Thank You Gifts

"Whether it's cute tote bags, a mug, or cards printed with DIY facial recipes you can make with ingredients found in your kitchen (which is what I do!), give something away. It keeps you top of mind your contacts, and they will be more likely to keep you in mind and recommend you to others."

- Alexis Wolfer | Founder/CEO, The Beauty Bean

Identify Your Ambassadors

"We capitalize on the fact that our contributing writers are all aspiring journalists who are eager to get the word out about their work on our site. We encourage and equip them to share their work by giving them social media tools, and throwing internal contests for sending referral traffic. Identify the individuals with a natural stake in telling others about your business and help them do it!"

- Annie Wang | Co-founder, Chief Product Officer, Creative Director, Her Campus Media

Follow @annie_wang

Do Awesome Things

"We're big time believers that producing, sharing, and creating the best stuff creates the best organic word-of-mouth referrals. People share awesome things, so make your things awesome!"

- Derek Flanzraich | CEO and Founder, Greatist

Set the Expectation

"In our proposals, we include a section that sets the right expectations for referrals to start. In this segment, we state that referrals are a clear part of our business model; to keep marketing expenses down and maintain affordable services, we kindly request the client introduce us to two referrals during or after our engagement. Of course, being remarkable at whatever you do is essential, too!"

- Josh Allan Dykstra | Principal, Strengths Doctors

Follow @joshallan

Offer Incentives

"Give your customers incentives to refer people to your site. Anytime someone purchases/registers and puts in their name/referral code, give them a reward. People will be more likely to tell their friends about something if they get a reward in return."

- Josh Weiss | Founder and President, Bluegala

Ask for Them!

"A lot of companies miss out on word-of-mouth referrals because they're afraid to ask their customers to recommend their services. Don't be. If you provide an excellent product or service and you have customers who are happy with your work, ask them to refer you on LinkedIn or write a product review on Google+ Local or other customer review sites."

- Lauren Fairbanks | Partner, Stunt & Gimmick's

Build the Trust

"Building long-term relationships is the only way to generate a lasting influx of word-of-mouth referrals. A referral is an endorsement, and the outcome of that endorsement reflects upon the referrer. If your clients and partners don't trust you, they will never recommend your services. Building trust with partners and clients will do more than any incentive program could ever do."

- Arjun Arora | Founder @ CEO, ReTargeter

Stay in Touch

"Your clients recommend you to their friends when you're at the top of their mind. If they've spoken to you recently or seen something with your name on it, they're more likely to make the connection. But if they haven't thought about you in a while, they may not even consider handing your contact information out. You have to stay in touch to avoid that problem."

- Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Follow @ThursdayB

Don't Be Afraid

"When a client has a positive experience with your brand, make sure to ask them to tell their friends and family. It’s as simple as that. Just explain that you’d appreciate them spreading the good word. A happy client will be more than willing to tell people about their experience, especially if they remember that you specifically asked them to do it."

- Nick Friedman | President, College Hunks Hauling Junk and College Hunks Moving

Let the Work Speak

"Go the extra mile for your clients. This way, they see quality in your products and see passion you have for your work. From this, you will naturally receive referrals."

- Bobby Emamian | CEO, Prolific Interactive

Are They Satisfied?

"Measure customer satisfaction to make sure you are producing fanatic followers who are then more likely to preach your product for you. We use the Net Promoter Score (On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend X to a friend?) to measure the satisfaction of everyone we support, and look to companies like Apple for a benchmark NPS score. Top companies score above 7; match or better that and referrals will come."

- John Harthorne | Founder and CEO, MassChallenge

Feature Your Customers

"We make sure to feature our customers as best we can. After all, they are our life and soul. Since we sell clothing to entrepreneurs, we have our customers send us photos of themselves in their shirts, and then we feature them as “model entrepreneurs” with an interview about their business on our website. It’s a fun and engaging way of promoting our customers and showing off our products. They in turn share the news with their networks. "

- Benjamin Leis | Founder, Sweat EquiTees

Follow @sweatequitees

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Much has been made about newly minted college graduates and their lack of preparation for the workforce.

But no one talks about the ability of senior-level candidates (of any age) to successfully navigate the job search. It is assumed that they have an easier time due to years of prior experience and an in-depth understanding about what employers in their fields are looking for.

