For decades, I have spoken at length about, and coached clients regarding, the need for marketing products and services to serve the fast-expanding over-40 demographic. I even devote a chapter to the subject of over-40 business wisdom in my upcoming book, The Ageless Way. Here are just a few *sneak peek* excerpts below.

Everyone from solopreneurs to large corporations needs to recognize that this market is essential to staying in business in the future, or even in the present. Especially important is that Ageless Women themselves are in a unique position to serve this market just as they are in this market to be served. In other words, Gray is the New Green!

 As pioneering David Wolfe observed, “I believe companies are largely ignoring the largest and richest customer group in history for three reasons. First, stereotypical beliefs about older customers paint them as resistant to change, so why bother. Second, there is widespread uneasiness about how to market to older customers, so let’s spare ourselves the pain of failure. Third, people under 40, who are not in the same mental space as members of the new adult marketplace majority, dominate marketing processes. They relate most comfortably to customers of their own ages or younger.”

 Yet, the economy, business, and the workplace are all undergoing glacial change from the status quo, despite a combination of massive upheavals and a constant media focus on the aging Boomer population. Throughout history, chaos and major shifts have always been accompanied by renewed attempts to hold on for dear life to the (false) security of How Things Have Always Been Done. There is an ongoing conflict between the stories of our past and the stories of our future, and the battlefield between them is inevitably our present story…

 My message continues to be “Here’s how to stay in sync with the generation that keeps you in business.” I present to professional and corporate marketers, strategists and entrepreneurs (experienced and newbies) across many sectors. I attempt to wake up those who have the most to gain or lose in market share and reach if they close their eyes to the forty-plus market potential. While sharing my perspective on the truth about their future if they stay youth-focused, I cajole them by quoting popular lyrics like Fleetwood Mac’s “Yesterday’s Gone…Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.” I warn them that they best get on board fast because their ability to monetize going forward will be based on their willingness to serve this enormous force field of new Boomer demand in the workplace, the United States marketplace, and around the globe.

 No matter your industry or field, those who recognize the new rules of the game will reap the benefits and gobble up market share. For starters the new rules are customer-centric, not product-centered, as has been the case for eons. At least until Millennials turn forty, youth no longer rules! But “Prime Time Women” do!

 Let’s get back to the here and now stats that should blow your socks off! Based on a briefing paper prepared by Oxford Economics for AARP it is estimated that “…a 106 million-plus market is expected to grow by over 30% in the next 20 years.” If you snooze, you lose. Any entrepreneur or service professional that ignores the enormous power of the Big Gray already on our threshold might as well kiss their business goodbye. To anyone not paying attention I must ask, are sure you want to leave money on the table by ignoring this forty-plus market?

 If you are not already serving or planning to serve the forty-plus market, you are not only missing out financially—you are missing out on the chance to align what matters with an audience that is consciously choosing companies that are making a difference as well as a profit.

 The aftermath of the Great Recession can seem like the worst possible time to focus your business on your values, but the opposite is true. Boomers are an indication of how your clients are changing. Living your values and focusing on what matters in your business is not only what you need, it’s what the world needs—and it’s what the world is willing to pay for.

 Businesses that want to tap into this trend must shift their focus from value to values, from the bottom-line to the Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet, Profits…

A finding in a Nielsen study projects that by 2017 Baby Boomers will control seventy percent of the country’s disposable income. Whether or not you like Madonna’s style… or that of the millions of other active, engaged, energetic, successful performers over 50 (for starters: Michael Jordan, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Betty White, Denzel Washington, Hilary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Barack and Michelle Obama, Oprah, Nascar Driver Morgan Shepherd, or Yoga Teacher Tao Porchon-Lynch, 96…), there is no doubt that the new emerging story will be written by those marketers and product makers who recognize that it is worthwhile to get beyond the rampant malevolent ageism and misogyny in corporate marketing and product development decision-making.

What ways do you think the over-40 demographic can be best served by businesses? Have you seen examples of marketers already reaching out to this age group and doing it well? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image Credit: Dollar Photo Club

With more people living longer, active lives, we are at a historical crossroads in which the demographics of business environments are shifting. It’s time to drop the narrative that persists about Boomers vs. Millennials battling over jobs, being on different planes or coming from opposing perspectives. It’s time to undergo the complex transformations necessary to modify our connections, attitudes, and work environments to create, as in our best relationships, “great chemistry.”

No transformation is inevitable, however. It is up to all of us, together, to shape the changing workplace for a future which will benefit workers of all ages (hence society as a whole), one, as I discuss in my soon-to-be-published book, The Ageless Way, that is focused on the Triple Bottom Line of people, planet, and profits.

I see signs of this trend toward intergenerational cooperation developing, such as in the egalitarian digital future laid out in Dan Abelow’s book Imagine a New Future: Creating Greatness for All. Despite such progress, however, we need to keep moving forward with unity of intent and purpose, since life and society “can change on a dime.”

I believe multigenerational age-friendly trends are worth developing and will result when we all work together based on common interests and visions for the future. A future that has a place for all of us is one with more genuine connections and fewer artificial barriers, such as those based on age, gender, race, and class stereotypes.

For starters, we can:

~ engage in collaborative multigenerational conversations, hands-on discussions about best practices, (mis)perceptions, inclusive decision-making that supports all ages;

~ explore alternative scenarios and solutions together based on the probable and preferred future, not the past;

~ look at intergenerational partnerships, such as job sharing/mentorship arrangements (which enable two people to be employed instead of one, combine training costs and salary, stretch a company’s dollar and quicken the pace at which younger employees can gain the skills, knowledge, and some experience they need to be more valuable to that company and the marketplace);

~ cultivate environments in which diversity and work-life balance are key (Whether we want that balance because we’re starting a family or because we want time to visit our established families, the outcome is logistically the same. Work locations and hours must be increasingly flexible for everyone, without penalty);

~ encourage people over 60 (and in fact those 40+) to remain employed by starting their own businesses – as encore entrepreneurs (These could be less complex solopreneur home offices or larger operations that would not only remove the competition for the same job between two generations, but would also generate employment, services, and products relevant for healthful, fulfilling lives).

The world in which we are living and working longer demands a new business model to serve consumers, our culture, and our workplace environments. By working together, we can solve, or at least ameliorate, multiple societal problems simultaneously through the specific social missions of companies serving multiple generations. No doubt the formation of more startups focusing on the Triple Bottom Line will have a significant positive effect on the job market, offering a way for all generations to make a living and a difference, and to secure their future and that of the world for generations to come.

Again, it’s the chemistry that matters. Together, we are stronger and can share our skills, knowledge, and creativity to discover more than “just” a new molecule. We can discover — we can create — new worlds. Together, we can engage in interactions that generate reactions which change the story around aging so that we model the new Ageless Way across generations.

In what ways is your company, or another business you are familiar with, already mastering the art of intergenerational collaboration? How are you doing this in your own life?

(Image credit: test-tubes-color-fluid.jpg by r.nial.bradshaw, Flickr.com)