If you don’t understand these 2 major markets, your operation is in trouble!

1. Echo Boomers & Baby Boomers<br /> If you don’t understand these 2 major markets, your operation is in trouble!<br />We all know that the focus today is on the economy. For the most part, businesses within the last fifty years have heard about and focused on the “baby boomers” and their impact on our economy and our culture. Not undeservedly so, as the baby boomers have had more impact in the United States than any generation in the history of our country. However, the echo boomers (18-32 year olds) who numerically are just as large as the baby boomers, and their impact on the economy, are being largely ignored.<br />Consider the following analogy: walking through the jungle of today’s economic culture, you could be surprised by a giant thirty foot economic python. The python would understandably be scary and overwhelming. Upon further examination, by those that didn’t immediately panic and run away, they would notice two huge lumps moving through the python-the baby boomers and the echo boomers.<br />The baby boomers reached their peak spending and earning power within the past decade. Their late forties is when they achieved their highest salaries, and they spent the most money as their children matured and as their families grew to their max...McMansions were affordable because of low interest rates and the ability to buy them.<br />Things are going to radically change for the baby boomers. They don’t need the McMansions anymore. Forget the ability to buy them. Today baby boomers are looking toward retirement…looking to downsize, looking to save… and in many cases they are looking to economically help their echo boomer children, survive these difficult economic times. When have you seen so many “children” living at home?<br />The echo boomers are going through the stages of their life the same way baby boomers did. Think back to when you were 6 years old and you had a pocket full of change. What did you want to buy? Probably candy. What you wanted for Christmas at nine years old was probably different than what you wanted at 12 years old. From 16 to 18 years of age your focus was likely on the automobile you desperately wanted. Many baby boomers made sure that their echo boomer children had automobiles. Not only because they wanted to give them what they wanted but because unlike their parents, both the mom and dad in two parent households were working and didn’t have time to taxi around their children.<br />As the echo boomers leave high school, they move into their first jobs…maybe. If they go on to college, they are spending and learning the same way the baby boomers did…just not during the Vietnam war. The echo boomers get married on average just a little bit later than the baby boomers did at about 27 years old. It is during this time that they leave the nest and get their first apartment or starter home. As they begin to really focus on their career and earn money and particularly as they have children, they are in essentially the same position that the baby boomers were at this stage of life. The key: both their productivity and their earning power are not what they will be twenty years from now.<br />We have a perfect storm. The echo boomers are in the stage of life where their earning and spending power is not at the height it will be in twenty years. At the same time, we have the baby boomers coming out of their highest earning and spending power years and refocusing their consumer attitude on their retirement and savings.<br />Generally speaking, because the echo boomers were cuddled and spoiled in the view of many, they do not have the same attitudes toward achievement and earning large salaries that will provide significant disposable income for consumption that the baby boomers did. They are much more focused on lifestyle and attaining certain specific “things” that satisfy them in the path they are choosing. The echo boomers do not strive to become president of a large corporation, as many baby boomers did. The focus of the echo boomers is on lifestyle and unique personal values. If retailers and business operators don’t understand this, they will miss many opportunities to keep their business relevant.<br />We at Catalyst Analytics are drawing your attention to the two convergences of the echo boomers being in the stage of life of least productivity/income generation and the baby boomers entering the stage of life of saving for retirement (hence less consumption). We want to help you understand how you can make the necessary adjustments to keep your business relevant and successful!<br />View Our Video on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUhaa2bNzB8<br />Catalyst Analytics’ mission is developing smarter business tools for making concise, clear, fast business decisions. Our newly created research and analysis algorithms integrate the major structural changes that have occurred in the U.S. and Global economy since 2008. FACT: If your current decision making tools are based on functional cyclical conditions correlated to structural historical paradigms prior to 2008, you are in trouble. Our tools of insight penetrate present micro-geographic market change. We calibrate and correlate the scope and impact of national demographic, economic, and geo-political change and communicate their significance to our members and clients. While other analytic groups limit themselves to annual historic measurements, our tools and analysis integrate new data points quarterly, some as fresh as every two weeks. Our innovative data collection network allows us to keep our overhead and prices extremely low and we pass those saving on to you.<br />Give us a ring – (888) 600-2370<br />