Allen owns a major transportation company in the Charlotte area. When I met him today for the first time, he had just come from church and was dressed in a pressed, button-down shirt and Dockers. Allen told me how much he had enjoyed the service this morning, but what REALLY impressed him was this young musician who had performed during the service. This young man came in wearing a pair of jeans and a white shirt…untucked…and sandals. I expected Allen to disapprove. After all, he’s a 60-something affluent “Southern Gentleman”. But he surprised me by saying what a joy it was to hear this young man play & how exciting it was to see so many young people attending church, regardless of what they wore. Allen told me a story about a business trip he took to see a client in California more than 20 years ago. Upon arriving at the client’s office wearing a sports coat and a tie, the receptionist quickly showed him where to find a hanger for his coat, and suggested he remove his tie and roll up his sleeves before the client came out of his office. “That’s just how we do it around here!” she explained. See, many of us grew up being told that we had to wear our “Sunday Finest” for church, that we had to wear a suit and tie to conduct business, that we had to look our best at all times in public. But the “California attitude” Allen found 20 years ago has really permeated our corporate culture across the country today. We can’t keep doing business the way our fathers and grandfathers conducted THEIR businesses. We can’t operate on a 40 hour work week, open Monday through Friday from 9a until 5p and expect people to continue doing business with us. It’s why cell phone numbers are mandatory on business cards today. It’s why you have to display all your contact information on the top right corner of your web site…why you have to have a Facebook Fan Page AND a blog AND a Twitter account AND email addresses and so on. Your clients are getting younger and younger. Your prospects and your prospective employees have options, and “Business as Usual” isn’t going to cut it anymore. We have to adapt our selling style to conform to a less formal Gen-Y consumer, and we need to do it FAST! There are dozens of things we can do to ensure that our businesses…our associations…stay relevant to this younger demographic. But the first thing we MUST do is be willing to adapt to it. Is your business willing to change to stay relevant? - Jay Handler is the author of “The 8 M’s of Marketing” and a Consultant focusing on Sales & Marketing. He is available to conduct staff development sessions & to speak to your business or association on a wide variety of Marketing & Social Media topics. For availability, contact Jay at 864.704.5005 or via email at Jay@JayHandler.com today.