That assumption is wrong.

According to the Career Advisory Board’s second annual Job Preparedness Indicator study, a survey that identifies and tracks gaps between skills candidates have and skills employers need, one in five hiring managers feel that very few senior-level job seekers have what it takes to fill the big shoes left by retiring Baby Boomer talent.

Employers Are Desperately Seeking Higher-Order Skills

The research notes that that the most desirable skills for senior-level candidates include strategic perspective (77 percent of hiring managers), global competence, (53 percent), and business acumen (53 percent). Skills and traits becoming more relevant in the next five years are the ability to be cross-functional (77 percent of hiring managers) and having a working knowledge of technology (62 percent).

However, senior-level job seekers either don’t have or don’t choose to emphasize these abilities. Instead, they tend to focus on skills that are considered more important at the junior level, such as having a strong work ethic and self-motivation.

Senior Candidates Think They Have All the Answers

Why are senior-level candidates so out of touch with what employers need?  One reason might be that they are stuck in the old model of assessing how available positions fit their background rather than the other way around.  And when positioning themselves for new opportunities, nearly 60 percent of seasoned job seekers rely on their own judgment rather than seeking qualified advice from their network and mentors.

Also, many senior-level candidates believe they’ve done all of the learning they need to do, and the job preparedness indicator research demonstrates that this perspective is no longer useful. In fact, 56 percent of hiring managers cite a willingness to develop new skills and grow and adapt on the job as critical to landing a job in the modern economy.

If you’re looking for a senior-level job this year, what can you do to change the tide?

Target Key Senior-Level Competencies

Candidates can do a lot to boost their readiness for today’s senior and executive-level positions. First, ensure that you have meaty team management experience, even if it’s in the context of a volunteer initiative rather than a paid position.

Take advantage of every opportunity to learn how business is conducted overseas in order to increase your global competence. This might involve interviewing colleagues in other countries, coordinating a cross-national project, or working briefly in another country to gain first-hand experience.

Finally, make sure your tech skills are up to par. Learn any new software and securing certifications associated with your industry and understand how social media impacts different organizations and roles.

Brand and Network to Create the Right Impression

To present yourself as a strategic and globally-minded candidate, look carefully at job descriptions and brainstorm specific examples of how you’ve performed at least 75 percent of the listed responsibilities in past positions. While crafting application and marketing materials, try consulting with networking contacts who currently hold senior management titles.

LinkedIn remains the most valuable tool in a job seeker’s arsenal.  Research and join groups for senior-level professionals in your field, and ask and answer member questions so you will be on recruiters’ radar.   Rather than asking new contacts to connect out of the blue, engage them in high-level industry conversation online and offline to establish one-on-one personal relationships.

If you’re also a Baby Boomer, you may want to proactively combat the perception that you have one foot out the door.  Most employers know that Boomers not only have a substantial knowledge base but are also known for their loyalty, so 50+ candidates should highlight their deep bench of expertise, their enthusiasm for the work, and their ability to serve as mentors to the next generation of leaders.

The skills gap is still a reality, but in honing and marketing the attributes that are most desirable to employers, you can narrow it effectively — and ensure your own future employability.

Alexandra Levit is a bestselling author, speaker and consultant who aims to help people find meaningful work and succeed beyond measure once they get there. A former nationally syndicated columnist for the Wall Street Journal and an adviser to the Obama administration on workforce issues, Alexandra is lucky to count Microsoft, American Express, Intuit, and DeVry University among her current clients.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Using our consumer-facing platform, 4MeNU, nsight2day helps individuals and organizations truly engage with one another. Using innovative tags, users can share information with their network in context. We call these messages Gems. Follow her @stephbeer.

Who is your hero? 

My grandfather, who is Swiss (this makes sense if you know me).

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Don’t be low-end. This means low margin, but it also means don’t behave badly. The other piece of advice I love is don’t “trade up” when it comes to who you spend your time with. Your friends matter more than ever when you’re starting a business, and just because you meet flashy people doesn’t mean that the originals aren’t worth their weight in gold for you as a person and an entrepreneur.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

We were a B2B team that tried to build a B2C platform. Stick to your strengths. Also, build a few similar offerings for several different types of client/customer groups and then see how hard it is to sell to each. There are big differences between selling to an individual, a university, and a Fortune 500 company. Each is a unique challenge; you may be better or, um, less well-positioned to sell to them.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

Yoga. Setting your mind straight can make or break your morning.

