In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Russ Rosenzweig discuss:
Key Takeaways:
"Take the extra minute to enjoyably read the profile of the GC or lawyer to move the conversation to an offline, in-depth, from the heart commentary about something you have in common, something you appreciate about their expertise." — Russ Rosenzweig
Connect with Russ Rosenzweig:
Website: roundtablegroup.com
Email: Russ@roundtablegroup.com
Show: roundtablegroup.com/engaging-experts
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/russ-rosenzweig-00b83a2a
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.
Russ Rosenzweig 0:00
I think so many professors and others like use me as their business manager, even just beyond roundtable group finding them engagements they, they want to be known, but it's not so easy to do that personally. And so you know having a colleague appear a business manager and agent helping them with that I think is an important piece of the puzzle.
Narrator 0:26
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. We'll take a deeper dive, helping you grow your law practice in less time, greater results. Now, here's your host, Steve Fretzin!
Steve Fretzin 0:48
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I'm Steve Fretzin And I hope you're having a wonderful day so far today. I'm just going to jump into it. I've got a terrific guest today. He's a friend of mine, we'd go back a few years. And just a really interesting guy. Great business, Russ Rosenzweig. He's the CEO and co founder of roundtable group. How's it going, Russ?
Russ Rosenzweig 1:08
Hey, Steve, thanks for having me. Always a pleasure to see you.
Steve Fretzin 1:11
Yeah, it's great to see you as well. And I know you're in Southern Cal, so you're not dealing with some of the weather issues we're having here in the Midwest, but what do you what are you looking at Palm trees in the beautiful ocean?
Russ Rosenzweig 1:21
Well, I did have 27 winters in Chicago.
Steve Fretzin 1:25
Oh, and that makes it Okay, for some reason for you now to be in a better place is I think you paid your dues.
Russ Rosenzweig 1:32
I did.
Steve Fretzin 1:32
Okay. All right. I take it I'll take it. I was talking to a friend of mine today who's in out in Arizona just bought a place and he's Yeah, he's he says he tries not to talk about it too much with with us Chicago folk. Because we get upset so easily. We're, we're also sensitive or sensitive little, you know, snowflakes or something. So listen, tell my audience, if you would a little bit about your background, because it's absolutely fascinating. Your your you've got a very vast and interesting background and leading into the roundtable group, if you would
Russ Rosenzweig 2:00
Sure. Well, in a nutshell, I went to Northwestern, and earned my MBA at the University of Chicago. And my experience at those two places, was so profound because I had never before experienced such excellence. Like in the teaching context, I had just kind of going to a public school in New Jersey, didn't know what an epically magical, amazing teacher was, until I went to Northwestern and the University of Chicago and just started wondering, like, why aren't these elite experts utilized more typically in a commercial sort of consulting context? Because I was contemplating becoming a management consultant in college. And you know, we were all 22 year olds getting hired at consulting firms. But why not some of these famed PhDs and PhD MDS that I was learning from, and so we cooked up the idea of a consulting firm of professors. And that was roundtable groups kind of founding concept. And we spent basically five years recruiting profs. And our pitch to them was, you know, rock stars typically have business managers who handle their commercial lives. And that's the role we want to play for professors. They love the message, and many profs signed up with us. And we got some press, we were in the Wall Street Journal. And what happened next was lawyers started calling us. And they had this need for very specialized, typically PhD expertise, for trials in the context of expert witnesses, and then just kind of realized almost accidentally, that if there's, it's just very time consuming and inefficient for lawyers to find their experts. And they're not always thorough and rigorous about that process. You know, who do we know, who do we use last time, but you know, you can lose a trial if you don't have the perfect expert. So Steve, you know, for all these years since college 27 years and counting, have been attempting to just hone and refine and perfect. This one skill, this one little piece of our judicial system, to just always ensure that lawyers have the best and most qualified expert witnesses on the stand.
Steve Fretzin 4:30
But your path to this business is very interesting as well. And can you go into that, because leading up to roundtable group, you've got this background that, you know, involves a lot of business development and networking and, and just just really hustling?
