Generational Selling

I've recently read Cam Marston's latest book, Generational Selling Tactics That Work, which deals with differences in the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the different generations that currently compose the adult population of the United States, examining how the differences in culture result in generation-specific buying behaviors, which in turn should lead those in sales and marketing to adjust their tactics to be more applicable to the unique characteristics of a given customer.

Naturally, generalizations such as this are less than perfect: it's foolish to assume that every person between the ages of 45 and 65 have the exact same mental model as one another - it's one of a multitude of factors that contribute to the psychology of a given individual - but similar life experiences have similar effects on those who are subject to them, and considering this from a perspective of age is not entirely a bad idea.

It is reasonable to conclude that everyone born at a certain time was deeply affected by the World War II, the shooting of John F. Kennedy, or the collapse of the Berlin Wall. It is reasonable to conclude that a generation that grew up with the Internet at their constant disposal is significantly different than another that had only newspapers. And it is reasonable to conclude that people who were a certain age at a certain time had many common experiences that had a significant and similar impact on their psychology, making them similar to one another and different to anyone who was not the same age at the same time.

All things considered, a person who was twenty years old in 1950 and a person who is twenty years old in the present day live in entirely separate cultures - it's no longer accurate to look to a younger person and assume "he's the same as I was when I was his age." So it ultimately makes sense to consider generational differences when marketing and selling goods - dealing with a customer of a different generation is as awkward and unfamiliar as dealing with a customer of a different country - and since the two live in the same nation and speak the same language, the differences are often overlooked.

There are certainly other factors to be considered, weighed, and matrixed against the notion of generational identity - but it is certainly a factor that merits consideration in the mix of many others, perhaps much more accurate, reasonable, and meaningful than many of the other factors that are used to segment the market (race, religion, ethnicity, income, etc.).