Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials.

One of my friends graduated in June 2007 and was headhunted for a startup after posting his resume on CareerBuilder. He was 20 years-old and had a choice: do the startup or take the other, much safer offer at a larger company. He chose the startup and joined a team of nine employees who built robots for large firms - in the CEO’s father’s basement.

What I failed to mention is how I met my friend - we’ve been coworkers for the past four months. The startup company was doing great business by building the top robots in the industry - but went bankrupt five months after my friend started due to lawsuits from the CEO’s old company.

But my friend survived his first affair with a startup, and you can too - because startups aren’t that risky. Here are three reasons why…

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A recent graduate of Harvard University, Lauren currently works full-time as a Marketing Associate in the Consumer Products Division at L’Oreal USA. Having spent 4 years as a Social Anthropology major (no, she didn’t study bones and fossils; it’s the study of people and cultures) and a lifetime as someone with entrepreneurial tendencies (at age 7, Lauren was selling her parents possessions, unbeknownst to them, for $1 a piece out in front of her driveway), Lauren decided it was time to put her knowledge of people, her ability to quickly build a rapport with others and her knack for business to good use.

We’ve all been there…
Maybe you forgot to set your clock. Maybe you set it, but you weren’t paying close enough attention and that wretched little dot was in the PM position. Maybe it actually went off… and in your sleepy stupor, desperate and wincing, all you could think about was clicking it back off.

Being late – particularly, being late AND looking like you’re late because you just woke up – is one of the worst impressions you can make with customers, clients, interviewers, and the like. If you’re armed with some quick tricks of the trade, oversleeping doesn’t necessarily mean you actually have to BE late or look like you just got out of bed…

Taking the following actions will get you out of the door in 15 minutes (or less) and, more importantly, could save you from personal and professional embarrassment.

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My son is currently eight months old, he is growing very quickly and he is very healthy little man. But I was sitting here tonight and I thought “Boy, I sure have learned a lot from him!” So, I decided to write down the four business qualities and lessons that he has reinforced in me over the past few months. They are very important lessons and his impression of these qualities are priceless to me.

Sharing them with you is very important to me. And yes that is a picture of my son up top, his name is Caden Andrew Nowak! I hope you enjoy; creating this article meant a lot to me!

1. Forget the bad things!
Have you ever noticed when babies hurt themselves, or get disciplined they are sad for a very short while? But not 2 minutes later they are happy and playing again. They have an uncanny knack for forgetting the bad thing that just happened and moving on to good things.

Us grownups seem to take failure very hard, dwelling on it for days and sometimes longer. Why don’t we just take it as a lesson learned, use the experience as a positive and move on or try and do it better next time?

2. Determination
My son is very determined when he wants something, he will spend hours sometime devising a plan to get where he wants (usually where he shouldn’t!) with a single focus. It rarely matters how long it takes or what’s in his way he will keep going.

Why do we quit when the going gets tough, or stop trying when it gets hard? Hardly anything is worth working for if it isn’t hard to achieve! So when the going gets tough, just think of what a baby would do, and get going!

3. Creativity
There is no imposed limits to babies, they haven’t had societies limits imposed on them yet. They believe and think anything is possible. They live day in and day out creating things and imagining the impossible. Look at home many things people have said were impossible, flight for example.

Maybe a little more creativity could help you in your professional life, I know it could help me in mine. Take those limits off your brain and set it loose for awhile, I think you will be amazed at what you come up with!

4. Loyalty
Babies are loyal to their parents while they are young, they completely believe in their parents as their sole provider and teacher. They look at their parents as hero’s and wouldn’t give them up for anything. They stick by their parents.

Being loyal to your customers, business associates, partners and family is a quality that seems to be disappearing today. Yet I believe it is one of the best traits you can have. I would not work with anyone that wasn’t loyal.