Russ Rosenzweig 4:48
Yeah, we were the timing was fortuitous. Email was just becoming a thing in the 90s. When we got started. In fact, when we first launched In 1993, no one really was on email, except for professors. And little trade secret is that we basically emailed every professor in the country in the 90s, at a time when it was like novel and fun to get an email. And we learned Steve, we learned how to send a short, compelling message to someone with an idea. We honed and refined and perfected our messaging with faculty members, and got like 25,000 of them to reply and to send us their CV and to say, you know, we'd be delighted to be experts in a commercial context. And then when we realized lawyers were our clients, now, it's like 9798, email was starting to become mainstream, the web was being invented. So another trade secret, the way we launched is we basically emailed every litigator. And it was, at a time when people look forward to getting emails and our message was unique and unusual. There was no expert witness search and referral industry, we had no competitors, we were kind of the pioneering architects of this whole space. And lawyers were really intrigued. Wow, there's someone that will, you know, help me find expert witnesses with more thoroughness, and rigor, and there's no cost. And so all these years from a business development point of view, has been focused on just kind of sharing this message. With lawyers, with experts with professors, you know, these days, we expand beyond email and work really hard to build relationships via LinkedIn and you know, other social media and these very podcasts that you have yourself have mastered. So business development was something always really fun and interesting for us to focus on.
Steve Fretzin 6:58
Was there something about the way that you that you not only started with email, but how it's evolved? I mean, are there are there things that you think an email should include? That's how so again, I'm trying to help attorneys be concise and be specific and have a point, when they're sending an email to get a response? What are some things that you found successful, that was contained within the email as part of as part of your strategy?
Russ Rosenzweig 7:25
Well, besides conciseness, you know, we are in the business of expertise. And lawyers are really the same. Experts. I mean, they're just as much experts, as are the professors and others, that we present to lawyers to serve as expert witnesses, you know, they have very specialized, hard to find expertise. And you know, at the University of Chicago, there's, there's a whole discipline within the business school, you know, called professional services, marketing, and, you know, proven tools and techniques for specialists and experts to introduce themselves to the world, you know, I'll share with you, I think, one reason that we have been so successful in starting a whole new industry category, and you know, building a company, we went from zero to like 25 million, we got acquired by Thomson Reuters, we were able to reacquire our company. I think one of our little secrets to success is that we also like to introduce our lawyer clients, to business owners, and executives. And I have, you know, that's kind of my other circles, Steve, I'm in the YPO. I'm in the entrepreneurs organization. You know, I've been deeply immersed in communities of fellow fast growing private company owners and have sort of like, accidentally become known as the lawyer referral guy. Because, you know, that's all I do all day long is interact with litigators about their expert needs. So, you know, it's better. Back to your question, you know, it's even better if there's like a third party, introducing the lawyer. And so when I can be an advocate for, you know, any of our clients, where a business owner has an IP intellectual property challenge, and he's a very particular kind of lawyer in a specific geographic location who has worked on particular kinds of disputes, like, that's when it just becomes so enjoyable to introduce a lawyer as an expert who fits an exact need for a particular kind of matter. And I think that's why we're so successful just because we, you know, don't want to just be vendors were always eager to introduce our clients to fellow business owners and executives, because they're experts just like our professors.
Steve Fretzin 9:48
Yeah, and that's how I actually know you more than anything is as a lawyer connector as someone that everyone knows as a top networker. So the idea that you're building a business And really adding additional value for the lawyers by introducing them to business owners and GCS and people that need that, you know, legal work on top of connecting them with the expert witnesses, professors, etc. You know, that's huge. I mean, that's gonna make you very popular very quickly.
Russ Rosenzweig 10:16
Yeah, and if I may say, Steve, it's also frankly, it's why so many of our clients really, if I may just say, also need you, because they have such an elite specialized skill set. And you know, when there's a matter when there's a dispute, or, you know, a transaction that they would be perfect for, it's just so important for that lawyer to be connected at the right time, to that ideal client. And, you know, lawyers aren't necessarily like University of Chicago, MBA marketing and business development, you know, trained experts. So it's, it's, like, hard for them to be focused on that. Which is why, you know, that's why I think you're so valuable to the legal community to just like, make sure that they can be found when they're needed. So they can spend their time you know, spreading their wings and giving their gifts and shining their light about what they have expertise, rather than spending hundreds of hours, you know, doing sales and marketing.
