Concurrent Sessions

Getting Paid for the Value You Create
(CEO-only session)
We invite all Presidents and CEOs to join us after the keynote for a special management-only discussion forum. Keynote speaker Jeff Thull will facilitate an interactive group discussion to help answer your specific questions about successfully managing the complex sale and creating an organization-wide commitment to delivering value. Benefit from Jeff's extensive experience, as well as insight from your PEO industry peers in an open and engaging session.

Positioning Your PEO on the Internet
Utilizing search engines, helping clients to find you, and "How to Get Googled": learn the secrets to your PEOs placement on the Internet, advanced listings, and key search words outside of PEO. See how fine-tuning your message content and ad clarity can pay off with your target market, so you can keep potential clients' interest once they find your site. Explore the basics of quickly and succinctly describing your services to hook a prospect's interest. Then, once you have earned their attention, hear preferred methods for inspiring these potential new clients to contact your PEO. Find out how much information you should gather, how to define your top ten identifiers of a truly valuable client, and how to secure information on where the PEO lead originated.

Recruiting for Sales Success (Part I)
Recruiting for Success centers around sound hiring strategies. Successfully training your sales staff is easier when you have successfully recruited the right sales people. Learn the hidden importance of recruiting in developing a successful training program. We will explore how to develop a candidate profile, successful interview strategies, and final steps in the hiring process. Our experts also reveal secrets of effectively marketing your company to top candidates, engaging a recruiting firm, and finding industries that are good recruiting grounds. We will wrap up with the age old debate about incentivizing sales people with salaries versus commission.

Training for Sales Success (Part II)
Now that you have recruited a top notch sales force, it's time to train them to sell. Our experts will reveal PEO strategies for training your specific services to your target niche; including time-line development, material absorption testing, computer versus classroom-based education, and outsourcing options.

Legal Certainty: The Cornerstone of the New PEO Paradigm
Join us for an in depth presentation and discussion on how the industry's efforts to achieve legal certainty positively impacts your PEO and creates opportunities for industry growth. Our panel will examine the driving forces behind state-level legislative and regulatory initiatives including those that impact business taxation, workers' compensation insurance policy structures, employer health care mandates, and changes to the unemployment compensation system. Come learn what is being done to protect the key elements of the PEO business model and how positive legislative and regulatory outcomes directly impact your PEO's profitability.

Privacy Issues in Your PEO
How secure is your employee data and what steps do you need to take to safeguard information held by your PEO. Do you know the legal implications if confidential data is leaked? Learn about the new privacy laws and what they mean to your company: what is the expectation of privacy, how do you determine what is protected and how do you handle record maintenance? We will also discuss the types of information employers must discard, how to dispose of this information properly, and what constitutes privileged documents. This session will cover handbook procedures, business equipment (internet and email), and disclosure to outside persons (with regard to FMLA, payroll and social security numbers), including a typical flowchart for taking in, processing, and disposing of information.

Offshoring
The question everybody is asking: Is the offshoring model practical for a 5-10,000 head PEO? What should be considered when evaluating offshoring as an option? Pioneers in this new business model are discovering the practical advantages and disadvantages. Learn more about the general dynamics, establishing lines of communication, and determining if it's right for your PEO How do you manage offshore staff, train them, establish SLAs, turnaround times, and maintain quality and responsiveness? What are the financial differences when you factor overhead to manage and train that remote group versus build in automation that could replace staff? Our experts will address concerns about the ability of this model to service a high end customer service model, as well as conversion success and turnover rates in this market.

Gain Competitive Advantage through Lean, Six Sigma, SAS 70, and ISO 9000
There is more to PEO benchmarking than meeting customer demands. Whether you choose an internally driven process like Lean or Six Sigma or an outside certification like ISO 9000, standardizing, documenting and continually improving your processes and procedures can change your operations and profitability while providing you a critical marketing tool. Find out how an SAS 70 certification can open up opportunities with larger and more sophisticated clientele. Learn the differences between Lean, Six Sigma, ISO 9000, and SAS 70 and how your PEO could benefit from these programs. Discover the advantages, typical expense of time and energy, and the benefits and practicalities of each of these programs.

