Michelle Aran

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Pitching to investors can be a nerve-wracking endeavor for any entrepreneur, but especially so when the investors don't seem to be interested in your idea. Whether they just say “no” or have some negative feedback in regards to your pitch or your product, this type of situation can be a big blow to your self-esteem and your confidence as an entrepreneur. But not earning a “yes” doesn’t have to mean you’ve failed. According to the members of Young Entrepreneur Council, it’s more of an opportunity to improve. Below, they outline the best ways to respond when faced with negative feedback from investors and why doing so will set you up for success the next time.

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The way you start your day sets the stage for the kind of day you have ahead of you. Starting it stressed out or in a bad mood can put you in the wrong kind of headspace for the rest of the day, leading you to make poor decisions or lose focus on the tasks at hand. However, by making a few simple changes and taking charge of your morning, you can start your day off calm, rested and ready to tackle any challenges you may have ahead of you. Here, 10 business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their own routines and how they maximize their time in the morning to not only get in the right headspace for the workday ahead but also improve as a person and leader at the same time. Try implementing one of these habits into your daily routine and see how effective you can really be.

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When you're actively searching for a new career, you know the importance of crafting a compelling resumé. In addition to the expected information, such as work history and experience, there are certain "green flags" that can help your application catch the eye of prospective employers. To help job seekers land that coveted interview, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their experiences on the other side of the hiring table. Read on for 13 attributes that can send your resumé to the top of the list—and the top of a hiring manager's mind.

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Whether it's starting her own tech company or taking on her first tech role as a professional, a woman entering the tech industry can face unique challenges in this traditionally male-dominated field. Not being heard or taken seriously paired with a lack of other women to connect with or look up to can feed into feelings of self-doubt or encourage imposter syndrome—which can ultimately lead women to leaving tech altogether.  In order to succeed, it’s important to stay confident in yourself and your abilities. Below, several women business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council draw on their own experiences facing adversity to share the advice they'd give to any young woman beginning her career in tech and why.

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Your website's landing page is often the first interaction a potential customer has with your brand. So it's crucial to make that initial impression count, crafting a captivating landing page to grab the attention of—and quickly convert—prospective customers. How exactly can brands ensure their landing pages have their intended effect? To help, a group of Young Entrepreneur Council members share tried-and-true strategies to optimize your landing page for maximum conversions.

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A cornerstone of any thriving business’s operations, a company’s human resources department plays a key role in the success of its people. And yet, it can be easy for CEOs to think of their HR departments like their own self-sustaining departments, recruiting and hiring employees without much need for additional assistance. However, just like any other department, HR can experience their own challenges and require the full support of the leadership team (and the company as a whole) if they are to function well. So what can CEOs do to provide that support? Below, the business leaders of Young Entrepreneur Council share their thoughts and outline 10 different ways company leaders can better support their HR teams and why it's so important to the overall health of a business.

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Any successful business has at least one thing that sets them apart from their competitors and that makes customers choose them over anyone else—their core strengths. Determining what those strengths are may require some reflection on the leader’s part, or even some feedback from the team. However, once you’ve determined your core strengths, you’ll likely want to make them even stronger, as doing so will put your company at an even greater advantage over others in your space. But what steps can you take to get there? Below, 12 business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council offer their expertise and recommend just a few of the paths you can take toward improving your company’s core strengths and setting you, your team and your business apart from the competition.

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While email marketing remains a popular and viable way to reach customers, it also has the potential to cause annoyance or get flat out ignored if not handled in the right way. Emails frequently hitting customers’ inboxes that follow the same stale format or provide little or no value often won’t inspire readers to click through—if they even open the email at all. So what should email marketers do? Here, the experts of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the strategies businesses can use to breathe new life into their email marketing efforts and keep their emails from being sent directly to “Trash.”

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It can be said that no professional is ever truly done learning—even ones with years of experience. This is especially true for marketing professionals, as the interests and behaviors of consumers are constantly changing, meaning the way companies must market to them must change as well. In order to keep up, marketers must continue to hone a number of skills throughout their careers, whether that’s through online courses or continued on-the-job training. While not every skill or trait should be given the same amount of attention, there are a few that should make the top of your list. Here, the business leaders of Young Entrepreneur Council share nine skills or traits even the best marketing leaders should continue to work on and why.

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One of the most critical factors that determines how successful any business can be is its pricing structure. A model that both earns high profits and satisfies customers’ needs is one that will support a business for a long time to come. But a model that fails in any way could spell disaster for a growing company. In this way, it’s important to check in on your pricing strategy from time to time to evaluate how it’s performing and what you can do to improve it. To get you started, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council list some of the signs you may notice when it’s time to reevaluate your pricing structure, as well as discuss what your first step should be upon noticing them.

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When you’re an entrepreneur, time management and productivity are key to lasting success. However, finding the time to get everything done can seem overwhelming, especially with the packed to-do lists that come with running a business. Fortunately, in today's technology-forward landscape, many apps are available to help busy entrepreneurs make the most of their (limited) time. Below, Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) leaders share their answers to the following question:

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The modern work landscape is dotted with transient employees hopping from job to job, making the recruitment and onboarding journey a costly affair for employers. With the rise of the gig economy and the allure of diverse experiences, retaining talent has become an uphill task. Yet, within this trend, there are candidates seeking stability and a lasting professional journey—you just have to find them.  Here, 12 Young Entrepreneur Council members explore the strategies businesses can leverage to ensure they're selecting candidates eager to establish long-lasting professional roots.

