Advice for young entrepreneurs dealing with older experienced business people. 

Walk a Mile in their shoes

The single most crucial step to networking and meeting with new people is doing your research. Going into a meeting with a solid background on who you are meeting with, their accomplishments, their failures, and their goals is your most powerful weapon for leaving an impression. You need to do your research with the intention of seeing through their perspective.

• Why did they agree to meet with you? 
• How do they view you?
• What do they ultimately want to achieve?
• What can you do to help them get there?

If you know the answers to these questions your meeting is that much more likely to be a success. 

Friendship First, Business Second.

If you are a 20 year old entrepreneur speaking with a 55 year old business advisor you might feel like the two of you are on different planets, but the fact is he was 20 years old once, and most likely he’s already been in your shoes. If you’ve done your research it shouldn’t be too hard to find some thread of commonality. Once you find something you have in common, explore it. But make sure to listen first, and speak second. People love the sound of their own voice and would rather hear their own than yours.

Here’s an example:

A few months ago I met with a 50 something business advisor and financier. My ultimate goal was to interest him in our business enough to raise potential funding. However during the 40 minutes we spent together, we spent 30 minutes discussing surfing and different breaks we had surfed in California, and only 10 minutes discussing my business. The end result? A friendship was forged, and the advisor left the meeting with the intention of “helping a friend”, instead of “raising funds for a local startup company”. The difference is astronomical. No matter who you are, what age you are, or what your experience is, you are more likely to help a friend than a stranger.

That said I’m not saying you should babble at the expense of pitching your project, but crafting a friendship can be just as, if not more, important than your pitch. 

Body Language

The second you walk into a meeting with experienced business people, the first thing they’re going to do is make a first impression based off the way you present yourself. To most of these old-timers your body language is everything and they’ll decide whether or not your someone they are interested in working with within seconds. Here are a few tips to help improve your body language:

1. Dress appropriate to the scenario. So don’t show up at a lawyers office wearing jeans, and don’t show up for a saturday lunch meeting at Starbucks in a suit.
2. Walk tall and confidently, don’t slouch or drag your feet.
3. Make sure you firmly shake their hand while looking them in the eye. Show them you mean business and you’re not here to waste their time. 
4. Speak clearly and concisely, do NOT mumble. It is quite possibly the quickest deal breaker for a lot of older generations.
5. Smile! Dale Carnegie often comically blamed the entirety of his success on his smile. There is nothing more inviting than a warm smile. 

1.     Act Big But Embrace your size

The first rule of business is that if you want to sit down with the players you have got to act like a player. Do your research. You need to be as fluent in your industry as you possibly can be.

While admitting that you run your company out of your dorm room may not be the best play, don’t be afraid to show the more humble side of your company. Being a small fish has its advantages too. Figure out what they are and present them proudly.

2.     Never Eat Alone

Networking, Networking, Networking. Business is just the culmination of a series of conversations between human beings and the financial transactions that proceed. Master the art of conversation and you’re a step closer to mastering the art of business.

Include others in your business operations as much as possible. You may be more valuable than you think, when you meet people you need to constantly be thinking  “who can this person benefit from knowing in my network, or who can benefit from knowing this person” not “how can I benefit from this person”.

3.     Embrace your elders

They’ve already done it. They’ve been there, and no matter how smart you are or how solid your plans are you can’t predict the future but you can always learn from the past.

The older you get the more you loving reminiscing, and the older you get the more time you have to do it. Pay your dues and give an ear to an elder whenever you can, I guarantee you’ll learn something. At the very least, if you’re kind and respectful with an open ear they won’t forget you.

4.     Make Mistakes!

Entrepreneur by its French definition means “risk taker”.  Your not here to play it safe, or you’d be working for someone else. Don’t be afraid to follow your gut and take the chance you want to take. It’s the people who take the chances other people won’t who reap the rewards other people can’t.

If you make a mistake and you screw up big time, oh well, keep moving, learn from your mistake and find a way to fix it. Own up for your mistake and deal with the consequences, that’s how you learn.

5.     The Secret

The secret ingredients are perseverance and faith in your self. The combination of those two qualities is the most potent cocktail for success. If you want to run your own company and you want to do your own thing than you have to be able to continue on no matter the obstacle or the mistakes you’ve made.

Along your path to success you are going to find that the more successful you get, the more haters you have. Mo Money Mo Problems. Use them as your fuel. If you truly believe you can and will accomplish your goals and meet your dreams, then you CANNOT be stopped.

Chris and I have been working closely with our school’s entrepreneurship center on developing DGA and trying to raise capital. They’ve been a world of help in regards to mentorship and consultation, and one of their first recommendations was that we register for a series of Business Plan competitions that Drexel offers. I think Chris was a bit more into it than me… I couldn’t really see the value, until now. Check out my post on blogDGA to get a little more information about the latest competition.

We haven’t done so well in the first two competitions (Business Concept and Business Plan), but I am confident that this upcoming event will be extremely valuable. The chance to pitch our plan in front of a focused group of relevant industry professionals and have them tear into us is something I’ve been dying for. I’ve practiced by elevator and cab pitch time and time again and have finally gotten to a point where I’m not only overly passionate about my topic, but comfortable conveying our ideas and concepts to a variety of different people. But I haven’t had any real public speaking practice and now’s my chance. I couldn’t ask for a better audience and I plan on taking full advantage of this opportunity.

I’ve always been extremely social and comfortable in any business environment, and the only one I have yet to explore is public speaking. A lot of the people I respect the most in the industry and Philadelphia region regularly give speeches and presentations during relevant conferences and organizations, and its something I have always looked up to. I cannot wait until I am in a position to speak on behalf of a topic to a group of colleagues and peers and actually be able to offer some sort of value to them.

Just wanted to give a quick post regarding Devnuts.com, our new web development company. Devnuts is basically a merger of web development companies between Chris Alfano, Eric Zhivalyuk, and myself. The three of us are close friends and have worked together for just about the last 4 years and have all done business under a variety of our own business entities which got very confusing for us and our clients at times. Thus spawned Devnuts.

The idea first came up when we realized we were each turning down potentially thousands of dollars worth of projects because we didn’t have the time to take them on. It’s really frustrating to have to say no to someone looking for a website because you don’t have the time to work on it. The idea behind Devnuts is to provide us with a centralized company where we manage our projects more efficiently from a higher level, allowing us to take on a much greater volume of projects.

The three of us have 10 or so independent designers and coders who have worked for us in the past and we have brought them all along to Devnuts. Now when a project comes along that we may not personally have time to handle, we can delegate the necessary parts of the projects to our group of contractors. The idea is to provide a stream of constant work for our independent contractors and develop the Devnuts brand as well as each contractors personal portfolio. We are encouraging all of our contractors to use any of their Devnuts work on their personal portfolios, so they aren’t just doing work for a company that reaps all the rewards.

The idea is far from unique, but its something that’s gonna save us a great amount of time and effort, while still providing a steady stream of income for us and our employees. I’ve spent the past few weeks organizing the standards and protocols necessary to make this sort of thing a success and I’m proud to say as of today we are up and operational. We took on our first client as the new entity today, and have 2 incoming clients later in the week.

Lets hope Devnuts can churn out some nice incoming revenue so we can really start griding on some of the more fun projects we’ve got our hands on!