We can all understand how easy it is to get accustomed to the way things are and get into following a routine. Sometimes, it takes a change in that routine to begin seeing things through a different perspective. I recently took a position, similar to my previous position, but with a different company. This change was enough for me to step back and analyze exactly what customer loyalty means. I noticed many differences between the way the two companies were run and it got me to thinking how this effects the customer.

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Picture the average customer of your product or service: how old is he/she? What does he/she do on the weekends? Where does he/she work? If you can’t answer these questions, you probably don’t know who your customer is.

I recently started a blog called Twenty Set which is about personal and professional development for the millennial generation. In truth, I’m not actually writing for all the people in my generation, and on my About page I say exactly who my “customer” (in this case reader) is. Here’s the first paragraph:

“Twenty Set is for people in their twenties who are interested in living their own definitions of successful and fulfilling lives. The Twenty Set is the set of people between the ages of 20 and 29 who want to become their best selves. Members of the Twenty Set are unique and intelligent go-getters who enjoy learning, discussion, ideas, and self-improvement.” (Shameless plug: If this describes you, why not subscribe to my feed?)

As you can see from this description, I’m targeting a small segment of my generation with a technique called customer profiling. Customer profiles are by nature stereotypical descriptions. They don’t apply to every customer, but rather give an idea of who a target customer might be.

Benefits of Customer Profiling

• Better targeted ad campaigns
• Better targeted future products and/or services
• Learning who your best customers are - they are the ones you should work hardest to sell to

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Joey Pomerenke is a pet industry professional and a young internet entrepreneur. He is a member of the YoungGoGetter.com Board of Advisors and founder of PetEcommerce.com, an all-in-one e-commerce solution for pet industry professionals.

While studying business management and entrepreneurial studies at Iowa State University I knew that being an Internet entrepreneur was the only professional route for me. There was only one problem – I did not know a damn thing about web development, or programming, nor did I have the time to learn. I knew there was only one thing I could do if I wanted to succeed as an Internet entrepreneur. Outsource everything!

So in 2004, JP eTail Group LLC, a network of pet supply online stores, was formed and my outsourcing journey began. Outsourcing became the only profitable way for me to run an e-commerce business by myself that was doing 100+ orders a day. Below is some, but not all, of the major business development and day-to-day operations that I outsourced to have a smooth running e-commerce business.

Website Design and Development: I did not know anything about web development, design or shopping cart solutions. I needed someone that could develop “cheap”? high quality e-commerce sites and with ongoing support. We ended up selecting a Malaysian design firm that only charged us $250 per e-commerce store designed. Their design work was some of the best I had seen and their support was even better.

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Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials.

With the US and world pending an economic recession, smart business owners are looking to their own businesses to see how they are going to minimize its impact in 2008. Here are some things to consider in case of an economic recession:

Less Consumer Spending

Depending on your industry, your business may be hit when consumers spend less due to financial troubles. This doesn't affect just expendable products, but also “nice-to-have” services that companies think they can go without, like marketing research or consulting services.

Tip: Make your products and services indispensible by solving problems with your products and services and by developing relationships with your customers.

Less Business Growth

Again, this depends on the industry, as some industries like the food industry will stay constant and a few industries, such as tourism in the US, will grow. Most businesses, however, will experience a loss of sales and have stagnate or declining business growth.

Tip: Prepare now just in case by reevaluating your business budget and cutting back as needed. Consider if you can grow your business by diversifyin

g your customer base. Try moving some business to other industries or other countries that haven't been hit by recession to make up for losses.

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Aaron Kuroiwa is a Young Go Getter member and owner of a LeTranslator a business and legal language translation service that offers professional website translation services.

