Five generations make buying decisions today, and each one is searching for something different when it buys. Cam Marston's sales keynote shows your team what each generation wants, how to earn its trust, and how to ask for the sale.
Selling Across the Generations is a sales keynote by Cam Marston, built on his book Generational Selling Tactics That Work (Wiley, 2011). The first rule of selling hasn't changed: know your customer. What has changed is how hard that is when the buyer in front of you could be 25 or 75, and when the decision is often made by a committee that spans both.
It is no longer enough to be personable and know your product. Every generation carries its own biases, values and expectations into a sale. They shape how you should introduce yourself, how often and through which channels you communicate, what your online presence needs to say, and how you ask for the business. This presentation shows salespeople how to read those expectations and sell to them.
Nothing could be further from the truth. What Boomers define as rapport building, Millennials may define as a waste of time. The follow-up call that tells an older buyer you are serious tells a younger one you didn't read their email. The salesperson who sells the way they like to be sold to closes deals with buyers like themselves, and quietly loses the rest.
That is the gap this keynote closes. Your team already knows the product. What they learn here is how the buyer across the table decides, and how to recognize their own generational habits before those habits cost them the sale.
At the center of the presentation is Gen-Flex® Selling: Cam's Gen-Flex® model, which teaches people to adjust their own generational preferences to meet the other person's, applied to the sale. It starts from one idea. Each generation is on a search when it buys. Know which search the buyer is on and you know what will earn their trust and what will lose it. Then flex your own approach to meet it, instead of selling the way you like to be sold to.
Born 1945 and prior. They buy from established, trusted names and prefer standard, proven options to custom ones. They want a salesperson who respects their experience and communicates the way they're used to.
What works: ask for their “rules of engagement,” then follow them.
Born 1946–1964. Often the final decision maker even when they aren't the first contact. They want solutions customized for them, a salesperson who acts as part of their team, and to be shown how a purchase helps them control their time and surroundings.
What works: show them you are working hard for their business, then ask for it directly.
Born 1965–1979. They arrive having researched the purchase already and have little patience for a pitch. They want a straightforward, transparent process, real information, options, and a fallback plan, without pressure.
What works: inform and educate. Earn credibility, and let them decide when they are done researching.
Born 1980–1997 (approximately). They trust recommendations from peers and family over a sales pitch. They want a trusted resource rather than a pushy salesperson, a process that is quick and easy, and a product that is relevant to them as individuals.
What works: be the resource they would recommend to a friend.
Born 1998 and after (approximately). Pragmatic and security-minded. They worry about affordability, job stability and long-term security more than status, and they research a purchase thoroughly online before they ever talk to a salesperson. Digital natives who expect immediate feedback, they respond to sincere, personal engagement.
What works: show the real numbers up front, with no surprises, and how the purchase makes their life more stable, not just better.
Step back far enough and the five searches line up along one continuum. Older buyers tend to think of themselves as part of something larger, such as the family, the team or the institution, and value history, name recognition, tenure in the marketplace and proven quality. Younger buyers tend to think of themselves as individuals, and want to know how a purchase affects their life, what makes it distinct, and what it does for them now.
Most buyers fall somewhere along that line, and the line runs through generations as well as between them. Knowing where a buyer sits on it often tells a salesperson more than knowing their age.
Highly practical and built around your customers, the presentation equips salespeople to:
Generational biases are not ironclad, and birth date does not dictate personality. The point is not to sort buyers into boxes. It is to give salespeople a faster, more accurate first read of the person in front of them, and the flexibility to adjust.
Sales kickoffs, national sales meetings, and sales training events.
Advisor and agent meetings where the client base spans every generation.
Industry meetings whose members sell to multigenerational customers.
Service and account-management teams who keep the customer after the sale.
Based on the client's request or an analysis of its customers, Cam focuses the presentation on all five generations or on the one or two most relevant to the audience. It is available for in-person and virtual events.
Cam wrote Generational Selling Tactics That Work: Quick and Dirty Secrets for Selling to Any Age Group, published by John Wiley & Sons in 2011. It devotes a chapter to each generation as a consumer and a chapter to selling to it, from the first introduction through closing the deal.
The keynote brings that work up to date for today's buyers, including Gen Z, and is tailored to your industry and customers. See all of Cam's books.
Cam Marston delivers Selling Across the Generations, a sales keynote built on his book Generational Selling Tactics That Work (Wiley, 2011). It is designed for sales teams, sales leadership, and customer-facing professionals who sell to buyers of several generations at once, and it is customized to the audience's industry and customers.
Gen-Flex® Selling is the approach at the center of Cam Marston's sales keynote. It applies his Gen-Flex® model, which teaches people to adjust their own generational preferences to meet the other person's rather than expecting the other person to adjust, to the sale. It starts from what each generation is searching for when it buys: Matures search for quality, Baby Boomers for control, Generation X for truth, Millennials for connection, and Gen Z for security. A salesperson who knows which search a buyer is on, and flexes their own approach to meet it, knows how to introduce themselves, how to communicate, and how to ask for the sale.
It can. Based on the client's request or an analysis of its customers, Cam focuses the presentation on all five generations or on the one or two most relevant to the audience.
Birth date does not dictate personality, and generational patterns are not ironclad. The presentation teaches salespeople to read where a buyer actually sits, including buyers born between two generations, rather than assuming from age alone.
Yes. All of Cam's presentations are available for in-person or virtual events and are customized to the audience and industry.