5 Tips To Stand Out As A Young Entrepreneur

Being a young entrepreneur comes with many challenges. In a world crowded with experienced professionals, young entrepreneurs have a hard time standing out.

As a young entrepreneur, I had a lot of trouble standing out when I got started. It took a lot of hard work and strategizing to separate myself from the crowd.

In this blog article, I will discuss 5 tips to stand out as a young entrepreneur.

1. Establish Yourself As An Expert

Regardless of what industry you are in, you must establish yourself as an expert. When people look at you as an expert, your level of credibility goes up and you have something to fight the competition with.

Competitors usually have lots of experience and a large portfolio of work they can showcase. However, many of them have not established themselves as an expert in their industry.

There are many ways to establish yourself as an expert. You can write a book, guide, or pamphlet filled with tips and advice for your customers. You can even sign up for sites like HARO or PitchRate and present yourself as an expert to journalists and media outlets.

Anything that showcases your extensive knowledge base is a great way to start. As long as your customers can see some credibility behind what you say, your chances of standing out will dramatically increase.

2. Stay Professional At All Times

Many young entrepreneurs have a tough time staying professional and let their emotions get to them. Business and emotions never mix!

As a young entrepreneur, you will work with tons of customers and clients. They often pass on the opportunity to work with young entrepreneurs because they want to avoid the unnecessary drama.

In tense situations, young entrepreneurs must always keep their composure and stay professional with clients and customers. Never lose your temper or control.

3. Develop A Presence Online

As young entrepreneurs, we need to leverage ‘new’ technology to our advantages. Young entrepreneurs have to develop a strong online presence through social media, search engines, and blogging.

9/10 people google the name of a person before working with them. When people Google your name, they expect to see nothing bad. Not only that, but they expect to see some good.

If you can build a social media presence, write a blog, and get your name out there on the search engines in a positive light, it will greatly help your chances.

4. Go Above And Beyond Expectations

When customers or clients hire you, they have a set of expectations. While most professionals manage to fulfill those expectations, very few of them are actually able to exceed them.

As a young entrepreneur, great work goes a long way. If you are able to provide services and products that exceed customer expectations, you may open up a lot of doors.

Great work leads to customer loyalty, referrals, and even positive reviews. As a young entrepreneur, you only need 1 person to take a chance on you. If they love what you do, they can open you up to a huge network of people.

5. Be Everywhere 

When I first started out as an entrepreneur, I knew it wouldn’t be easy acquiring customers. I knew I had to stand out, but the road to differentiating myself wasn’t easy.

One of the best ways I stood out as a young entrepreneur was through my ambition to succeed. Any time there was an industry-related event taking place in my area, I was always there. My constant appearance did 2 things:

1. It gave me the ability to impress people who could potentially be my customers and clients by giving me 1 on 1 time with them.

2. People remembered who I was and what I did. Being the only 17 year old at a mixer or conference had huge value for me. People not only remembered me, but they went above and beyond to find ways to help me.

Opportunity can strike at any point of time. By placing yourself everywhere, you begin to brand yourself. By branding yourself through repetition, you begin to stand out as a young entrepreneur and find more opportunities.

Conclusion 

Standing out as a young entrepreneur isn’t easy. However, it’s extremely worthwhile. Some of the most successful young entrepreneurs stood out early and have ridden that success with them decades letter.

photo credit: Philipp Lücke via photopin cc