What’s your best financial or cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started?

Always try to pay based on performance and limit all your fixed costs. Try not to sign a lease (that goes for yourself and for your business).

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Stop going to tech meetups (unless you’re recruiting) and start talking to more senior people who have decades of business experience. More pointedly, stop listening to people who have launched successful businesses by “asking my friends from my financial services days to invest.”

There are a lot of people who are professionally/socially well-positioned to win in the startup environment, and their stories aren’t that interesting or helpful to most entrepreneurs. Actually, just avoid the whole “founders cult” to the greatest extent possible (this gets back to staying close with old friends).

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

When we have consistent revenue that covers our costs and lets our original investor make his money back (and returns that are greater than or equal to the returns he would have gotten had he put his money into an index fund) — that’s it.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

“He sounded so capable in the interview!”

“I just don’t know what happened. It seemed like she had exactly the right experience we were looking for!”

“The whole team loved him, so we just went with it.”

Perhaps you’ve uttered these words yourself, or heard them from a hiring manager who is experiencing frustration and buyer’s remorse when a new hire turns out to be a dud. Hiring someone who fails to meet expectations is a huge headache, especially when it was your job to vet them in the first place.

But there are ways of making sure that you don’t get snowed by someone who is good at making a first impression, but bad at delivering results. Here are the key things to do when hiring that’ll guarantee you never hire a dud again:

1. Make them show, not tell.

After your initial screen of incoming candidates, you should have everyone that you are seriously considering do a trial task that is representative of the work that they’ll be doing if hired. The point here isn’t to get free work done from candidates, it’s to see what they will actually do when presented with certain goals and constraints.

Choose something that takes two to three hours, requires a familiarity with relevant skills, networks, or industry knowledge, and will force them to draw upon resources that they’ll have at their disposal while working for you. Simulate a mini version of their work as closely as possible.

If I were hiring a director of development, I may ask them to a) identify a likely funder of my organization, and b) outline a proposal to see how they organized their approach. If I were hiring a manager of partnerships, I would have them a) identify three new organizations that they think would make good partners for me, and b) ask them to show me how they’d make first contact with these organizations.

Tell the candidates they can ask you questions as they are working on the trial. Good people will nail the project, but great people will hit it out of the park after clarifying a few things with you and asking for guidance on key points.

Have all of the candidates do the same task, so that you’re comparing apples to apples. You’ll find that only the most motivated candidates do the task, and you’ll immediately see who is more thorough and puts time into it. You’ll also see whose judgment is most aligned with your actual work. You can teach skills, but judgment is hard. Design the task to show how good their judgment is.

2. Be painfully thorough.

Everyone likes to ask things like, “What would you do in this situation?” or “How do you think we should face this challenge?” These questions show insight into how a candidate thinks and reacts to your organization’s realities.

Far less popular are the simple, boring, background questions—the grungy details of their past work—that actually illustrate what they’ve been able to accomplish. By the time someone is a finalist under consideration, you should be able to answer each of the following questions for, at the very least, their last three jobs:

• What were they hired to do?
• What resources were they given to work with?
• What challenges did they face?
• What outcomes did they create, or what accomplishments did they achieve?
• Why did they leave that role?

If you ask these questions to your top two or three finalists, you will get a much better sense of which of them has actually accomplished more relevant things.

Yes, this takes time. Yes, it can get boring. But until you have a clear sense of these things, you don’t really know what you’re dealing with in their history. It’s easy to assume things about someone’s past; it’s harder to take the time to uncover those details. This is critical information.

3. Be consistent.

Whatever your interview process, make sure it is consistent across all incoming candidates. Choose your interview questions wisely, and seek help on this if you aren’t sure what to ask. Once you have the questions, you should develop a basic rubric—even if it is qualitative—so that scores are at least mostly consistent across interviewers and across candidates.

When you are narrowing in on finalists, you should have them interview with your entire team (if it’s small enough), or at least everyone they will be working with closely. Make sure you give your team members specific, unique questions and rubrics to use, otherwise they’ll likely ask repetitive questions and re-run the same conversations with the candidate over and over—which limits your ability to get new insights and further evaluate how good of a fit that candidate would be.

