This is what we live on in our business. I just went and added it up 82% of our clients in the last 90 days were repeat customers.
We live by a simple motto around here, “You can shear a sheep many times, you can only butcher it once.”
Sure you might be able to squeeze a few extra bucks out of the client on first pass but at the same time, you create a perception that pursuing such service is not worth it in general, not just via your company. Offer a good service at a reasonable price and you will have a parade of customers at your door.
I’ve never heard that about Generation X, but I’ve heard it about both Y/Millenials (which are the same thing) and about the current post-2000 generation, who are all currently under 10.
If you believe the cyclical theory of generations, Generation Y is in line to be the next “Greatest Generation”.
The problem with that is that The Prince… is a rather crappy political book, all things considered. For one thing, the modern corporate executive doesn’t have bands of mercenaries at hand to enforce his will, so there’s that
For another, it’s most probable the book was either meant to be a subversive tool to get Lorenzo de Medici to become even more ruthless than he already was and thus get deposed or assassinated in short order ; or a satire in the same vein as “A Modest Proposal”, exposing Medici’s ruthlessness as immoral and over-the-top.
One of my teachers once quipped a third option : “The book should have been called Brown-nosing the Prince”. According to him, Machiavelli merely observed how Medici ruled, and wrote a thesis on the why and how it was primo super best statesmanship, for real honest. Because the Florentine ruler really *was *a scary bastard, and old Mack valued his own hide.
I don’t see it. I see a lot of out of shape 20-somethings who can’t hold a conversation if it isn’t via text message and typically need to be spoon-fed exact instructions. I know they’ve been told their entire lives they are supposed to be the next “Greatest Generation” by parents, teachers and advertisers. I’m still sort of waiting for it to happen.
OK, but you realize that the oldest Gen Yers are still only 28 years old right? And that the youngest are still in high school? The idea that we should have “done something” already is ridiculous.
Plus, your generalizations about out of shape people and non-communicative people sould very similar to all of the “Young people today suck!” rantings that happen in every generation.
And while I’m here, I might as well use this post to take a shot at the boomers, who really need to learn to let go. I’m saying mass suicide is the answer, but that “dumbass kid” you’re so quick to dismiss? He or she has got a killer idea that you (the general you) are too stupid to see.
The way I see it, there are basically 4 types of people, Lions, Elephants, Weasels & Sheep.
You can turn an Elephant into a Lion and vice versa and a Weasel into a Sheep and vice versa but you can never turn a Weasel into a Lion or a Sheep into an Elephant.
Sheep are your every day “nice guys”, they exist, they do fine. Weasels are the jerks that everyone knows, who throw other people down to get ahead. Elephants are people who can do great things but their nice guy tendencies end up being exploited by weasels & lions so they never get what’s due for their talent. Lions are those who ruthlessly take power to achieve their goals. Hitler was a lion but so was Gandhi.
Elephants & Sheep are raised the same way, Lions & Weasels are raised the same way. The upside of raising your kid to be well… a douchebag is that they could become a Lion. The downside is that they might become a Weasel.
Note: The above is ridiculously simplified and the real world is a lot more complex. However, I think it’s a useful frame.
Interesting take on this. I have dated a few weasels and couldn’t change one of them! The change must have to take place before a certain age?
I still feel we ourselves the parents are the model our children will follow, good, bad or otherwise. After the rebellious period wears off of course.
There was a song, I can’t remember the title to from the 70’s? It went something like this:
“The cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon,
little boy blue and the man on the moon,
when you coming home Dad I don’t know when,
We will get together then son, I know we’ll have a good time then”
The song ends with, “My boy is just like me”, and I today see the irony of the song. The father was too busy to spend time with his son and the son grows up being too busy to spend time with his father.
One of the best gifts of parenting is to have a child that turned out to be a better person then you did. By far this is the best feeling and worth every sacrifice.
I did say the model was ridiculously simplified and I think one useful addition may be that it’s much easier to change a sheep into a weasel than a weasel into a sheep and that both changes get progressively harder as people age.
Yes, but it is good none the less. It taught me a little about myself. I probably should have stuck with dating sheep as I am what you would consider an elephant. Is this from a greater body of work or study?
You realize that by 28, my grandfather was already killin’ Japs on Okinawa?
Gen Y types get so bent out of shape if you even hint at them not being as awesome as they were raised to think they are. The thing is, what made the Greatest Generation great had a lot to do with the particular point in history when they came of age (WWII). What will prevent Gen Y from becoming the next “Greatest Generation” has less to do with any inherent character flaw in its members and more to do with the lack of a discernable cause to rally to. IOW, there hasn’t really been something to showcase your collective awesomeness as a generation. Sure, you have experienced events like the Dot-com bust, 9/11, two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Great Recession. But none of these have “defined” you in the same way the Great Depression and WWII defined the Greatest Generation and Vietnam and the 60s Equal Rights Movement defined the Baby Boomers.
The again, I could be wrong. As you said, Gen Y is roughly age 16-30 now. At roughly the same age, the Greatest Generation was still enduring the Great Depression and had not yet entered WWII. So maybe there will be some great event in the next few years that galvanizes the country to action against…something. I don’t know.
Shit, my generation (Gen X) is mostly defined by flannel shirts, the death of Kurt Cobain and working in dot-coms in our 20s.
Shalmanese - An interesting idea. Basically your idea boils down to a 2x2 matrix with 2 axis. The x axis is a sort of “ambition/aggressiveness” quotient while the y axis is sort of an “strength/ability” quotient.
Yeah. No offense to you personally, but Gen Xers really got the short end of the stick, generationally. They were seen as lazy forever and now that some Xers are finally getting to an age where they can make a difference, they’re being pushed aside for Yers right out of college with something to prove (I read a great Time or Newsweek article about that a while ago, I’ll try to find it again).
Well said! One thing I do notice in my Gen Y 26 year old son is he is a real nostalgia buff. I brought home some 1980’s Time magazines a client was throwing out and he devoured them. He even watched some of the top 100 movies they listed. He was a bit shocked at “Look Who Is Coming To Dinner”. I think it was from 1960? I explained to him that it was a great movie because it broke through stereotypes. He also watched “Clockwork Orange” but thought “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” should have won the Oscar. Baffling to him was that “Shawshank Redemption” didn’t win an Oscar. It was a cult film for him and his friends along with Duel.