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It should come as no surprise that a healthy and happy employee is a more productive one. This is why many employers are looking to employee wellness programs to help their team members build healthier habits to improve both their physical and mental health. However, getting employees interested in taking advantage of these benefits means considering their needs and what gets them excited to participate. For a list of perks, policies and initiatives that might spark the interest of your team members, consider the following suggestions from the business leaders of Young Entrepreneur Council. Here, they recommend ideas they themselves have implemented or have seen succeed in the workplace and discuss why they believe employees are so excited to take advantage of these benefits.

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The business world is very different from what it was even just a decade ago. While many business best practices and principles remain the same, the roadblocks and problems entrepreneurs face are not. With major advancements in technology to a cultural shift toward online shopping, the landscape is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate, and many business owners are struggling to adapt. As business leaders themselves, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council have experienced—and are still experiencing—many of these same roadblocks. Here, they outline a number of common issues entrepreneurs are facing today and what they see as good solutions to overcoming them.

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As a member of the executive team, a COO—or chief operating officer—is a key leadership position responsible for the overall daily operations of a business, ensuring long-term goals are met with everyday tasks and initiatives. Because the COO has a hand in nearly every department of the company, selecting the right one could be the difference between a major business failure and a major success.  How, then, can companies ensure they’re recruiting and hiring the best candidates for such an important role? The members of Young Entrepreneur Council break down the answer below by sharing nine tactical steps business leaders can take to ensure they hire the best COO for their team.

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When you start a business as a female entrepreneur, one of your greatest assets is the fact that you are a woman-owned business. Statistics have shown that nearly a third of the general population prioritizes shopping from women-owned businesses consistently. Making the fact that you are a woman-owned business a powerful part of your brand identity not only will help you grow a loyal customer base, but it will also help you connect with your customers on the very issues and causes they care most about. But how can you make this part of your story stand out? Is an “About Me” page on your website enough? Here to share their insights, eight female entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best tips for making your “woman-owned” status a powerful part of your brand and the actions you can take to communicate your story with the business world at large.

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As a business owner, it’s easy to assume that you have to be a nonprofit in order to get involved in the world of philanthropy. However, your business doesn’t have to be centered around a particular cause in order to give back. By building a company culture that values generosity and doing good for the community, you can make a difference no matter what type of business you’re in. But how can you as a leader incorporate these kinds of values into your company culture? Here, nine business leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council offer their suggestions for easy ways businesses of any size can make philanthropy part of their company culture and the impact this has on your employees and your company overall.

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When trying to hire a team with diverse backgrounds and skills, business leaders can be left wondering how to find candidates who are different enough from each other to ensure varied points of view and experience levels but also similar enough to each other to work well together and create a cohesive team culture. Luckily, there are some questions leaders can ask themselves to help make the hiring process a little more straightforward. Below, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss seven of those questions and why they are so effective at helping you determine whether or not someone would be a good fit for your team.

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With the U.S. alone exceeding $1 trillion in e-commerce sales in 2022, it’s no surprise that businesses are looking to innovate in the online shopping space. From more eco-friendly packaging options to implementing technology such as augmented reality and artificial intelligence, there are a number of growing trends that entrepreneurs and industry leaders are excited to see take off in the near future. To share their own insights into the world of e-commerce, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the top e-commerce trends or innovations they're excited about lately, as well as the impact they see those trends having on their businesses or other businesses in the future.

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Every business faces setbacks at some point. Whether it’s a campaign that didn’t perform as well as you expected or a product that experienced major delays in production, setbacks seem to be part of the everyday entrepreneurial experience. What really makes a difference is how you respond to them. Here, 11 members of Young Entrepreneur Council share how they respond when they experience setbacks in their businesses and what steps they take to effectively reset and move forward.

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Launching a new product on social media can be a great way to go to market, but that’s only if you design an effective social media campaign. From creating content to scheduling, building awareness of your new product on social media requires a lot of careful planning and consideration. To help get you started, 14 members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best tips for successfully launching a new product on social media.

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In business, conflict is bound to be a daily occurrence. While no leader desires conflict, as entrepreneurs they often experience it on a day-to-day basis. Differing opinions, struggles with working relationships and team management issues can all lay the foundation for potential conflict, and not all leaders are equipped to handle it. In order to get more comfortable with conflict then, leaders must be proactive and develop a plan to overcome their fears. To help, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared 14 ways leaders can get more comfortable with conflict and be more successful as a result.

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In the digital age, having a website is an extremely important and valuable way to inform customers of your services. However, it’s not enough to just have a website that looks good—the copy needs to stand out as well. Well-crafted, effective copy will help draw customers in and keep their attention away from the competition. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council offered their best tips for making your website’s copy stand out and why each tip is key to attracting customers.

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During the pandemic, consumers who couldn't safely shop in brick-and-mortar stores turned to online shopping instead. Whether it be for mundane tasks like grocery shopping or picking up prescriptions, or more leisurely activities like clothes shopping, these errands could be done efficiently from the comfort of home. But as brick-and-mortar businesses open back up and pandemic restrictions ease or disappear altogether, these businesses are once again looking to draw in more customers. To help, Young Entrepreneur Council members weighed in on what might help increase foot traffic to these stores and continue to keep shoppers invested in the "in-person" experience.