On the road with the man who's helping businesses profit from our aging population, and building a company of his own in the process
STORY PROPOSAL
Psychologist Ken Dychtwald has become a phenonmenon in business circles, the prophet of new markets and new opportunities created by "the aging of America." But I was skeptical -- the subject seemed like old news. And it was hard to see how Dychtwald could turn his expertise into something more than a personal-services company, a feat that has eluded Tom Peters and John Naisbitt, his fellow stump performers. So I spend a week with the wunderkind on the road, hoping to find out how he could make stale ideas fresh -- and profitable.
C.H.
KEN DYCHTWALD HAS THE FLU. What started as a tickle in the throat while he was driving down the turnpike from Newark Airport has become a burning forehead and throbbing temples by the time he arrives at Community Memorial Hospital, in Toms River, N.J., an hour later.
It's another week on the circuit: four speeches in four days. After 19 years as a professional speaker, Dychtwald has the drill down cold. Scan the setup and schmooze the host. Check the twin Slide projectors, the microphone, and podium, the screen, the lights.
"Being on the road is a drag," he admits. But the show must go on -- as chief executive officer of Age Wave Inc., the market-research, education, and consulting firm he started two years ago, it's his job to keep the company's cash flowing. And besides, even with a fever, the prospect of opening an audience's eyes still raises his pulse. He's been a crusader as his life; now, he's trying to become a businessman as well.
For most audiences, the first surprise comes when he's introduced. This is the "nation's foremost gerontologist?" This . . . boy? Psychologist; author; consultant to Congress, to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), and to CBS Inc., Dychtwald looks more like an athlete -- a gymnast or a diver, perhaps, or one of those implausibly fit California surfers.
His message surprises them even more. They'll be yawning when the lights are dimmed, shifting uncomfortably in their seats at the prospect of an hour and a quarter on the "aging of America." Old -- ugh. Then he'll turn their heads around.
On the podium Dychtwald is a master, one of a handful in the country whose passion and presentation can command $15,000 an appearance. Forget the "graying of America." He talks about the "tinting of America." -- and the market opportunities that creates. Part demographer and part futurist, he can take such cliches as the growing number of American elderly or the aging of the baby boom generation and make them fresh again, give them meaning.
It is old news that by the end of the century almost 15% of Americans will be over 65, but Dychtwald shows just how total a transformation that will create. Take something as simple as doorknobs -- designed for young hands, hands that grasp tightly and wrists that turn easily. As America ages, the knobs on doors will be replaced by levers, designed for older hands. As we become the first nation in history to be dominated by its seniors, everything will change -- movie-theater seats and automatic teller machines, the colors we paint our walls, the speed at which we set our traffic lights. Now is the time to start paying attention to that future, Dychtwald is insisting. Americans over 50 already control more than half of the nation's assets and discretionary income; they are a huge market that most of us ignore or totally misunderstand. What a challenge to American business . . . and what an opportunity.
Working without notes, his jacket slipped over a chair, Dychtwald spins a spellbinding vision of the future, with a new-age promise at its core. He dispels fears, erasing the myth that growing old inevitably means a long, lonely twilight descent -- growing poor or frail or feeble. Dychtwald has spent 15 years working with the elderly, and brings back a more positive report. We can shape the way we age, both as individuals and as a society, he insists, if we seize the day.
Today's audience, 100 or so contributors and board members from Community Memorial Hospital, is smaller than he's used to, and he's working for a reduced fee. But they're particularly important for Age Wave. Dychtwald has been talking in hospitals about the opportunities in elder care for years, but Community Memorial is a customer, not just a client buying his time as a speaker. It has bought an Aging Resource Center, one of Dychtwald's first products -- and products, he's learning, are the key to his future as a for-profit prophet.
Like all the Age Wave products, the $150,000 Aging Resource Center (ARC) is a tough conceptual sell. At its core the ARC is a library -- 10 years of Dychtwald's research cataloged, categorized, and computerized for easy access. To seniors it offers information and peace of mine, and it helps them connect with the vast array of social services available today. By installing an ARC, a hospital can position itself as the market leader, the local hub of an eldercare network. Most hospital executives, however, are already being financially strained by elderly patients; Dychtwald's promise of more to come makes them squirm. To sell the ARC, Dychtwald has first to get them to accept the elderly as the market of their future, a market as potentially attractive as it is inevitable. Then he has to convince them that the ARC is a cost-effective way to reach that market.
It took Dychtwald four months to close the sale at Community Memorial; administrators heard his stump speech twice before they put down their 50% deposit. "Think of it as a franchise," Dychtwald told them. Age Wave will sell only one ARC in a region -- if not to Community Memorial, then to a competitor.