4. Resist optimism.

The biggest mistake the hiring managers make is being optimistic, hoping that this candidate is “the one” and not objectively trying to determine if they really have the skills and background required to do the job. Making idle small talk, using favorite “oddball” questions (e.g. “If you were a kitchen appliance, which one would you be?”), and spending too much time selling them on the opportunity are all unhelpful things that hiring managers do when they are clouded by optimism and eagerness to hire.

And the opposite isn’t smart, either. Using hardball questions, intimidation tactics, and giving trick questions or tests are equally unhelpful.

The best approach is to be calm, measured, balanced, and consistent. Your gut reaction to people is relevant, but is not substitute for measured due diligence. Take your time and be thorough—you’ll thank yourself later!

Nathaniel is co-founder and Managing Partner of Strategy at ReWork, a Colorado-based start-up that matches exceptional professionals to jobs at for-impact companies. In this role Nathaniel is responsible for team coordination, strategic partnerships, brand evolution, and new service development. Nathaniel is an Unreasonable Fellow (’11) and a StartingBloc Fellow (’10), and holds a Masters of Science in Strategic Leadership toward Sustainability.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Danny Boice is the CTO of Speek – a 500 Startups funded startup that let’s users do conference calls with a simple link (speek.com/YourName) rather than using phone numbers and PINs. A serial entrepreneur and executive, Danny started his career as a software engineer working for startups like Network Solutions and MusicMaker.com in the 90′s. Danny founded his first company, Jaxara in the early 2000s (exited via acquisition). Danny attended Harvard and is a guest contributor to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Fast Company and Pando Daily as an expert on startups, product, technology and user experience. He was recently named a Tech Titan by Washingtonian Magazine.

#StartupLab is a free virtual mentorship program created by The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of hundreds of America’s most successful young entrepreneurs. #StartupLab takes YEC’s mission to help more people start successful businesses to the next level by offering millions of entrepreneurs direct access to YEC members through interactive video chats, email lessons and a library of how-to articles, videos and eBooks. Whether you’re just starting up, a current business owner, or you run an organization that supports entrepreneurs, sign up for #StartupLab today for real-world advice from some of the coolest entrepreneurs on the planet.

Don’t forget to check #StartupLab tomorrow afternoon at 3 p.m. Eastern (12 p.m. Pacific), when Danny will answer your questions live via video chat.

Photo courtesy of Danny Boice.

Make FuseDesk a Feature

"My teams use FuseDesk to handle incoming requests, assign cases and track case history. The app links directly to an Infusionsoft account so we don't spend a lot of extra time trying to remember who is emailing for support, what they bought and when it was shipped. It's all integrated making it easy to send a template response. The system cut our response time dramatically!"

- Kelly Azevedo | Founder, She's Got Systems

HelpScout Helps Out

"We use HelpScout to provide a technical help desk for students of our online school. To them it means simply being able to request help by email -- no logging into a dashboard to see updates or followups. For us, it means we can provide greater personalized support, really get to know students and manage all requests in one place -- no cluttering up inboxes, yet still providing that personal touch."

- Lea Woodward | Founder, Inspiring Ventures

Take It to Twitter

"No matter what's going on, our team is always on Twitter -- and so are most of our users/readers. They resort to it if there's any trouble and it gives us an opportunity to answer back, help out, and throw in some personality."

- Derek Flanzraich | CEO and Founder, Greatist

Segmented Customer Support

"Providing customer service throughout the day will only break up your day and take focus away from the stuff that's making you busy. Instead, take an hour in the morning and an hour before you finish for the day to close out all customer service requests. By doing this, it becomes a game, as you work diligently to finish in that specific time slot you have allocated for customer support."

- Todd Garland | Founder, BuySellAds

Follow @toddo

Real Time With Olark

"Olark gives us instant access to our customers and since users want to chat right away, it's a good way to force us to talk with them and remember that they are the most important part of the business."

- Wade Foster | Co-founder, Zapier

It's a Team Effort

"For many businesses, customer service may be easily shared among all members of the organization. Addressing customers' needs is something no one should be too senior to do, and spreading the load will ensure that no customer feedback goes unaddressed. It's a model worth trying out if you're overburdened with customer requests."

- Doreen Bloch | CEO / Founder, Poshly Inc.

