland area, and it does a bit does a bit of work with that a bit size law firms and she and I hit it off fabulously and I think I gave her three or four referrals this week, and, you know, didn't ask for a single thing in return and but I'm sure she's going to help me out too. So being selfless, I think goes a long way. So kudos to you for instilling me with that one.
Steve Fretzin 14:53
Yeah. And again, I know you do this too, but like the other thing is with your clients, obviously if you if you're helping someone In legal, and you know, you can help them with their insurance, yes, but if you could network with them, and help them find a ladder role or help them, find another vendor for technology, or marketing person, or whatever it might be, or even business potentially, that's another great way not only to network with your clients, but also to add value for them so that they're going to feel good about you. And I don't know how many insurance people are really doing that I work with a number of insurance people and, and hopefully they're not listening, but they you know, they're not they're not into that game, like they're not interested in, in anything like that with me. So I just, I don't know, have you? Have you found that to be successful?
Brad Barkin 15:39
Yeah, I mean, one thing that one thing that I learned early on in my first job, because all we did was were so laser focused was that if you can be if you cannot be a provider, or a source of expertise, and something to the industry beyond simply insurance, then you're instantly a better advocate or a better provider than, than the next guy. Right. So if you could, you could talk to them about referral sources or networking or other vendors they might use or just a tidbit of information or even you know, gossipy type information about what else is going on in the industry that they might not have heard of, then all of a sudden, you're kind of elevated beyond somebody who's really providing a service and to somebody who's really an advocate, and, and somebody who, you might get a phone call from that client, because they need help for reasons other than insurance. So it helps it release for me, it helps me stay top of mind a little more often than, you know, maybe just a once a year when this insurance renewal pops up.
Steve Fretzin 16:36
Gotcha. And I know hearing you speak recently that you're I don't want to say negative about insurance. But I think you're a real you're a realist about it. And some of the pitfalls of insurance, because well, we all pay it for different things. And I don't think anybody I mean, granted, unless you have some some catastrophic thing happen, or or you continually get in car accidents, or you get sued regularly, you know, things like that. We all feel kind of kind of bent out of shape about insurance, and that it's just it seems like it's it's it's just a, you know, a way for insurance carriers to get rich and and we're all kind of paying in what what are your kind of feelings about that? And what does the insurance industry look like in the future? What do you see changing?
Brad Barkin 17:15
Oh, yeah, so I mean, I think you were using kind of kid gloves in a for, for talking about, wow, into the shape, but it's, it's awful. I think it's one of the reasons that we're here at a broker is because we know that people hate buying insurance is terrible, you know, it's too expensive. It's too confusing. It takes far too much time. And, you know, I think any kind of feelings people have towards it is that it's saved for the few special circumstances that it really stinks. And that's a big reason that drew me to him broker is because we realize that and put that front and center, we're trying to make the buying experience be so much better. And we're also trying to make it be more cost effective. So one of the things that people are paying for when they're buying these insurance policies are, you know, the various rungs in the chain of distribution and people that have to get paid, you know, the golf tournament that you see on TV, you know, your your premiums are going towards that. And if we could find a way to streamline the way that insurance is handled, and pass the savings on to the customer, then that would be a win. And that's what we're doing for laptops. Right. So what you're seeing now, and I think this is where insurance will go to is that, you know that underwriter or team of underwriters who are all making you know, $100,000 or more, at a minimum, we can replace some of those people, at least on the standard kind of risks with algorithms. So we'll see with us is kind of what like Geico maybe did many, many years ago, which is where you can come to an application that's done online, you can still speak to any broker, and they'll give you the kind of expertise you want. But as soon as you start pumping in information, we're only going to ask for the critical pieces that actually fluctuate the price. And we'll we'll give you a price immediately. You can change your limits deductibles, all the policy features you want. Yeah, that policy, how that premium moves, and then purchase it. And if you want to talk to somebody great. And if you feel like you just want to do it yourself, that's fine, too. But by injecting technology and removing some of those overhead things, we can make the process so much better. And that's really resonated with our clients. So so that's been good. So no problem bashing the insurance industry. It's unnecessary. It's the biggest industry in the world. It is absolutely necessary for the economy to have to happen stress, but it doesn't have to be so painful. So it's a it's been a lag, lagging industry in terms of adoption of technology. We're trying to change that.
Steve Fretzin 19:29
Gotcha. And so the future of insurance looks like what in two 510 years? What are you seeing?
Brad Barkin 19:35
Yeah, I mean, it's still gonna be there. I do think that I do think that the premiums will start to hopefully at least for lawyers come down. And I think that folks like us are trying to really drive that change. I think that it should be handled much more online. There's a lot of copycat suitors out there, doing what a broker is doing, because it makes sense, right? We're not the person wants to think of this. Certainly we're not the last So yeah, I think for the Smaller, middle middle sized law firms, the ability to buy in the ability to buy insurance digitally, do it quick and easy and know that the provider you're getting it from is legitimate. I think I think those numbers will go up and up. I think that the for larger law firms, the sophisticated broker who comes into your office and provides good advice that'll still remain Mita underwriting, looking at risk for 300 attorney firm is much different than looking at risk for a 3% even if 30 attorney firms So yeah, that's my prediction. I think insurance is certainly not going anywhere. Cyber insurance is probably going to creep up in importance, but I think you'll see a lot more technology being injected in the space to the benefit of the consumer, which is great.
Steve Fretzin 20:46
Gotcha. Gotcha. So a lawyer that's listening to this podcast says, You know what, what Brad's saying saying makes a lot of sense. I'm going to give it a shot. I want to talk to him. How do people get in touch with you? Or get to your website things like that?
Brad Barkin 21:01
Sure. So you can check us out at m broker embroker.com, and you can sign up there. There is a specific landing page for law firms. Certainly, you can find a bunch of content geared towards lawyers. You can find me on my LinkedIn profile. Searching Brad Barkin, and Embroker will land you right there. And I would love to take on any phone calls or listen to people or talk them through anything they might need.
Steve Fretzin 21:29
Awesome. Awesome. Well, I want to thank you for being on the show. I think, you know, you're hopefully opening some people's eyes to a better way to do insurance. And hopefully they'll, they'll think of you when they when it's time to do that. So appreciate your coming on the show. Yeah, it's fabulous. Sure. And everybody, thanks for listening. Hopefully, you're all doing okay with the zombie apocalypse. We're all staying safe and healthy. And I just hope you enjoyed listening to Brad and I, you know, chatted up today, and it helps you to get one step closer to being that lawyer, someone who's confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care everybody.
Narrator 22:07
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve's website Fretzin.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today's episode, check out today's show notes.