Administaff to Become Insperity

Administaff, Inc. today announced that it is changing its corporate identity and renaming the company Insperity, Inc., a leading provider of human resources (HR) and business performance solutions for America’s best businesses, effective March 3, 2011. This milestone reflects the company’s evolution over the past 25 years from a professional employer organization (PEO), an industry it pioneered, to its current position as a comprehensive business performance solutions provider.

“The mission of Insperity is to help businesses succeed so communities prosper. Our goal is to establish Insperity as the trusted advisor providing HR and business solutions to performance-driven companies”

“The mission of Insperity is to help businesses succeed so communities prosper. Our goal is to establish Insperity as the trusted advisor providing HR and business solutions to performance-driven companies,” said Paul J. Sarvadi, Insperity chairman and chief executive officer. “The values we have adhered to during our 25-year history are the foundation of our success, and those remain unchanged, as does our passion for helping businesses succeed. Our corporate strategy is to increase value through a portfolio of businesses with recurring revenue streams, strong growth potential and substantial cross-selling opportunities to grow our core PEO business faster. This corporate identity change is a natural progression of the strategic evolution our company has undertaken and continues to position us as the industry leader.”

Insperity business strategy focuses on providing an Insperity Business Performance Advisor to understand the unique needs of each company and advise them as to the best method to improve productivity and profitability. The Insperity^TM Workforce Optimization^TM solution is the most comprehensive business services bundle in the marketplace including payroll, employee benefits, workers’ compensation, and a complete HR infrastructure to provide employment administration, government compliance, policies and best practices, and training and development programs, among others. Insperity also offers additional business performance solutions such as performance management, expense management, time and attendance, organizational planning, employment screening, recruiting services, retirement services, business insurance and technology services, enabling companies to take advantage of the specific solutions that meet their currents needs.

“Insperity captures the power and growth potential of our new strategy, and serves to eliminate any confusion about who we are and what we do,” said Jay E. Mincks, Insperity executive vice president of sales and marketing. “Our research indicated there were some misconceptions about the company given the former name, and we felt this change was essential in order to best position our industry-leading services and solutions. Insperity is a shining new identity that reflects our passion to help companies run better, grow faster and make more money.”

While the company has reached astounding success during its 25-year history, research showed a significant percent of business owners surveyed thought that Administaff was in the temporary staffing business. The company is not, and has never been, in this line of business, but the name led to confusion. This became more evident over the years, especially during the recession, and the corporate identity change has been implemented to eliminate any barriers that might limit the company’s ability to reach a broader audience.
Insperity will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the new ticker symbol, NSP, effective, Wednesday, March 9.

A new advertising campaign, created and developed by Insperity’s marketing department, will launch this month and include television and radio commercials, as well as print and interactive advertising. Jim Nantz, CBS sports commentator, who has joined Insperity’s national spokesperson team along with Arnold Palmer, will be featured in the campaign.

Insperity, a trusted advisor to America’s best businesses for more than 25 years, provides an array of human resources and business solutions designed to help improve business performance. Insperity Business Performance Advisors offer the most comprehensive Workforce Optimization solution in the marketplace that delivers administrative relief, better benefits, reduced liabilities and a systematic way to improve productivity. Additional offerings include MidMarket Solutions, Performance Management, Expense Management, Time and Attendance, Organizational Planning, Employment Screening, Recruiting Services, Retirement Services, Business Insurance and Technology Services. Insperity business performance solutions support more than 100,000 businesses with over 2 million employees. With 2010 revenues in excess of $1.7 billion, Insperity operates in 58 offices throughout the United States.

States Should Use Constitutional Amendment to Rein in Federal Government

Americans are increasingly questioning -- and resisting -- the endless growth of the federal government.  Part of this resistance finds voice in efforts to enforce state sovereignty through litigation and legislation such as the Health Care Freedom Act and the Firearms Freedom Act.  Measures such as these protect existing, fundamental rights from erosion at the federal level.  But the growing discontent has also reignited interest in an even more direct route for the people and the states to regain control over the federal government -- the Article V constitutional amendment process, says Robert G. Natelson, a senior fellow at the Goldwater Institute.

• Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, the states have the power to apply to Congress to hold a convention for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments.
• This power was meant to provide a fail-safe mechanism to control the federal government.

