I recently
taught a basic budget class to a group of “Generation Z”, those born between
the mid-1990s and the late 2000s. Most of these students were born in 2000
making them too young to remember the September 11th 2001 attacks, the Global
financial crisis and probably the most foreign to me, these students have never
written in cursive. Are you kidding me? How can they survive without knowing how to write
their name so illegible that NO one else can read it if they don’t write in
cursive? I mean…how can it be called a signature if it is legible?
After this epiphany
my thought process was “they are 2 billion strong and they make up over a
quarter of our population. How can we as a financial industry connect to this
generation? What do we have in common?
Then the greatest
thing happened. One student opened the window for me. As we began to go through the budgeting
process, I asked the students how much they might spend on gifts for others to
which this one student replied, “Oh I don’t buy people gifts” and
then another budget item was, how many of you have pets and how much money do
you spend on them? Again, “she replied, “oh I don’t have any pets”. At this
point, I began to really question my ability to get through, and then it
happened. The next item on the budget
sheet was “charity” giving to which I stated “I PERSONALLY believe in tithing”
and immediately she replied, “OH I love me some Jesus and that I will budget
for”!!! Then the windows of heaven
opened (literally), it was not about what my budget looked like, it was about
what was important to her as an individual. Many students in that room budgeted
for pets, while others saw an “Xbox” membership (didn’t even know that existed)
a necessity.
My being true in
my own weird and quirky way made a connection with her. It also allowed me to understand
that in order to reach this generation our brand must have a personality... Not
a scripted signature. We must look at
them as pet lovers, gamers, Jesus lovers and yes even individuals that can’t
write their name in cursive.
