Engage Generations X, Y, and Z
In the face of the ever-changing knowledge economy; now more than ever, there is no manual for a successful career (however one chooses to define success). After nearly 10 years in the working world, I’ve unconsciously sought and received mentorship from a “crowd” of engaging, successful and extremely generous people. Traditional mentor model The traditional [...]
When you’re interacting with prospective new members, you need to have a convincing pitch. I’m sure you’ve all heard some bad ones. I know I have. The last association I didn’t join didn’t have a pitch; I’m not even sure they had a purpose. If they did, they weren’t communicating it to me, and I certainly wasn’t buying. Naturally, a good pitch includes a [...]
Gen Y does not want to be sold to. But, that does not mean they don’t want to buy things. Quite the opposite, in fact. This generation spends $200 billion annually. Millennials not only want to buy things they feel good about, they want to talk about them, tell others to buy them too. You [...]
Last time we were together, we discussed the disconnect between Baby Boomer centric Associations and Gen X and Gen Y membership recruits. Mainly, X and Y are not joining Baby Boomer centric associations. All is not lost, however. When it comes to relating to X and Y, we don’t have to abandon ship. X and [...]
The Problem The staff and volunteer leadership of today’s professional associations are faced with two related realities. One, Generation Y is on the cusp of taking over from the Boomers as the most significant cohort in the economy, making them the future of membership. And, two, there has been a slow and steady decline in [...]
I recently learned that a Baby Boomer turns 65 years of age every 7 seconds in the United States. Up until now, Baby Boomers have been the majority and been able to successfully provide associations with a continuous pipeline of members. Unfortunately, with the shift in generational demographics, that is no longer the case. I [...]
Did you hear about the guy who outsourced his job to China so he could spend time at his desk watching cat videos and keeping up with Facebook? There are a lot of things to say about this, but my first thought is, “Now there’s a guy who could be working from home.” If the work [...]
Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to introduce you to Generation Y–80 million Americans, ages 18 to 31, who represent billions in buying power. Dreaming of dollar signs? Not so fast. This isn’t an easy sell. Gen Y spends a whopping $200 billion annually yet ignores advertising. They hate to be sold anything. They don’t like [...]
Paul McCartney must have been thinking about dealing with Generation X and Y when he sang ‘Yesterday, all my problems seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they’re here to stay.’ Yesterday, Baby Boomers ran membership associations and recruited Baby Boomers as members. The culture of the association, the processes of the association, [...]
There’s nothing more time-consuming or costly than losing talent. Extra work is pushed off to the remaining employees, and anxiety sets in of whether or not you’ll find a solid candidate to fill the position. What’s even more frustrating is when recent hires switch positions or leave the company altogether, within two years. And given [...]