Figure It Out Face to Face

"Establishing genuine relationships with clients needs to be a top priority for all leaders. Yes, this means taking time out of your "busy" schedule and really asking them for feedback over coffee, drinks or dinner. You should likewise create opportunities for group client engagement. Results from a facilitated focus group at my company produced the "pivot" that we now credit for our success."

- Christopher Kelly | Co-Founder, Principal, Convene

Give Access to Real People

"As long as someone human has heard a concern and has made it clear that it will be addressed, most customers can be a little flexible about how long it takes to fix an issue. But the human touch is key to getting that room to work from your customers — if they feel like they haven't been heard, they're going to keep hammering until they get a response."

- Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Follow @ThursdayB

If It's So Important, Create a System

"If customer service is truly a top priority for you, then you should have systems in place to ensure quality control. Record and review all client interactions with your employees so they can constantly improve, and hold each employee accountable for customer service standards."

- Nick Friedman | President, College Hunks Hauling Junk and College Hunks Moving

Stay Steps Ahead

"Always be prepared and be a few steps ahead of your client to guide them in the right direction. With a team that's great at project management and account management, you can seamlessly stay in contact with clients, updating them and building their trust."

- Bobby Emamian | CEO, Prolific Interactive

Create a Process Checklist

"Documenting procedures and processes are key for us. We have developed a checklist called "The Customer Experience" in our office. This makes us more in-tune to consistently deliver our vision for how a customer should feel after doing business with us, no matter how busy we get. We make sure every client we have has experienced each step of the checklist before proceeding further in the relationship and project."

- Kenny Nguyen | Founder/CEO, Big Fish Presentations

Remember Their Importance

"Ultimately, our businesses exist to serve our existing customers, not to create products or to attract new customers. Both of the latter two items are important, but not the most important. By reminding yourself of your priorities, it makes it easier to set aside the time to serve them well."

- Elizabeth Saunders | Founder & CEO, Real Life E®

Follow @RealLifeE

Keep Up Communication

"It's not so much important what you say, but how often you say it. Customers, clients, and people in general love to feel that you are aware of their presence. Providing good customer service isn't all about being pleasant, but also just communicating often and allowing your clients to feel validated. So whether it's staying on top of emails or phone calls, make sure you respond often and quickly."

- Steven Le Vine | CEO/President, grapevine pr

Make It Natural

"Build a team that has natural customer service skills. Personally, I don't have to get as involved with customer relations because my team is awesome and cares about each of our clients."

- John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

To give you an example, YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. According to an oft-cited story, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party.

When you’re solving your own problem or one that you feel is the pain point of a certain target audience, how do you know whether there is a large enough pool of people that face the same problems or challenges that you are trying to solve? If you’re just selling a product, you’re better off creating it and getting it to the market. But if you want to build a business out of it, you need to have a sizeable market for scalability.

So the question is, how do you determine the market demand for your startup idea? Read on for several ways to get the answers you need.

Google

Yes, it can be as simple as looking it up on Google. Haven’t you heard that Google is God? It has most of the answers that you are looking for. So how do you get Google to help you? Use the Google Adwords keyword tool to look for the number of people seeking out what you’re trying to do.

Put the keyword(s) in the search box, select the target country or countries and Google will show you the number of average local and global monthly searches. This is a good indicator of demand.

Minimum Viable Product

“Market research and business planning are overrated. The best market research is putting a product out and seeing if people will buy it. The best business plan is to create something great and sell it fast,” says Guy Kawasaki.

Writing a business plan with projections through market research is a sure-shot way to a startup doomsday. Nothing beats an actual customer using your product or service. So how do you get to the customer when you’re at the idea stage and don’t want to spend a huge sum building something they might not want?

Build a minimum viable product or a prototype. The idea is to put out something that offers the core value or your startup or that solves the core problem of your customers.

The MVP could be a PowerPoint slide, a dialogue box or just a landing page. This is something that you can often build it in a day or a week. A prototype can be an actual functioning product with the core features offered.

Share this with your network and see the response. Are people excited to use it? Do they actually feel their needs or problems are resolved by using your product? Is it easy to use?

Landing Page

You don’t have a product yet but still want to get customer buy-ins? Then landing pages are your best friend. Create a teaser or promotional landing page, which highlights the core proposition of your startup.

