Perspectives of a Millennial Sales Professional

You’re catering to this “Millennial” Generation in your quest to implement new solutions, aren’t you?

Go on  - admit it! At only 35% of your workforce, why exactly are they driving this need to shift how you create and deliver training, company messages, and get down to business all day long?

Being born in the mid-Eighties means I’m unquestionably part of the Millennial Generation (Gen Y, Echo Boomers…whatever you want to call us). It also means I’m now 4.5 years into my sales career, along with a fleet of friends and classmates now functionally trained and working away in their chosen professions as well, much like all the other generations representing today’s gainfully employed.

Only we’re not much like the other generations working alongside us.

That fact is becoming increasingly apparent to me by the flood of articles that hit my inbox RSS reader every day about how to adapt  learning and communication strategy to meet the needs, demands and preferences of my generation.

Every day I read about how Millennials consume more video than any other generation. How we prefer a collaborative approach to our work. How we are more engaged with learning material when it is delivered online, self-paced and socially.

Why am I reading so much about how my generation works and learns?

Not simply out of self-centered curiosity (though that, apparently, is something we’re known for, too), but because I sell video collaboration software.

To be the best salesperson I can be, I need to understand what motivates my prospects and customers to buy video with collaborative features (which means I watch a lot of videos on sales best practice and aggregate a lot of social sites to keep my finger on the corporate learning pulse).

I use the technologies I sell to become better at selling my technology. And that’s not the only paradox I’m living every day.

Turns out that my generation seems to be THE very reason that software like KZO is being  procured, implemented and embraced by leading companies today (here we go again with that whole “self-centered” theory).

With Millennials continuing to flood into the workforce with no end in sight (and some of the older ones even becoming managers for the first time now), we are steering the boat in a new direction when it comes to the solutions we require from our employers – because we show up on day one, asking where your video portal is so we can get on board with the company culture before our morning coffee.

Ironically Luckily for me, that’s encouraging a lot of Learning, Communication, and Product Management Directors to seek out solutions for video and collaboration or cutting-edge solutions that combine both in ways that are secure, productive and appropriate for their younger teams.

In other words, I am my target market’s target market.

So while four years of selling might not qualify as an “extensive” background in finding opportunities that are the right fit for KZO software, my age seems to lend some immediate credibility with my prospects and customers that probably wouldn’t exist if I were a sales rep most anywhere else.

Here’s another thing I’ve noticed about the overwhelming buzz about Millennials: we’re not the only ones that want video and social collaboration in the workplace.

In fact, I ran across this summary of Video Sharing Usage across age groups in a post from 2020workplace.com and realized that the majority of Gen X’ers and even Baby Boomers are comfortable with online video now:

So if you’re a learning leader teetering on the edge of adopting a new tech strategy, fear not the push for more video and social communication within work groups, departments or the company at large. Even though it’s a no-brainer for your young professionals, you likely won’t be met with as much hesitation as you think by your more tenured experts.

And believe me when I say that just because we might want to leverage that more “informal” strategy for corporate learning and want to get up-to-speed when it’s convenient for our schedule, it doesn’t imply that we’re lazy or want to skirt the system when we’re not in a classroom. In fact, most professionals I know that are my age aim to exceed your expectations at work if they’ve found the right field and position that they are passionate about.

It seems appropriate to end on that thought, and since you’re already expecting me to tie it to an “iPAD” or “tech gadget” reference of some sort, I’ll sum it up by saying the late, great Steve Jobs best described our generation’s approach to work in his commencement speech at Stanford when he encouraged,

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

As for being my target market’s target market? I can’t think of any better way to sell.