Steve Fretzin 11:21
Yeah, I think I think it's, I appreciate that very much. First of all, but but more importantly, it's, you know, you could be the top expert in the world on a subject, whether you're a brain surgeon, or an IP attorney, and, you know, mechanical space or whatever, but if nobody knows about you, right, if you're just cranking out everyone else's work, right, then there's, there's a disconnect, because it's not, you're not really at your full potential, you're not really helping as many people as you can, and then maybe the right people. So I think there's Yeah, between branding, marketing and business development, you know, the people that have all that expertise, they need to learn a skill that they never thought they'd have to learn. But it's, it's turning out to be a pretty important thing to do.
Russ Rosenzweig 12:02
Yeah, and, as I said earlier, you know, rock stars, and movie stars, you know, the talent in the world, for millennia, have had agents and managers, it's just like a known thing. And, you know, that's why bondo and YouTube can just focus on excellence in their musicianship, and not focus on like promoting their next tour. And it's the same for professors. It's the same for specialized consultants. And it's the same for lawyers, in my biased opinion, it's better to have a kind of a coach advisor, business manager, that elevates them puts them on a pedestal, like, that's why I think so many professors and others, like use me as their business manager, even just beyond roundtable group, finding them engagements, they, they want to be known, but it's not so easy to do that personally. And so, you know, having a colleague appear a business manager and agent helping them with that, I think, is an important piece of the puzzle.
Steve Fretzin 13:09
Yeah, it's interesting even with with the podcast, I'm getting a lot of calls from podcast, not recruiters, but like podcasts, agents, like you're saying that are that are representing lawyers or representing professionals to get them on shows. Yeah, and I think it's great cuz I I'm not I don't, I'm not doing that, but maybe I should, but they're, they're bringing the guests to me, they're, they're identifying my show as something valuable and then bringing people to me. And so it's actually cutting and cutting back on my, my recruiting efforts to find good people. dramatically. And in so so it's interesting that that, yeah, that's, that's really an important asset to a lawyer to a professor to have someone like you in their corner, really, you know, getting them to gigs.
Russ Rosenzweig 13:56
Yeah, yeah, thanks. And, you know, also there's no substitute for being out there themselves, ideally, you know, in a way that's suitable, suitably elegant and classy for top tier lawyers to spread their wings and demonstrate their expertise. LinkedIn, you know, I, I met the founders of LinkedIn 15 years ago, and, frankly, dismissed it. I didn't want to participate, because why should I like I Why would I put my whole network? I mean, that's what I do. I'm a broker of experts and lawyers, to some extent, why would I just make that known to the public and boy, was that a mistake? I'm glad I, you know, came back to it a couple of three years ago, you know, virtually every lawyer is on LinkedIn now. And every GC, who would hire a lawyer is on LinkedIn, and all the executives and entrepreneurs and it really has become a community. I've worked Hard to have like 15,000 connections, mostly with lawyers and GCS and executives and people read it, people read the posts, and it's a great way to, you know, show your expertise and highlight and case successes and, you know, share articles with peers and colleagues. And, you know, that's kind of a new technique in, in our, in our arsenal of business development work that, that has been very successful.
Steve Fretzin 15:30
Yeah. And I, I jumped in early I was, uh, you know, I've been teaching it for probably, I don't know, 13 or 14 years, and I got on it early. And, and I continue to use it and leverage it, I think I'm up to 10,000. But it's not, you know, it's, it's really more about who's on there. Now, everybody's got a different strategy for who they want to include in their, their network with LinkedIn. And I do talk a lot about that. But are there are there one or two things that you are doing on LinkedIn that you that you feel are really pushing things forward?
