Okay, Boomer

I get you’re on the way out: what about Gen Xers?

Acopious of attention has been, and continues to be, paid to the Baby Boomer generation. These folks (1946 – 1964) have been marching off into retirement for quite some time now and represent a sea change in the market place. The youngest part of their cohort is now pushing 60.

Which brings me to Gen Xers. These folks (1965 – 1980) are in their income earning sweet spot and have the reputation of being hard workers with little room for idealism. Individualism, ambition, and an addiction to work — or being a workaholic — are the values with which they grew up. The flip side of this coin, however, is that this generation has also positioned themselves best to be able to make an exit either into retirement or, more likely, their next life chapter.

In our work with our clients, we are increasingly finding individuals in their late 40’s to late 50’s seeking to explore themes like succession planning, sale of their firms, and/or modifying their practices to accommodate a different way of working (either partial or full virtual work, being digital nomads, sharing equity as a way of load leveling the ownership burden, and/or outright sale). These folks are applying the same vigor they deployed in building their businesses to research and implement their next life chapter.

Beyond periodically hearing about the music and fashion trends they loved (I know, I know: popped collars (though these were recently highlighted in the Wall Street

Journal), parachute pants, Madonna, and Depeche Mode) Gen Xers are the generation of workers that are most likely to put together a plan, implement it, and leave a gaping hole in the market place. Here is how we are working with our Gen X clients and how you can be most helpful to them:

• Culture: a lot of us (okay, I admit it, I am one of them) really went through the crucible of working long hours and enduring corporate hazing. We were in an office environment where people were still smoking inside (cough cough), where you left after your boss left at the end of the day, and being salaried was the equivalent of indentured servitude. We learned from this experience how critical a great work ethic AND a positive work environment was and typically pay attention to this aspect of our businesses to be balanced.

• Breadcrumbs: like Hansel and Gretel, our clients (myself included) gravitate to a step by step plan (we were big believers of MBOs). Understanding what the goal is, how to get there, and understanding your progress along the way is part of our love language. Check OKRs (objectives and key results) for the new and better version of MBOs.

• Personal stuff: go ahead, ask. We are the first generation that really has ended up taking care of our parents as well as boomerang kids. When we have our strategic planning sessions with our clients, we ALWAYS ask about parents, siblings, kids, special needs kids, who takes care of Dad if he slips and falls on the icy sidewalk in Buffalo during winter, etc. We have learned that you ignore the personal to the detriment of the business.

Read the room and reach out to this neglected section of the market. They need it and will be grateful for the attention!

Alex Muñoz, Consulting, Solutions & Results.