Natelson's report demonstrates that the historical record during the Founding era establishes a clear roadmap to guide the Article V amendment process.  Among other discoveries, this report reveals that the Framers rejected drafts of Article V that contemplated the very kind of wide-open convention that could "run away," substituting instead a provision for a limited-scope convention, attended by state-chosen delegates, and addressed to specific subject matters.

Natelson recommends that states seriously consider initiating the Article V constitutional amendment process to restrain the federal government.

Source: Robert G. Natelson, "Amending the Constitution by Convention: A Complete View of the Founders' Plan," Goldwater Institute, September 16, 2010.

Out-Read Your Competition

Sales articles are one of the best ways to acquire new and creative ideas you can use to grow your business.

Here's a dirty little secret that you can take to the bank: Most professional salespeople and entrepreneurs are way too busy multi-tasking to invest adequate time to read and digest the pearls of wisdom found in a well-written article.

You can find sales articles everywhere. Just type a key phrase into the Google search bar; for example, "Closing The Sale," and see how many resources you find. What you'll find is 4,440,000 links.

Whether you get your articles online (like this blog you're reading now...) or from another source -- save them after you read them.

Create manila file folders for your sales articles and create file labels for important sales related topics such as closing the sale, proposals, time management, negotiating, goal-setting, communication skills, etc.

Imagine filling up these file folders with relevant and street-smart sales articles. Articles that you've read and your competitors haven't read. Now -- who has the advantage?

One of the best ways to outsmart your competition is to read more than they do. Invest as little as 15 minutes every day and you'll outsell your competition every day of the week.

The more you read, the more sales wisdom you'll gain, and the more selling resources you'll have access to.

Marketers Discreetly Retool for Aging Boomers

When baby boomers call ADT Security Services Inc. with questions about medical-alert alarms, they get operators specially trained to be sensitive to their needs. Top of the list: Don't remind them that they've aged.

"Boomers are used to being independent, and they get agitated if you're talking too slowly," says Barry Primm, an ADT home-health team manager who trains new operators to speak quickly and get to the point with these callers. "They just want to get it done, fast and business-like."

The generation that sent diaper sales soaring in the 1960s, bought power suits in the 1980s and indulged in luxury cars in the 2000s is getting ready to retire: The oldest boomers turn 65 this year. To accommodate their best customers' needs, American companies are overhauling product lines, changing their marketing and redesigning store layouts.

But there's a catch: Baby boomers, famously demanding and rebellious, don't want anyone suggesting they're old.

"We don't do anything to remind boomers that they are getting older," says Ken Romanzi, North America chief operating officer at Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc., which has targeted the health-conscious generation as its primary consumer base.

Surreptitiously, companies are making typefaces larger, lowering store shelves to make them more accessible and avoiding yellows and blues in packaging -- two colors that don't appear as sharply distinct to older eyes.

Invesco Van Kampen Consulting, an arm of Invesco Ltd., suggests financial advisers offer coffee cups with handles instead of Styrofoam (easier to hold), use lamps instead of overhead lights (less glare), and turn off the television when clients visit (background noise hampers hearing), says Scott West, a managing director.

Euphemisms are flourishing. ADT, owned by Tyco International Ltd., is marketing its medical-alert system to aging consumers as "Companion Services."

Kimberly-Clark Corp.'s Depend brand, widely considered adult diapers in the past, has had a makeover in a new TV ad: "Looks and fits like underwear. Protects like nothing else."

Bathroom-fixture maker Kohler Co. struggled to come up with a more palatable word for "grab bar," which boomers resist. It introduced the "Belay" shower handrail -- named for the rock-climbing technique -- which blends subtly into the wall of a tiled shower. "When you say, 'We've got beautiful grab bars,' (boomers) just say, 'Naw,' because they don't want to identify as needing that," says Diana Schrage, senior interior designer at Kohler's design center.

In the past, most big consumer products companies didn't specifically target senior citizens, since people over 65 traditionally spent less and resisted trying new products. But many marketers believe the baby boom generation -- born between 1946 and 1964 -- will turn that conventional wisdom upside down.

The 76 million boomers already account for an estimated half of total U.S. consumer spending. With longer life expectancy and lower savings rates than previous seniors, they are projected to spend an additional $50 billion over the next decade, according to market-research firm SymphonyIRI. Rather than passing on their wealth to future generations, they're expected to splurge mostly on themselves as they move households and pursue active lifestyles.

"As a generation, they're large enough that they expect to be served uniquely as they age," says Sean Seitzinger, an analyst formerly with SymphonyIRI. "That's very different from the generations before them."

