4 Key Learnings from Building OneDigital’s Rapidly Growing PEO

How OneDigital’s entry into the PEO space transformed client value, aligned advisory teams, and accelerated growth through an integrated, needs-first approach

3 years ago, I met Ted Crawford just outside of Dallas, Texas. Ted and his partner Tim Kinnear were running a very nice PEO called Resourcing Edge… managing around 20,000 worksite lives. By then, I was several years into discussions with PEO owners around the country trying to find an entry point into the space.

At OneDigital, we were convinced there was room for a new kind of advisor in that vertical, one that could give an employer what they needed, not what a salesperson across the table was there to sell. When I sat down with Ted, he saw the opportunity right away. His take… like ours… was that the firm that brought a truly integrated team to a client and offered what was needed, not just what was being sold… could build a very successful business.

Before Resourcing Edge joined our team, most of OneDigital’s employee benefits consultants were well schooled in doing everything possible to block PEO’s from getting into our current client base. This dynamic was not good for OneDigital, not good for our clients, and just illogical when you have 75,000 groups in the segment most aligned with PEO solutions.

Fast forward to now, we will end Q2 of 2024 close to 75,000 worksite lives and robust pipelines for both organic and inorganic growth.

Although our strategic decision for getting into the PEO space is proving to be a home run, the execution and path forward has been filled with learnings and adjustments. The biggest lessons learned are as follows:

1. It takes time for people (in this case, PEO and Employee benefits advisors) to get to know each other, trust each other and learn to be conversational with clients in an adjacent space. Cross-selling doesn’t begin overnight.

2. EB consultants often don’t know which clients are best for a PEO solution, so building the appropriate analytics infrastructure to guide the process is critical.

3. Client managers are primarily focused on locking down renewals with whatever the existing solution is… so, we must invest in sales capacity to align with client managers and sell a more complex but impactful, bundled offering.

4. Additional downstream acquisitions are joining based on enhanced service offering for their clients, the focus on client satisfaction and retention, trust in our management, and the fact that our model is focused on growth not a synergized consolidation.

I know this might seem basic in terms of logic; but investing and building true sales capacity, with sales enablement and sales management is what moves the dial for bringing converged solutions to an existing client base. So, our journey is underway to become a top ten PEO nationally and challenge the big guys. Email me at msullivan@onedigital.com if you want to discuss anything in or around this topic.
Read the full series from Mike and Connect with him on LinkedIn, here. To hear more from leaders who joined OneDigital through acquisition, visit the Why OneDigital Hub.

About OneDigital

OneDigital’s team of fierce advocates helps businesses and individuals achieve their aspirations of health, success and financial security. Our insurance, financial services and HR platform provides personalized, tech-enabled solutions for a contemporary work-life experience. Nationally recognized for our culture of caring, OneDigital’s teams enable employers and individuals to do their best work and live their best lives. More than 100,000 employers and millions of individuals rely on our teams for counsel and access to fully integrated worksite products and services and the retirement and wealth management advice provided through OneDigital Investment Advisors. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Atlanta, OneDigital maintains offices in most major markets across the nation. For more information, visit onedigital.com.