Ask for their email addresses in return for an offer or simply to be updated about when the startup is launched. Here’s a great example of a landing page that does just that. The number of email subscribers will determine how many people are interested in your startup. Try using Launchrock to create your landing page. Or use KickoffLabs.

To increase traffic, one method is to create a Google Adwords and a Facebook marketing campaign. Point the adverts to this landing page to drive traffic. Use Google Search and Network Partners to spread the campaign among a huge number of people.

You would much rather spend a little money to be sure than spend fortunes building a product that customers don’t want.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is an excellent means to get actual buy-in for your product. This concept has increasingly becoming popular with the likes of Kickstarter, RocketHub, Indiegogo launching their platforms on the Internet that bring together startups looking for funding and individuals who are interested in contributing towards an idea or a product.

Apart from securing funding for your startup, you also get to know how many people are actually interested in your product or service. Interested enough to pledge their money. Here’s a list that showcases the most funded projects.

Whatever be your path, make sure you build on something that your customers want. As Kawasaki puts it, “This isn’t rocket science. It’s mostly hard work and luck.”

This post originally appeared on the author’s blog.

Rahul Varshneya is a startup coach and the co-founder of Arkenea, an enterprise mobility and cloud solutions provider. He writes on starting up and mobile strategy at http://rahulvarshneya.com/blog.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Question by: Ashley

Don't Dwell on the Past

"The worst thing you can do after you or "your brand" has suffered a personal setback (e.g. public failure, integrity loss) is to dwell on it. Anything you think you've screwed up, you can always fix, but it's up to you. Take action -- go start something new and ignore the haters. Just start somewhere. Start a new company, or a new project. You're your own worst enemy in these type of situations."

- Matthew Ackerson | Founder, Saber Blast

Own Up to What Happened

"The best way to bounce back from a screwup is to be forthright about what occurred. Be an open book with your customers, clients and fans, and send out an email or other update about what happened and how the misstep was made. Your honesty will strike a chord with your followers, and you may find your "mistake" is no big deal in their eyes."

- Amanda Aitken | Founder and CEO, The Girl's Guide to Graphic Design

Follow @amandaaitken

Don't Lose Momentum

"As you strive to rebuild your brand, continue to network inside and outside your organization, and take on new projects that will restore your confidence. Take stock of what went wrong and how you can prevent a similar outcome next time. Assessing the situation honestly and talking about your insights will put the scandal in its proper context, and allow you to start anew without regret."

- Alexandra Levit | President and Founder, Inspiration at Work

Seize Your Moment to Shine

"A screwup can sometimes be an ideal opportunity to showcase your other strengths. Acknowledge the mistake, but focus on how you'll take action to remedy it going forward. An aggressive recovery can help to build an even better relationship with those you offended."

- Michael Tolkin | CEO, Merchant Exchange

Keep Showing Up

"After a screwup, it's natural to want to hide away, take some time to focus and energize. That's often what people will expect you to do. Do the opposite and keep showing up. Be better, be bigger, be bolder. People will soon forget the screw up and focus instead on what you've achieved since then."

- Lea Woodward | Founder, Inspiring Ventures

Frame the Situation Constructively

"It's important to admit mistakes, but how you do so is important. Try to draw parallels to larger truths, such as, "We are human and we still make mistakes," or "Software is never perfect," etc. Then, follow up with a personalized statement: "But we learn each time and pride ourselves on never repeating past mistakes." Reframing the context helps people understand that perfection is unrealistic."

- Kent Healy | Founder and CEO, The Uncommon Life

Follow @Kent_Healy

Make Up for the Mistake

"If you are truly at fault, it is imperative that you admit the mistake immediately in order not to hurt your long-term reputation. Then try to show goodwill by going above and beyond to make up for it. For example, let's say you billed someone twice by mistake. You should not only immediately refund all their money, but you should also give them something free on top of an apology."

- Patrick Curtis | Chief Monkey and Founder, WallStreetOasis.com

Monitor the Media

"Although customers will accept an apology, you must monitor the media for any negative reviews about your brand. Be ready to provide a positive response and let the public know what you have done to avoid the mistake from happening again."