To be sure, companies catering to seniors face drawbacks. The recession whittled down many boomer nest eggs, requiring them to save more and rein in spending. By its very nature, an aging boomer demographic will shrink every year as the oldest members die.

Nevertheless, the generation that drove the growth of hula hoops, bell bottoms and personal computers will continue to be an influential market as it ages.

Companies are currently adjusting their approaches to new demands. Boomers are much more concerned with a product's appearance, for example, not just its utility. Kleenex recently redesigned its boxes to have fewer floral bouquets and more contemporary designs, photos and the latest hues. There is less difference in aesthetic taste between young people and boomers than there is between boomers and their elders, says Christine Mau, a design director at Kimberly-Clark, which owns Kleenex. "If boomers were acting as their predecessors did, we wouldn't be as trend-forward as we are today," says Ms. Mau.

Carol Roberts, 65 years old, is a retired elementary school teacher in Leland, N.C. But that doesn't mean she wants to behave like a "senior citizen," she says. She's using her retirement to travel and volunteer with schools and community groups. She lifts weights and does other frequent workouts to stay in shape.

She also wants to stay fashionable. "I don't want to look like I'm in my teens or 20s, but I want to look current," she says. "To me, it's really important to look your best, and not just say 'I'm over 65, therefore it doesn't matter what I look like.'"

To attract customers like Ms. Roberts, nuance is key.

Kimberly-Clark spent two years overhauling its Depend brand, anticipating boomers would demand changes to the image and design of a line long considered too diaper-like and institutional. By 2020, Kimberly-Clark expects 45 million boomers will need incontinence products, up from 38 million currently.

"Past generations were more accepting that they had a condition, and this was the product that they have to wear," says Mark Cammarota, Depend's brand director. "The boomers don't have that attitude. They demand and expect more."

In an effort to modernize its designs, Depend has introduced gender-specific versions and briefs with fashionable prints that imitate regular underwear. Some Depend packaging is labeled "underwear" and disguised to look like packs of cloth underwear, including transparent windows that show Depend undergarments folded just like regular briefs. The smaller packs hang on hooks instead of stacked on shelves like diapers.

When casting for recent Depend ads, the brand looked for actors who appeared to be in their early 50s, a far cry from the brand's former white-haired spokeswoman, June Allyson, who sometimes portrayed a grandmother.

The new ads -- which launched last month -- feature a fit and flirtatious man in a coffee shop and a fashionable woman strutting down a sidewalk while tossing her hair, not a gray strand in sight.

"We're very subtle in that we don't have to explain the problem and solution in the ads," says Mr. Cammarota. "Boomers like seeing the confidence part of it."

Despite concerns inside the company that the actors were too young to be believable, focus groups of boomers didn't mind a bit, says Mr. Cammarota.

A big driver of boomers' increased spending is the fact that over one-third plan to move to a new home within five years of becoming empty nesters, according to SymphonyIRI. Many more are expected to adapt their homes to better accommodate diminishing mobility, all in hopes of maintaining the independent lifestyles they have embraced since their rebellious teenage years.

"A lot of boomers have been downsizing into new homes, and when you move into a new home, you need to redecorate, which is a very good thing for us," says Ellen Moreau, vice president of marketing for Sherwin-Williams Co.

Sherwin-Williams, mindful of boomers' sensitivity about aging and not wanting to limit its customer base to one demographic, has subtly redesigned its 3,400 stores to make them more comfortable to older browsers. They now have more lighting and seating and serve coffee in most locations. Product displays feature less fine print, hence fewer squinting shoppers. The company believes the subtle changes will be appreciated by all age groups, including younger shoppers.

That's how 63-year-old Lynn Donadio prefers it. "Companies don't have to go to the highest mountain to shout out that something is made for a baby boomer," says Ms. Donadio, a retired real-estate agent in Long Valley, N.J. "They can go to the top of a hill and maybe whisper it."

After noticing older shoppers struggling to read its cat-litter packaging, Arm & Hammer began sharpening the color contrast for the text and gradually increasing the font size, which is now about 20% bigger than it was five years ago.

"Our research shows that 60% of boomers who are near 65 claim to feel much younger than their actual age," says David Cohen, vice president of the home-care division of Church & Dwight Co., which owns the Arm & Hammer brand. "So you provide a solution to issues that they may have, but it's not an explicit message," Mr. Cohen says.

