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• Delaying marriage and starting families. Maybe it's because they've seen so many Boomers end up in divorce court,
so-called challenge of being single in a couples-oriented world no longer squares with demographics.
As a result, Xers also are:
• More stable when they do marry, Xers are about nesting and making a house a home. Today's newlyweds are typically more mature, well-established and have higher incomes than in past.
• Better savers than their Boomer parents. In this they are more like their grandparents. The average Gen-X Moms and Dads start putting money away for college when their kids are 2½, while most Boomers waited until theirs were 7.
• Rediscovering traditional family values. Appalled by moral relativism and situational ethics of their parents' generation--the Clintons were last straw for many young Americans (Al Gore and John Kerry amusing poseurs) Xers similarly don't buy notion that government-as-nanny-state knows best. Their message: It doesn't take a village, stupid, it takes parents!
• Redefining family-career challenge. Boomer women may have opened door to workplace, but their daughters are facing family-career challenge in their own ways. “I have talked to women of all ages about balancing work and family life. What has surprised me most is difference in outlook between women my age, 27, and women just 10 years older,” says Elizabeth McGuire, a graduate student at John Hopkins School of International Studies: “But most women I know who are in their 20’s are dissatisfied with [family-career] alternatives. Concerned about infertility, many of us want to have children while we’re young. And though many of dual-career couples I know who have nannies are wonderful parents and have successful careers, it seems their relationships with each other have suffered. While others debate whether day care is harmful to children, we are more worried about avoiding frenetic pace these families seem to keep.”
In a word: Gen-Xers are unique. They don't do things or look at world way their parents did, and they have to be approached and worked with accordingly.
What This Means To You
Marketing and selling to Generation X is a work in progress. That means you can take what you do best and creatively wing it based on what you know about this unique mar¬ketplace. Declares motivational speaker and author, Sue A. Hershkowitz, CSP, "Look for ways to twist familiar and success will beat a path to your door.”
We say: Gen-Xers may not beat a path to your door, but you can show them way.
Want More? Send questions and comments to w.willard3@knology.net.
Bill Willard has been writing high-impact marketing and sales training for over 30 years—but as Will Rogers put it: "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.” Through interactive, Web-based "Do-While-Learning™" programs, e-Newsletters and straight-talking articles.
