Tag Archives: millennials

Brooke Chesnut Interview


This interview is with Brooke Chesnut who discusses all things Millennial relating to the workforce. Did you know by 2025 75% of all employees will be millennials?

Brooke Chesnut has dedicated 30 years to building successful Sales, Sales Leadership, Training, Consulting and Mentoring programs for multiple industries in Colorado.  He is an expert in guiding small & large organizations through the challenging generational issues that confront all companies today.

He specializes in transforming Millennials from being a liability into an engaged productive employee.  In todays workforce the Millennial factor has become the single most talked about challenge for any C-level executive.

How do we attract the best Millennial talent?  What processes need reviewing and why?  How do we retain Millennial employees?  These are only some of the issues that keep executives awake at night and for good reason.  By 2025, 75% of the US workforce will be occupied by the Millennial generation!

As of 2015 millennials are the largest generation surpassing the baby-boomers in numbers.  By 2025 75% of all employees will be millennials.

You always want to attract the best employees so it is important to know how to attract the best millennials.  The employees you are hiring now will be the leaders in your companies in the future.

Understand differences in millennials to attract, retain and train millennials.  Many are interested in professional growth and improved skills.

Brooke mentions he wasn’t great in his first sales job but a mentor took interest in him and helped him.  The mentor kept him accountable and held him to tasks.  The mentor suggested books to read. This reminds me of the book “The Go Giver”.

The millennials are hungry for knowledge so they can be receptive to mentoring.

When mentoring ask millennials how do you like to give and receive education and communication.

Millennials are looking for a work life blend rather than a work life balance.  Millennials like flexibility, I’m thinking who doesn’t when they are thinking about their own time. Millennials are the most educated generation having access to the internet for most of their life.

Millennials are multi-taskers which reminded me of the suggestion of working on something for only 25 to 45 minutes before taking a break.

Dual mentorship and reverse mentorship.

Most companies have a corporate ladder but millennials are looking for a corporate lattice.  Which allows them lots of experiences across an organization.  Many of the layers of management are now gone so millennials are looking for a lattice instead.  (Multi-directional career path)

Companies should focus on having:

  • creativity
  • flexibility
  • collaboration
  • teamwork, team project

Millennials embrace texting at a level never before seen.

Millennials expect instant feedback or at a minimum acknowledgement that a message or document they sent was received.  An example is hearing something back from them.

Greatest Fears of Millennials

  • Not getting professional development from employers
  • Not getting enough feedback – they want acknowledgement and they want to know now

Importance of a mentorship program

  • Giving or passing knowledge through to the younger generation
  • The millennials are starting to get bored because of the single direction mentorship is taking them – company should come up with reverse mentorship/dual mentorship (the younger intern hired is now a partner)
  • Mentor the older partner to be relevant in social media – connect to younger generation
  • More trust, communication, creativity

Millennials want to see videos/instructional videos – they want to be social versus a face to face meeting.

Voicemails are practically obsolete now – millennials prefer instant messaging and following up.

Companies using texting as a feedback

Millennials are inevitably invading the country with their progressive thinking and technology.

If you had a video on a landing page of your website, your will have a 68% chance of sales.

Companies that were financially rewarded because of mobile phones

  • Instagram
  • Uber
  • Airbnb

Hire the best…

Book/Reading Suggestions

Brooke suggests reading Jean M. Twenge’s book Geneation Me, Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled–and More Miserable Than Ever Before.

In this book, Dr. Jean Twenge explores why the young people she calls “Generation Me” are tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious but also disengaged somehow. This is the book company owners should read to understand more about millennials who mostly run the business for them.

Dr. Twenge utilized feedback from 11 million respondents to reveal shocking truths about this generation and their impact on the progressing society as a whole.

There are also some great articles on Business Finance Magazine, one from Jeff Schwartz which tacked about shifting from the corporate ladder to the corporate lattice.

To contact Brooke Chesnut, visit www.BrookeChesnut.com or email him at Brooke@BrookeChesnut.com or 719.425.5099 to directly call his office.