We all like our favorite toys, but few people actually enjoy the complexity surrounding nearly every aspect of life since the beginning of the new millennium. Although ultimately indispensable (there's no going back), responses to much of the high-technology permeating our lives range from bewilderment to bemused contempt, from benign acceptance to overt hostility — even from Gen-Xers. The classic symbol of our attitudes — the old VCRs ubiquitously flashing "12:00." (The best way to fix that? A piece of masking tape!)
Given a choice, all four cohorts prefer products and services that simplify their lives while satisfying their needs and wants, but each wants these things on their own terms.
Try this! Make it easy for the people you want to do business with to do business with you.
- Matures like things prepackaged, convenient, ready-to-use. Luncheon seminars appeal to this cohort, especially if they're in places that are safe, well-lit and easy to get to — malls, senior centers, churches, or synagogues make the cut. Seminar content should be tailored to the attendees (pre-retirees as opposed to retirees, for instance), and stress your expertise; but it also pays to have an attorney or CPA on the program to back you up and provide additional perspective. Be wary of "free lunch" or seminars geared toward/targeting seniors, as state and federal regulators scrutinize these events for impropriety.
- Boomers will expect you to demonstrate how you can help them harness their long-term earning power to achieve a quality lifestyle. Make building a solid financial future a participatory project that they control; encourage networking and sharing inside information, and do not assume the male is the primary decision-maker. Here, too, "workshops" (note the word choice) for entrepreneurial-minded Boomers can provide a relevant, hands-on learning experience.
- Gen-Xers are attracted by interactive planning techniques, providing instant feedback. For them, as well as many Boomers, timesaving communication links, such as cell phones, laptops, faxes, e-mail, the Internet, and your own website make doing business portable, convenient, and easy to access.
- Cyberboomers were weaned on digital technology in the midst of the information age. (They could surf the Net before they could walk.) "Generation Y uses digital media as an extension of self socially, intellectually and emotionally," a study by Saatchi and Saatchi says. "By extending the self in these ways, the new media help young people find their identity." It concluded that digital media act as "power tools" for Generation Y, giving them tremendous access to knowledge.
(Source: "Generation Shaped by Digital Media Presents Fresh Marketing Challenges," by Jane L. Levere, The New York Times, January 29, 1999)
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