- Nancy T. Nguyen | President & CEO, Sweet T Salon

Make That Phone Call

"I haven't personally ruined my brand or reputation (that I know of), therefore, I can only suggest a few things that I would do. First off, make a few phone calls to your top clients and ask for their recommendation and testimonies for future and immediate reference. Second, I would amend the situation promptly, this could include redoing the job, or simply asking for that second chance."

- George Mavromaras | Founder and President, Mavro Inc. | Praetor Global LLC.

Ditch the Excuses

"Mistakes are actually an opportunity to enhance your personal brand. When you screw up, don't try to make excuses --acknowledge that the mistake was your fault and be clear and direct about it. In these moments, you can exhibit your character for openness and honesty. People love doing business with open and honest people."

- Eric Bahn | Founder, Beat The GMAT

Follow @beatthegmat

Readjust Your Brand

"The first step after a screwup is to update all of your social media accounts reflecting your stance. Then, own your first page of Google real estate by using BrandYourself to optimize your social media search results. This service ensures your message is in front of the general public."

- John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Assess the Damage

"Often times, it's after a big screwup or setback that you have the most clarity on where you're currently at. Use this as an opportunity to take an honest look at the direction your brand has taken, and then move forward from there. The best step you can take towards rebuilding it is to remind yourself exactly what it stands for."

- Sean Ogle | Founder, Location 180, LLC

Follow @seanogle

Play the Offense

"When you find something online that you don't like about yourself, the first thought is, "How do I get rid of that?" The honest answer is, you can't. So get on the offensive and litter the web with positive proof of your personal brand. Be consistent across all platforms and just be yourself -- your personal brand will shine through."

- John Meyer | Founder/CEO, Lemon.ly

Follow @johntmeyer

Own Your Mess

"Mistakes happen. The only people who truly get tarnished are the ones who try to spin it. People see through the BS and don't trust you enough to even let you make a mistake again -- let alone, do anything good."

- Brent Beshore | Owner/CEO, AdVentures

Follow @BrentBeshore

Fix It Before It Happens

"Unless you've worked to build your brand before it happens, it's a tall order trying to repair public perception after a screwup. If you're already using your social networks to organically highlight the passion and expertise you have for what you do, your community will be forgiving (within reason) as you make mistakes. Just be honest and take ownership for your part in the mistake."

- Pete Chatmon | President + CEO, Double7 Images

Follow @@petechatmon

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

The answer is simple — you turn them into strengths. Everyone always talks about how retaining youthful characteristics like curiosity and optimism is a great way to succeed. Why can’t those who truly embody those characteristics also reap the rewards?

Why Your Age Is Actually an Asset

As a twenty-something Canadian entrepreneur with a funded startup and past experience at a well-known social news company — who was literally thrown into a pit of extremely successful American entrepreneurs — I’ve had my share of challenges and benefits as the new (and incredibly young-looking) kid on the block. People sometimes view the fact that I’m “too young” or “don’t know enough about life” as a flaw, but I actually believe it’s helped me succeed.  When you have no knowledge of the boundaries that exist, you’re able to think bigger; you’re able to be truly and genuinely audacious. That kind of bold, optimistic creativity doesn’t come from being jaded or experienced; it comes from being completely unaware of what lies ahead of you.

Even more so, young people have the fresh ability to learn new skills quickly and retain a ton of information at a time. You can learn a language in a month while you’re younger, but when you’re older, it’s much harder to pick these things up. I try to take full advantage of that, and I’ve seen it happen right in front of me in the tech space. Young people are changing the world through their combination of youth and entrepreneurship. They’re able to establish multi-billion dollar companies because they just don’t see any boundaries, and they can adapt to an evolving landscape quickly.

Young entrepreneurs sometimes tell themselves, “I’m young. No one is going to take me seriously. I don’t have enough money. No one is going to let me do this. I don’t have enough knowledge.” You can solve all those things yourself, without doing anything absurd or fake, like growing facial hair, putting on more makeup or trying to “sound older.” No one ever gets very far by pretending to be something or someone they’re not. The older folks in the room will see right through that, and that’s far worse than being young. Here are three ways to get others to take you seriously — despite your age — while still staying true to yourself:

1. Trust your instincts

Entrepreneurship is inherently instinctual – you’re devoting your life to something unknown and ambiguous. Your decisions and “strategy” are most often a culmination of your basic instincts and parallel, but not directly relevant, data. It’s a very subtle feeling that can be mistaken for many other things – but once you can focus on it, you’ll find your decisions not only for the best, but consistent and wired to your thinking. That intuition, in turn, shapes the vision and culture of the organization you are trying to build. Deviating from your instincts brings unrest not only for you, but among your stakeholders as well.