Russ Rosenzweig 16:04
Well, every day, we work hard to introduce ourselves on LinkedIn, with everyone we're doing business with, like, So first and foremost, any lawyer that you know, were working with, we'd like to send a connection request, because that, you know, gets us in the same sort of setting in which we're viewing each other's posts, and, and allows us to support our clients, when they post something, we can like it and comment it and, you know, express our express our gratitude to lawyers, who are, you know, hiring our experts and working on cutting edge cases. So first and foremost, just any sort of new contact that we're doing business with, it takes a while to get in that habit, but to automatically invite them to be come first degree connections. A second technique is, you know, after we have the good fortune of dazzling client, with our expert witness services, and, you know, kind of help them win the case, you know, they say very kind words about us and roundtable group and our expert witness services. And you know, when you get a compliment from a client, you know, we used to just be graciously humble and smile, and, you know, thank you, and that was it. But, you know, if a client is really happy with your service, they're often graciously willing to be advocates for your service. And so we, you know, might ask them, Hey, would you be graciously willing to share our one pager with your colleagues, you know, would would your firm like to, you know, have have us as a guest, and present you our CLE program on, you know, expert witness best practices. And we might also ask, you know, would you be okay, if I introduce myself to your first degree, LinkedIn connections, which is like all of their colleagues and peers, and if they give you permission to do that, and sometimes they'll even introduce us, that's how LinkedIn can just like be this viral opportunity to, you know, be introduced to just more clients and colleagues of clients and peers of clients, etc.
Steve Fretzin 18:23
Yeah, so I think there's, there's a level of connectivity that's really critical with LinkedIn, and then there's, how are you interacting? Right? I mean, I think they call it social media for the reason that it's supposed to be social. So what is your company doing? Are you doing to engage your audience of professors, lawyers, and other people that you network with?
Russ Rosenzweig 18:44
Well, we too, have gotten into the podcast business, it's all the rage. And we are regularly, you know, interviewing elite lawyers, and, you know, engaging with them about their area of specialization and practice. So that, you know, my fellow business owners can be introduced to more and more lawyers, but we also dive in to deep content around the use of experts in their practice, you know, once an expert is engaged, what are some tools and techniques and best practices, and there's not a big literature on that. And so we're really kind of pioneering that field. We also really make it a habit. Every day, we read the posts of our clients and have those first degree connections. And we take the time, as someone would, like read the Wall Street Journal, as someone you know, as a news junkie would just read the news every day, we are constantly looking for, really what I would call excellence in the work of our clients. Excellence is kind of my personal theme of the year and we try to be like that. whistleblowers in a positive context, we tried to really proactively find excellence in the field of litigation, specially our clients and first degree connections. And this can often be found by the posts that, you know, our clients proudly, proudly put up there. And so we take the time to read it, we comment on it, we repost it, we, you know, often will introduce lawyers to the young presidents organization members and the entrepreneurs, organization members that I work closely with, and are constantly asking me for lawyer referrals. And so, you know, we have gone 180 degrees from avoiding LinkedIn to just being all in and totally engaged and immersed.
Steve Fretzin 20:50
Yeah, that's great. That's great. And it's interesting that you say that, you know, that you're reading it, like the newspaper, I think that's, that's important to consider that you may want to whether you do it generally, or if you want to, you know, select 10 or 15 people or companies or whatever GCS that you want to follow, and read their content and comment in like it. And it's actually something that that allows you to develop a relationship, a stronger relationship, start a relationship, and, and eventually, maybe even get in the door. So if you're a lawyer listening, and there's a general counsel who's posting about something, and you're reading those posts all the time, and you can make a positive comment, not not kissing ass or anything, but like a comment, that's well thought out. That's, that's helpful, right, you're adding something to what is being written or said or posted. And they're gonna read that, I mean, you might not realize that, that you're, you're actually engaging with the General Counsel of a major corporation, but you are. And from that point, if you do it over a period of time, and maybe then you send a message and say, Hey, you know, I've been, you know, loving your posts, and you've been liking my comments, maybe there's something for us to talk about, now, you're in a conversation you never would have had otherwise. So there are some strategies that allow you to, to interact, but also potentially engage if you play your cards, right. And, and, and you're, you know, you're being proactive in your, in your, the social part of social media.
