June’s LinkedIn poll shows a story of immediate desire contrasted with (somewhat) delayed gratification.
I’ll guess that the optimists will say that it means things are headed in a good direction, pessimists will pick out the less-than-stellar buying expectations. I’m going to hedge and say readers of The LinkedIn Personal Trainer have gone pragmatic;-)
Come on – let’s have a look.
Plurality holding off a bit
We might as well get to the slightly larger, slightly pessimistic view first – nearly 45% of those taking the poll are going to wait several years before making a very-large purchase.
And yes, that’s hard to read as “good news”…
More spending sooner
But if you add up the responses of those expecting to make a large purchase between now and 2 years from now – it’s larger.
For every person that is waiting to spend money on that large purchase, there’s one and a quarter looking to do so sooner.
Charts and such
All right – enough teasing about the graph – it’s not like you can’t make your own conclusions when you see the data for yourself…
Last month’s question – visitors were asked to respond to this:
Consider a really large purchase – more than $10k – a house, car, boat, toy(?). How long until you make one?
Results of Large Purchase Poll
Everybody in the game
Consider this angle – nobody said they’d be waiting longer than 5 years before doing something.
That seems to suggest that “the sky isn’t falling” has taken hold. There will be purchases. They may not be instantaneous, but they will be coming.
Isn’t this more realistic?
And here’s my pragmatic side coming forward – if one of the oddities of the decade before the financial troubles of the 2000’s was the huge consumption cycle, could this indicate that at least for some, they’re not simply returning to the “just buy it” attitude?
I’m thinking that would be a good thing – even if it means our recovery comes in fits and spurts.
Next up – when are you going to make a career change?
I like the time scale that this past poll has introduced – it seems to be the right sort of time periods between immediately and later on.
And I know everybody has to do something to manage their careers – even if career progress has been halted for quite a while. So let me ask – when are you going to make a move that you’d call a “career changer”? Now or later? (No, not the candy – I’d really like to know!-)
Find it just over to the right and up.
To your continued success,
steve
—
Steven Tylock
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
Steve,
Great summary and survey. Some facts on who participated would make it more credible to share with like minded professionals in Marketing.
Have a great summer!
Martin
Martin,
Great to have you stopping by – but I’ve got to disappoint you on the details. I’ve previously shown that online poll taking is based on meaningless numbers, and mine are no less important than anyone else’s.
If I start sharing the internet addresses and browsers that viewers use to access the site, it really cuts down on the repeat visits.
(See Chrome Browser Users Most Responsive)
For my proof that these numbers can be made to show just about anything, please read the revised (and original) results of the Great LinkedIn Personal Trainer Poll Poll.
steve
(If a marketer really thought I was onto something here, they should conduct their own (biased) poll to either prove or disprove it with industry-approved statistically valid responses… I’ll appreciate the credit if they bear it out, and duck otherwise…)