John Nail

In 1998 Red Herring Magazine described me as a “technology geek trapped in a middle aged insurance man’s body”. Cute and not far off. However my technology pedigree goes back further than that which is what gives me a different perspective on the digital world we now work and live in.

My interest in technology stems from my father, a self described ‘gadget” lover who spent 35 years at Zenith as Director of Public Relations. Zenith was truly a technology pioneer. I remember him giving me pieces of fiber optics that you could bend and read the newspaper through and cubes of transistors to play with when I visited his office.

As a kid we had the latest and greatest of everything, including the first color TV on our block. That HDTV you are watching today they invented the technology for 30 years ago and the remote of today was called “Space Command” in the late 1950’s. Cable television began as a Zenith funded project in 1962 in Hartford, CT.

I started my first career with Unionmutual/UNUM Life in 1975. As a sales manager managing sales and territory statistics on yellow pads was not very effective and my interest in business efficiency and sales management led me to buy an IBM XT in 1983 to help me better manage and grow my office in Washington DC.

As a result of success here (doubling the office in 2 years) I served as the technology liaison between the sales and marketing organization and home office from 1984-1992. In this capacity I worked on a wide range of technology, sales automation, database and business/administration and reengineering projects.

Most importantly, as it turns out, I was exposed to some very interesting tech folks at UNUM who found a sales guy interested in technology as a real oddity and took me under their wing. They turned me onto modems (2400 Baud) and the “online” world. I started using bulletin boards and AOL both in the mid 1980’s. In fact I have paid my bills on line since 1987 starting with Prodigy.

I was a little late to discover the web, early 1993, but knew immediately that it would be transformational when I helped my 7th grader research a paper using a German university's online archives on medieval medicine.

In September of 1995 right after Netscape and Amazon went public, I started my second career and wrote the business plan for Employease. From 1996-1999 I served as CEO and then Chairman.

A subtle, yet critical point, is that we did not start Employease as an Internet or a tech company to get rich off the Internet bubble. We started it to solve employer's real life business problems - managing the DNA of their business- their employees.

The Employease Network is a native web application and online portal for employers and employees to manage all their benefits online in one place and connect electronically on the backend to their insurance carriers. I was fortunate to be able personally bootstrap our first year then successfully raised over $17 million of capital in three venture capital rounds to fund the company's growth.

As it turns out Employease, now a decade old, was a pioneer in on demand computing offering its services online in late 1997. The company has consistently been an award winner with publications from the Red Herring (1998, 1999, 2000) to Forbes (2001, 2003, 2004) and Business Insurance magazine (2004, 2005) as the top employee information system. Employease is the only mid-market HRIS in the Gartner “visionary” quadrant (1993).

In the fall of 1999 I left Employease and founded digitalBenefits to focus more on the information flows of HR and benefits rather than the essential DNA of employee records. My vision was to make it as easy to access HR/benefits information as it is to use an ATM machine. In mid 2000 I got to experience the dot.com bubble bursting and rather than getting venture funding I had to sell the company and a license to its flagship product benefitsATM™ to Authoria the world leader in personalized Web-based communication. I ran their mid market business until July of 2001.

In August 2001 I relaunched digitalBenefits as a consultancy focused on business strategy, product strategy, marketing and e-commerce for the key business stakeholders in the employee benefits supply chain. My diverse clients have run the gamut of the employee benefits supply chain. They have included several brokers, insurance carriers and technology solution providers like Insurance Engine (now High Roads), Search 401K, ProAct, Sunaro, benefitsCONNECT, BenefitPoint and RewardsPlus in the fall of 2003.

In February of 2004, following 6 months consulting with the company, I joined RewardsPlus as Executive V.P. of Sales & Marketing with responsibility for sales, marketing, public relations and market development. We built a great team of over 20 professionals, including an experienced regional sales team, retooled the company’s branding and image and implemented the infrastructure to support our growth.

Over the last 2 years the company grew its fledgling benefits administration business from a handful of beta clients to more than 60 employers with over 500,000 employee lives including Nissan, Learjet, adidas, Ogilvy & Mather, Microsoft Licensing, Wet Seal, Tuesday Morning as well the State of NC Flex plan.

Of equal importance, building on our theme of 100% customer success we evolved the image of RewardsPlus, online voluntary insurance broker into RealLife HR – a true on demand HR and benefits enrollment, communication, administration, consumer driven healthcare and outsourcing platform.

To support this sales growth and marketing campaign we needed a sophisticated sales and marketing business infrastructure and turned to Salesforce.com to meet those needs quickly, completely and cost effectively. With Salesforce.com the company has evolved a sophisticated and multi-faceted email marketing program to consultant and employer partners and customers.

The goal of these newsletters is to build brand awareness and credibility for the company’s new benefits administration and outsourcing services. The campaign alternates a thought leadership piece with client success stories reaching over 30,000 industry professionals monthly with a 23% readership rate as tracked in Salesforce.com.