Diamond Foods Inc. carefully engineered the packaging of its Emerald snack nut line to accommodate the declining agility of baby boomers' hands. But no such boast appears anywhere on the green plastic canisters.

"We're very careful not to come across as preachy," says Andrew Burke, Diamond Foods' chief marketing officer. "Boomers have a filter that says, 'If you're trying to sell me too hard, then I'm not sure about your intentions.'"

Diamond, which long sold nuts for baking, finalized plans to enter the snack nut category after research found doctors were advising boomers to incorporate nuts into healthy eating plans. To differentiate their product from entrenched competitors, Emerald executives focused on making their packages easy to use.

Indented sides make the canisters comfortable to hold, and grooves make the lids easier to grip. After noticing that arthritic users struggled to twist the cap into place, Emerald shortened the required rotation.

Emerald, introduced in 2004, now has about 6% of the $3 billion U.S. snack nut category, or about $193 million in sales, according to 2009 estimates by market-research firm Euromonitor International Inc.

Like Sherwin-Williams, other retailers have been quietly adapting to aging customers. CVS Caremark Corp. has retrofitted stores with carpeting to reduce slipping. Shelves have been lowered to 60 inches, from 72 inches, and signs no longer have plaster windows, allowing more natural light in stores to improve visibility. Wherever possible, curbs are eliminated from store entrances, and existing curbs are painted yellow to heighten awareness.

In the basement of a nondescript office building in Appleton, Wis., Kimberly-Clark has built a mockup of what it thinks a senior-friendly store aisle might look like in the future. The company believes it's crucial to overhaul these aisles or boomers will resist going into what had been considered an "old person's" section of the store.

The mock store aisles pair incontinence products and other personal-care items not associated solely with senior citizens, such as body washes and razors so boomers don't feel like they are in an age-specific section of the store. "This way it appears that it's all about your hygiene routine," says Deborah Hannah, Kimberly-Clark's integrated marketing planning director.

Over the past two years, Walgreen Co. has been gradually adapting its 7,655 stores to be more friendly to aging boomers.

Subtle changes make it easier to navigate stores. Many stores have positioned magnifying glasses in aisles that carry products like household cleaners, hair color and cold medicine that use lots of fine print. Reading glasses are getting snazzier, too, now that the chain updates styles more frequently. "This customer is focused not just on function but on fashion," says Robert Tompkins, Walgreen's divisional vice president and general merchandise manager.

Walgreen has introduced easier-to-open packages on its private-label painkillers and incontinence products, and expanded its vitamin aisles.

"The boomers are much more focused on enhancing their well-being versus just trying to address being sick, as the prior generation might have been," Mr. Tompkins says.

(Source: The Wall Street Journal, 02/05/11)

Lower Corporate Tax Rates Would Boost the Economy

President Obama has talked of lowering the corporate tax rate and improving the tax treatment of profits earned abroad by American companies.  Unfortunately, his desire to use the elimination of "loopholes" to avoid any loss of corporate tax revenue means that he cannot possibly go far enough in reducing corporate tax rates, says Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan and a professor at Harvard University.

• Eliminating every loophole in the taxation of domestic corporate profits identified by the administration's own Office of Management and Budget would raise less than $60 billion of extra revenue in 2011, enough to lower the combined federal-state corporate rate to 35 percent (currently 39 percent).
• The U.S. rate would still be higher than in every other country but Japan, and a full 10 percentage points higher than the average in other industrial Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

The negative economic impact of the corporate tax rate is compounded by the unusual way in which U.S. firms are taxed on overseas incomes.

• For example, French and American firms that invest in Ireland pay a corporate tax of only 12.5 percent to the Irish government.
• The French firm can then bring its after-tax profit back to France by paying less than 5 percent on those repatriated profits while an American firm would have to pay the 22.5 percent difference between our 35 percent corporate tax and the 12.5 percent Irish tax.

Fortunately, shifting the U.S. method of taxing foreign profits to the "territorial" method used by all other industrial countries would have little adverse effect on corporate tax revenue.  According to the 2010 Report on Tax Reform Options of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the Treasury estimates that a territorial system might cost only $130 billion over 10 years but could be structured in a way that actually raises revenue.  Even the $130 billion estimate ignores the favorable revenue effect of the resulting increase in profitable corporate investment in the United States, says Feldstein.
The other harmful effects of the corporate tax could be reduced by bringing the U.S. rate into line with those in other industrial countries.

Source: Martin Feldstein, "Want to Boost the Economy?  Lower Corporate Tax Rates," Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2011.