Buying and Owning an Insurance Agency: Could This Be In Your PEO's Future?
Are there benefits for your PEO buying a wholly owned agency subsidiary or starting an insurance agency? This session will cover the legal aspects, business operations, and financial implications. Learn how your employer and fiduciary interests impact your decisions to provide benefits or services from your insurance agency. Make sure you understand the legal implications of ERISA and related ethical concerns inherent with these models. Our insiders will address the legal and financial issues of commissions and referrals. An independent insurance agent will explain how agencies are priced and sold, the type of personnel needed to run a successful agency, traditional business practices, required licenses, and the day-to-day demands of owning and running an agency.

The Challenge of Managing Client-Based Health Policies
Discover the challenges of converting from a single employer plan to client-based health policies as well as the how-to's of managing client-based health policies. Learn how PEOs are handling complex issues such as carrier relations, plan selection/installation, system requirements, collection and remittance of premium, cancellation of coverage, COBRA, and more. Also explore specific exposures that are critical, including fiduciary notices, COBRA (acting on the PEO or the client's behalf), and TPA requirements. Gain a better understanding of the variances in carrier relationships, communications, and invoice protocols.

Workers' Compensation Rate Adequacy - The Impact on PEO Financials
Workers' comp rate adequacy directly impacts profitability and company valuations. Discover how workers' comp rate adequacy can be strategically used as an indicator to maximize future year revenues, determine new target markets, and select prospects with the greatest revenue potential. Workers' compensation rates are generally established based on expected losses for each classification code. Actual losses and legislative and regulatory changes have a significant impact on these projections. A hardening workers' compensation market can also evolve when projected rates prove inadequate in covering actual losses. Every PEO should understand the dynamics of the rating system and how to evaluate rate adequacy as a key component in its marketing strategy. Rate adequacy is generally not an "across the board" concern as each classification code is impacted differently. Find out how sophisticated PEOs use rate adequacy data in developing their state marketing and client profitability models. This session will also address workers' compensation trends in prior cycles and projections for future years. Find out how PEOs can determine within a specific state which classification codes are the most profitable.

Preparing For Disaster - The Risk Manager's Nightmare
Never in our history has the fear of disaster been more evident than it is today. Floods, hurricanes, fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters seem to be more pronounced than any time in our history. Couple this with the fear of a terrorist act and pandemic flu and most will understand why a risk manager or operational director gets very little sleep. The PEO industry has grown up significantly over the past decade and is better prepared to respond to these disasters. Presenters will detail the horrific exposures of a few and their actions to mitigate further damage. The session will also provide some practical ideas that any PEO can use to start developing their own disaster strategy. While prior sessions have addressed systems and technology, this course will focus on the operational aspects of preparing for disaster.

Proven Strategies to Reduce Your Cost of Insurance
Learn how to create a risk management culture within your own company. Our experts show you how to implement initiatives to reduce both pre- and post- loss costs. Come hear new strategies to reduce premiums for your Workers' Compensation, Property, Liability, Automobile, and Umbrella policies. Additionally, we teach you how to prepare a professional submission that will get you the best program at the lowest cost. This process will guarantee you are viewed at the highest level possible by underwriters who are currently inundated with submissions from your competition. Finally, learn how to attack the broker qualification process with the ultimate goal of selecting the best broker to fit your culture, shepherding your PEO through the competitive bidding process, and mastering new techniques to further reduce costs.

Group Health Benefits: Underwriting the PEO
One of the strongest value propositions for a PEO is the delivery of group health benefits. Health benefits are essential to a PEO's ability to sell in the middle market or deliver better value to existing customer markets. After years of being overlooked, carriers are now looking at PEOs. NAPEO's Health Task Force has been talking directly to carriers and found carriers aren't interested in all PEOs. The reasons why might surprise you. Carriers underwrite PEOs for more than participation or contribution levels. This session will provide PEOs with first hand knowledge of how a health carrier underwrites a PEO for a master, group health benefit policy. Learn how a health carrier views your workers' comp operations, the role of outside sales reps, your client metrics, and your growth plans.

The Value of Internal Controls in Valuations
Learn how internal controls impact your PEO's valuation. Our experts will discuss the current state of valuations in the PEO industry and offer comparisons of companies who are seeing record valuations - explaining why they are rated so highly. You will hear perspectives from a broker active in the PEO industry and the only large-scale private equity firm focused on the HR outsourcing industry. Both will share their insight from the field and tell you how you can use these lessons to streamline and improve your operations, strengthen your internal controls, and systematically improve your valuation.