How to Get Things Done
One of the major factors of success is your ability to get things done. Billionaire Mark Cuban agrees. Recently he wrote a blog post about “Effort�. Now we all know that Mark can sometimes go on rants and be a little crazy but this time he is dead on. No matter what happens the one thing we can control is how much effort we dedicate to achieving our goals and creating success.
However, just exerting a lot of effort doesn’t mean that you are getting things done. You have to have focus and discipline to make sure that the efforts you are making are worthwhile and effective. Mark is right Effort is paramount but let’s take it a bit further and talk about getting things done. When I say things I mean important goals or even small seemingly insignificant tasks that we don’t like but ultimately lead to success.

Productivity Basics:
80/20 rule: 80% of our success comes from 20% of our efforts or clients. So identify that 20% that is making 80% of your success and focus on it. If the other areas show potential, great, make them a second tier priority and everything else 3rd or 4th tier.
Priorities: If you want to get things done you have to have priorities. Otherwise you’ve got a pile of things to do and no order. This comes back to the 80-20 rule. If you don’t know the priority of a work item then you could be doing all of the meaningless task first and the important ones are left neglected and still sitting in your to do list unfinished.

Application:
Alright so all of this theory is great but how do you put it into practice.
1. Identify: First you want to identify your responsibilities, goals and tasks.
2. Get organized: It doesn’t matter how or if you use a system. Simply find what works for you and stick to it. Have a system for keeping track of all of the things you have to do. I like to use index cards and just cross things off as they get done.
3. Plan: If you don’t plan succeed you plan to fail. I know it’s a corny old saying but it’s true. Prioritize and Plan your efforts. Look over your to do list and goals. Separate them into levels of priority based on 2 things. Time and Effectiveness.
a. Time

: First, how soon does this task or goal need to be completed?
b. Effectiveness: Next does this task fall into my most important 20% or is it an 80% task?

Does this task need to get done today or can it wait until tomorrow, next week or a month from now? Alright now you’ve organized to days to do list and put off the things that are not immediately important. You start with your 20% tasks and work done. If you get through the 20% tasks then you start the 80% tasks. If you get through those then you start on the next days or any other extra projects you need to get done.

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Monica O’Brien is a guest writer from Twenty Set, a blog about personal and professional development for millennials. This is her first of hopefully many articles on YGG.

About a week ago my dad send me this email:

Subject: Riot! by Paramore

Message: Get a copy of this CD. There are at least 6 good songs it. My son lent me his copy.

Two things intrigued me about this email: 1) my father rarely recommends products and 2) my brother is 18 years old. So how in the world did my baby boomer father like music written by teenagers so much he sent an email to about 40 of his closest friends and family (of all ages) recommending this CD?

It turns out my dad isn't the only person over 35 who enjoys Paramore. The group has as many parents at the show as they have kids, and the parents love every minute of it. Intrigued, I went to Paramore's MySpace page and listened to some of their sampler music. It didn't take me long to realize this was the same band I'd heard (and liked) on the MTV reality show, The Hills. I also vaguely remember some of the songs from riding in my brother's car over Christmas break.

I checked out their list of hit singles on Wikipedia and noticed they've been gaining speed since the middle of 2007. Judging from their sold-out shows in the UK, I'm predicting they will continue to gain fans and hit super stardom in 2008. There are a few things I believe has contributed to Paramore's snowballing popularity that will serve all musicians (and businesses) well in the future:

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It is very interesting how much we rely on technology in our everyday businesses lives, from computers to cell phones to PDA’s. It has been increasingly more available to keep in touch, or share data and even using to make yourself money. But it is really amazing how far wireless communications has come in the last 5 years. It has come all the way from backpack sized phones to devices smaller than the palm of your hand. I want to discuss all the new advances in wireless technology, and how they can help you in your business life.

I am probably as connected as any person out there today. There is no possible way that you cannot get a hold of me at anytime of the business day, and even after it. If I don’t have my laptop hooked up anywhere I go I also use a device called a Blackberry that allows my e-mail to be sent to me anytime of the day. Then there is the phone I always carry with me wherever I go. They are my lifeline for my business. There has been many deals that could have been lost if clients could not get a hold of me right away.

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