Russ Rosenzweig 22:21
That's quite right. That's a good reminder, Steve, because, you know, 90% of the time when we post a comment to a client or prospective clients LinkedIn post, they reply to the comment with gratitude and appreciation. And, you know, you can then take that conversation offline, just in a private posts, you know, I'm just, again, want to express my, you know, amazement and appreciation. And you know, I looked at your bio, and your background is so interesting, you can always find a connection point when it takes just take the time. Nope, I see. That's the thing, Steve, everybody's so quote, unquote, busy, that they don't take the extra like minute to, you know, enjoyably read the profile of say that GC or you know, the lawyer in my case, and to, you know, move the conversation to an offline, you know, in depth, from the heart commentary about something you have in common, something appreciate about their expertise. One other technique that we use, that we're quite quite passionate about is really going the extra mile proactively seeking out when a client or prospective client has the courage to post something about their charitable work, their nonprofit work, their work in the field of justice, and diversity and inclusion, particularly their pro bono work and wins in that context. And this is just something that really allows us to, like feel like we're going from significance from success to significance, and kind of like marrying our own charitable giving to that of our clients. And, you know, we have learned about so many worthy justice oriented nonprofits 501 C, three charitable organizations, just from these posts. And you know, we'll just ask in the post, you know, this sounds like such a worthy organization. You know, is it a nonprofit? Can we make a donation in your honor, and, you know, that has led to so many new relationships with, you know, amazing nonprofit organizations, you don't have to be $100,000 donor, you can send them a few $100 $100 whatever the quantum, just that, you know, taking the relationship or hopefully relationship to another level around pro bono activities and charitable organizations and that has been very worthy and enjoyable, new techniques. For us, Steve that has now first of all, allowed us to support amazing organizations. But you know, clients appreciate it too.
Steve Fretzin 25:09
Yeah, absolutely. I love it. I love it. So if I'm a lawyer, and I'm interested in connecting with you and wanting to get some expert witnesses lined up and use your services, how do people get in touch with you Russ to to connect and to try to, you know, work with you?
Unknown Speaker 25:27
Well, Steve, any listener to your amazing podcast, is a friend of mine, and is welcome to contact me directly. Personally, russ@roundtablegroup.com. They can email me day or night. And I'm very fortunate I have a team of 30 colleagues. Now, I can't believe it. I mean, good. Many of them are lawyers. So we really, you know, if, if a lawyer has an expert witness requests, we really pride ourselves on a lawyer to lawyer intro conversation, we like to read complaints, we who read patents, we like to really go in depth about what that expert witness need is, and I would love to just be the quarterback of that and handle it personally, and set up an intro call with me and one of my colleagues and to just to dive in right away with their expert witness search needs. And by the way, we never charge anything, Steve to do a thorough and rigorous research project for any of our clients. We are paid later, when an expert is hired. And there's sort of a shared billing rate structure between the experts and us. So it's, I think, in my biased opinion, a very novel and elegant business model.
Steve Fretzin 26:40
Yeah, really interesting business and your background is is terrific as well. And I just want to thank you for coming on the show and sharing not only about your business, but also some of the the networking and LinkedIn and ideas that that have helped in emails that you that have helped you to be successful and growing your company and being successful in your career in your area. So I really want to thank you for for for being a part of it.
Russ Rosenzweig 27:05
My pleasure, Steve, thanks for having me. And thanks for all you do too. Because you know, really, you're the one that allows a lawyer to just shine her light and spread her wings and be able to focus on just giving the gift of their exquisite legal skills and services rather than, you know, floundering around doing half the business development and marketing work that you're so good at coaching them on. So thanks for all you do, Steve
Steve Fretzin 27:30
Hey, listen, it's it's my It's my pleasure. And it's my joy in life is helping lawyers to be successful and find, you know, easier, more efficient ways of doing business development, marketing, branding, and at the end of the day, it's all about being that lawyer as someone who's organized efficient to skilled Rainmaker, so thanks again, Russ. And and thank you all for listening today. I appreciate you taking some time with with Russ and I, and we'll all be in touch soon. Take care.
Narrator 28:02
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