2. Use your youth

Being young isn’t all about age. It’s about curiosity, capacity, and ultimately, your limits. Test them. There might never be a time in your life where you can stretch your mind and your physical capabilities to their maximum without consequence. As a result, you can leapfrog your success, build amazing products, and live life to its fullest while bringing others along with you.

People often ask me, “How has your youth prevented you from achieving certain things?” I almost always view my youth as an enabler rather than a barrier. Many will assume the latter simply because business/experience/age has gone hand in hand in the last decade. But with the Internet, we are no longer operating on a linear curve of growth of knowledge and numerical age. We are now living in the era of exponential knowledge.

In fact, the younger you are, the more likely you will be viewed as innovative. Don’t conceal or hide your ideas – let them flow and mingle with others, especially during the conception stage. Being young is finally a good thing in the consumer web space. Let’s all make sure that we continue to honor the stage that has been set for us, and continue to innovate incessantly.

3. Generate serendipity

If you create your own luck, there is no sense of reliance. I really, truly, believe in people who understand how to build the right relationships,  thrive in the right environments, and believe in their own capacity and propensity to create. The last few years of my life contain a string of events that came from taking a few extra forks along the path of my life — forks where I could have chosen to simply stay still. The doors that open for you may be just the serendipity you need.

For me, being a young entrepreneur is all about asking how I can make things happen by actually executing on my word. Many young entrepreneurs like to talk. I like talking too, but I’d rather show and prove my abilities. The challenges really aren’t challenges at all unless you view them as such. It’s all about perspective.

Brian Wong is the CEO and co-founder of kiip (pronounced “keep”), a category-creating mobile rewards network backed by Relay Ventures, Interpublic Group, Hummer Winblad and others. Kiip has raised over $15.4 million in funding to date and was named one of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company in 2013.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.

Josh Weiss is the Founder and President of Bluegala, an online retailer of prom dresses, evening, party, and cocktail dresses. Previously, he worked for Lehman Brothers as a High Yield Credit Research Analyst. Josh graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.S. in Commerce with a concentration in Finance. Follow him @bluegala.

Who is your hero? 

Steve Jobs.

What’s the single best piece of business advice that helped shape who you are as an entrepreneur today, and why?

Match and exceed. Always keep a close watch on your competitors and make sure to match and exceed them in everything they do.

What’s the biggest mistake you ever made in your business, and what did you learn from it that others can learn from too?

When we first launched Bluegala, we placed a large order for lower-priced dresses before doing any research to see if we could actually compete in the market selling them. In hindsight, we should have placed a smaller order and tested the waters with a small PPC campaign. The lesson learned is to walk before you run and test everything.

What do you do during the first hour of your business day and why?

Check orders from overnight and go through the previous day in Google Analytics. I do this to keep a handle on what’s selling and if there are any issues. Google Analytics helps me to constantly get a sense of where our traffic/sales are coming from and if there are any red flags causing consumers to bounce off the site.

What’s your best financial/cash-flow related tip for entrepreneurs just getting started? 

Bootstrap your business for as long as you can and try to scale it from there. If you eventually need money, you want the business to be as profitable as possible to get the best valuation, and you want to hold onto the most equity you can.

Quick: What’s ONE thing you recommend ALL aspiring or current entrepreneurs do right now to take their biz to the next level?

Dive into your analytics. If you don’t know what to look for, there are tons of books and blogs that can point you in the right direction.

What’s your definition of success? How will you know when you’ve finally “succeeded” in your business?

I define success as being one of the dominant players (if not the most dominant) within a certain industry or niche. Success is accomplishing what others were unable to accomplish and thriving where others have failed.

I will know my business has succeeded when Bluegala is the go-to resource for social occasion gowns. We have had a lot of growth since our founding in 2009, but there is still a long way to go before we establish dominance in the sector. Each year that passes allows us to learn more and more about what it will take to establish dominance and I am confident we will get there eventually.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses via live video chats, an expert content library and email lessons.