Being a Professional to Every Generation, Regardless of Your Own Preferences

• 00:05 Okay, I've been holding off on this part of the course.
• 00:08 Now, I gotta let it all hang out here and be totally candid with you.
• 00:15 There are in fact some generational issues when it comes to how the phone is used.
• 00:20 Different people of different generations use the phone differently.
• 00:25 I'm not here to advocate for any one generation.
• 00:28 No one generation's better than the other, it's just different.
• 00:32 But here's the thing.
• 00:34 If you are in business or running a business or
• 00:38 an employee in a business, with very few exceptions,
• 00:42 you're going to try to appeal to people of all sorts of generations.
• 00:47 If you're in a bigger organization,
• 00:49 there may be people from 16 to 80 working in your organization.
• 00:54 If you have any kind of a business, it could be manufacturing designer t-shirts.
• 01:01 Yeah, maybe most of your customers are 22 years old, but
• 01:04 you might have some that are 75 years old buying something for their grandchild.
• 01:10 Why needlessly alienate any customer or any prospect?
• 01:16 So, I'm advocating that you essentially become multilingual,
• 01:20 fluent in generation speak when it comes to dealing with the telephone.
• 01:26 And different people are bad at different things.
• 01:29 Believe me, I know people, my age and older people who were pitching and
• 01:33 screaming for ten years refusing to use text.
• 01:36 Well, if a client sends you a text question, you should text back the answer.
• 01:41 So that's the fault that people my age and older who are grumpy,
• 01:48 stick in the muds, not open to new things.
• 01:52 That was a problem that hurt them in business communication.
• 01:55 Because let's face it these days you could be 62 years old and
• 01:59 have a 28 year old boss in some corporations.
• 02:02 A 28 year old sends you a text at 3 PM,
• 02:05 they're going to want a text answer response.
• 02:08 If they're in another city or another location or maybe even down the hall.
• 02:15 They don't necessarily want you to get up or walk all the way down there,
• 02:18 send them a big memo or call them, they just want to text back.
• 02:21 So I want you to realize I'm not here as just a grumpy old man
• 02:26 criticizing the young ones.
• 02:28 Old people can be very guilty of not adapting to new technology and
• 02:34 new uses of the phone.
• 02:36 A lot of older people could say, I don't want to do Skype video or
• 02:40 Zoom because of the tech.
• 02:41 They're nervous about the fact that their hair's falling out and
• 02:45 they've got wrinkles and jowls.
• 02:47 So, every age group has certain blindspots.
• 02:52 So, now that I've gotten that over the way,
• 02:55 let's talk about a big problem with a lot of young people in the workplace.
• 03:00 Again, we talked at the very beginning of this course about the difference between
• 03:05 private life, social life, and business life.
• 03:07 I know a lot of people, I have young nieces and nephews.
• 03:10 Where if I were to call them it would be considered
• 03:15 just a ridiculous absurd breach of etiquette, almost obnoxious.
• 03:23 If I were to leave a voicemail message beyond the pale,
• 03:27 it will not be listened to and it will not be returned.
• 03:31 And we get along perfectly fine, we have a fine relationship.
• 03:34 It's just that that's not how people of a certain generation 18, 19,
• 03:38 20, like to communicate.
• 03:40 Of course there are exceptions and of course I'm making some
• 03:45 generalizations here, but I'm just trying to be helpful.
• 03:49 There are certain people of certain generations
• 03:53 where you just don't answer the phone.
• 03:56 It's just not something you do.
• 03:57 You'll see someone called and that's kind of a reminder to send them a text or
• 04:01 you're going to bump into them later.
• 04:03 But you just don't answer the call.
• 04:05 Well, if you do that in business,
• 04:07 you may be fine if absolutely every single person you deal with,
• 04:11 every investor, every client, every customer is your age group too.
• 04:16 But how often does that really happen?
• 04:17 If you have clients, customers, colleagues, investors,
• 04:23 other people calling you, pick up the phone, answer it.
• 04:29 If you're in a critically important meeting, obviously don't.
• 04:32 But if you're not doing something wildly important that takes a 100%
• 04:37 of your attention, answer the phone.
• 04:40 People hate it when they can never get a hold of account representative, or
• 04:44 a marketing director that's supposed to be in charge of their campaign.
• 04:48 They hate it.
• 04:49 They absolutely can't stand it if they're, let's say over 40 or a certain age.
• 04:54 Younger people may think no problem, I'll send a text.
• 04:59 You have to realize everyone is different.
• 05:01 And if you're dealing with a customer client prospect,
• 05:05 they expect you to bend to them.
• 05:08 If they're the ones writing a check, if they're the ones paying you in the form
• 05:13 of being a customer or a client or a boss, they expect you to bend to them.
• 05:17 They don't really care the way you want to communicate.
• 05:19 Sorry if that sounds cynical,
• 05:21 I just think that's human nature and we have to reflect that.
• 05:26 It's selfish to for you to expect people to bend to your needs.
• 05:30 Again, if it's your company and you want to run it the way you want to and
• 05:35 you don't really care If you alienate people, then by all means don't change.
• 05:41 But the first thing I really want to stress
• 05:46 is you've got to answer the phone.

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