In a recent blog post, "Why Millennials Struggle For Success", well known psychologist, author and MacArthur Fellow Angela Duckworth, explores the question many experienced business leaders and managers ask as well: What’s wrong with Millennials? Why do they keep changing jobs? Why do they complain when work needs to be taken home over the weekend? And so on.
She asks if it’s because they don’t have enough grit. Duckworth believes the secret to outstanding success is not talent but rather a special blend of passion and persistence called grit. Duckworth developed a Grit Scale and now has scores from thousands of Americans where her data reveal that grit and age go hand and hand.
So what do we do with those Millennials? Today, Millennials make up one third of the workforce and in four years time they will be half. With the average age of the US B2B sales rep at 40 years old, millennial sellers are, or soon will be, the future revenue generators and business leaders for their firms. Smart sales and marketing leaders realize that status quo communication, management approaches and tools will fail to inspire, and are adapting their enablement strategies and tech stacks to resonate with this important group of employees.
Are you interested in learning new ways to enlist, inspire, recruit and retain your millennial reps? If so, join my upcoming webinar with Sales for Life’s Jamie Shanks and InsideSales.com’s Gabe Larsen, How to Engage, Enable and Manage Your Millennial Sales Rep.
By specifically delving into values, priorities and motivators for the millennial rep, we’ll provide go-to-market and other business leaders with a more complete picture of what makes Millennials tick. We’ll also share cross-industry examples of how the most innovative companies capture and share the collective knowledge and best practices of tenured employees and invest in ways to accelerate the development and career progression of their high performing Millennials.
Are you a Millennial? A Boomer? An X or Y? Do you have what it takes to be successful? Here’s Duckworth’s Grit Scale. Let me know how you do!
Mary Shea is principal analyst serving B2B marketing professionals at Forrester Research. Read more Forrester blogs here.