Make Higher Student Achievement Chief Objective for Teachers

Research consistently demonstrates that there are very important differences among teachers, but teacher skills are not captured by the most commonly used measurements -- teacher qualifications, degrees, years of experience and the like, says Eric Hanushek, the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
If we can't identify the best teachers by comparing their credentials, how do we define a good teacher?

• The best way -- indeed the only objective way currently available -- is to observe his or her classroom performance and specifically what students learn.
• From this new perspective, a good teacher is one who consistently evokes large gains in student learning, while a poor teacher is one who consistently gets small gains in student learning.

The magnitude of the differences in effectiveness among teachers is impressive.

• Looking at the range of quality for teachers within a single large urban district, teachers near the top of the quality distribution elicited an entire year's worth of additional learning out of their students (during a single academic year) compared to those near the bottom.
• Looking at just the variations in performance from differences in teacher quality within a typical school, the statistical analyses indicate that moving from an average quality teacher to one ranked among the top 15 percent of all teachers can be expected to move the average student up more than 8 percentile rankings during the course of a school year.
• In other words, an average student who got one of these good teachers would move from the middle of the achievement distribution (the 50th percentile) to the 58th percentile.

Like all human beings, teachers respond to the incentives that are placed in front of them -- and the current incentive systems used in public education do not make higher student achievement the chief objective.  An obvious solution is to focus performance incentives for teachers and other school personnel on student achievement.
The ultimate goal of the incentive systems must be to attract, encourage and reward high-performing teachers while pushing low-performing teachers toward either improving their efforts or leaving the profession altogether, says Hanushek.

Source: Eric Hanushek, "Why Is It So Hard To Make Teachers Better?" Defining Ideas, January 30, 2011.

Study: Gens X, Y Rely On Research, Less On Loyalty

Here's some advice to brands putting the onus on loyalty to drive sales: "Be afraid...be very afraid." AMP Agency, a Boston-based branding firm, has just completed a study of consumers, "Inside the Buy," that suggests that actually very few consumers between the ages of 25 and 49 are moved to purchase by habit, or sentimental considerations for a brand.

The study, based on a Fall 2010 poll of 865 Gen X and Y consumers, looks at what happens in the "consideration phase" of the purchase path, where the Web and what AMP found to be a "new/modern path" to purchase hold sway. The quantitative and qualitative study also addressed a changing view of brand loyalty. The firm found that just 3% of consumers say they are loyal to a particular brand and never buy anything else.

The study, which looks at five product categories -- baby products, consumer electronics, food and beverage, health and beauty, and fashion -- finds that the very idea of loyalty has changed for 97% of consumers. "New consumer behavior is redefining what we view as 'contemporary loyalty'," said Allison Marsh, VP, Consumer Insights at AMP Agency. "With more information, consumers have seized control and are more open to the wide choices in the marketplace."

Forty-three percent of respondents polled by the study said they do some type of research before they buy. By product category, 64% of people AMP surveyed said they do research before buying electronics; 44% said they do research when buying baby products; 31% do so for health and beauty; and about a quarter said they do "some type of research" before making a decision in both the fashion and food and beverage categories.

According to the "Inside the Buy" study, men spend more time doing pre-purchase research in areas pertaining to personal style and appearance. Forty-six percent of male respondents said they always research fashion purchases, while only 32% of females said as much. For the health and beauty category, 37% of male respondents said they always research products, while a quarter of female respondents said they did so.

Ninety-four percent of consumers said online research positively influenced their decision to make a purchase, and nearly four in ten said they bought a product because of the research they found. Paradoxically, given the fire hose of content the Web disgorges, 30% of those polled said they cannot find enough of the information they are looking for online, and only 4% said they were overwhelmed by the amount of research available to them in a particular category.

About half of consumers go to a brand's Web site for pre-purchase research, while 46% said they go to a retailer's Web site initially. Forty percent said they visit third-party review sites, and 38% said they go to social media Web sites. Almost three-quarters of respondents said their first choice is general consumer reviews, which is about twice the importance they put on expert reviews on product durability and functionality. In fact, half of respondents said online consumer reviews most influenced their purchase. Forty-one percent said feedback from a friend was important, and 37% were influenced by the number of positive reviews they read online.

"By identifying the steps involved in the consideration process, we found that consumers are being strongly influenced by information and opinions shared online," said Marsh.

(Source: Marketing Daily, 02/07/11)