Shette Cordell’s entrepreneurial spirit helps launch her idea into a nationwide service
In 2017, Shette (pronounced “Shay”) Cordell, Director, BR Focus, MMA Southwest, entered a “Shark Tank”-style competition with her idea for a billing reconciliation service called BR Focus. Her idea to enter this competition came to her after she noticed clients struggling with the massive undertaking of HR-related tasks and billing audits.
“I started this whole journey with BR Focus as an act of service and love for my clients who were visibly in a bind and burning the candle wick at both ends,” said Shette.
Matt Stadler, Chief Executive Officer, MMA Southwest, believed in Shette’s idea and decided to support her in delivering the service. After almost a year of work and taking her ideas off the drawing board and into a working service, Shette transitioned from being an account executive to being fully involved in the development and implementation of BR Focus.
“What BR Focus is today in 2023 is about the fourth iteration of the service back in 2017 when I presented it in the competition. I was doing whatever it took to get the service to work for our clients,” said Shette.
Since then, her idea has been the only one out of that competition to make it out of the conceptual phase and is now being offered to clients nationwide.
Shette spent a lot of time focusing on some of the pain points clients were expressing to her. She heard that they either didn’t have enough time or did not know how to reconcile their bill efficiently. Between that and having other HR-related tasks to complete, the clients didn’t have the ability to find the gaps in their billing and in their benefits plans. But with BR Focus, we can give clients peace of mind, and, most importantly, a substantial amount of time given back to their work week.
“We have found that many clients are unaware of how much they have been over-paying, and we are now able to save them a significant amount of money,” said Shette.
Shette had also seen the need for a safety net for eligibility. Although most clients have files that feed from their benefits admin system to the carrier, adds and terms can fall off at times. The audit will find them if this is the case. Then, our team members contact the carriers and make sure everyone on the plan or those that need to be added to the plan are taken care of at once if a life event happens.
Other key features of BR Focus include:
Automated invoice reconciliation. The client only spends time reviewing exceptions.
Ability to add an unlimited number of coverages to client accounts, making it easy to add more benefits.
Shette’s story and journey with the creation of her idea coming to life is a testament to how supporting your colleagues with an entrepreneurial spirit helps them thrive. Please join us in congratulating Shette for all her hard work paying off.
