Being a “Young” Business Owner

[climbingmonkey24]

When you were in your 20’s or early 30’s, did you ever notice some people that were in their 40’s and 50’s, or even older, ever referenced you as being “young”. I wonder if some people are surprised to see an owner of what may appear as a “successful” business to be around that age. As if they’re expecting someone to be older.


Truth be told, I’m 30 and I’ve found myself sometimes referring to people in their 20’s as being a kid. Not actually to them, but like in general conversation, etc. Don’t mean anything by it either, and wouldn’t ever want to offend anyone.

I never get asked my age, but once in a while I’ve had things like an older person who may refer to me as “young”. Or today for instance, we recently did a job in a neighborhood where we had a spider lift in someone’s yard. It attracted some attention and a few neighbors have inquired about quotes. I was doing an estimate for one neighbor this evening, and we started talking with the other neighbor across the street who said we did a good job, and seemed impressed by the lift. Idk how old he was, but he had a son who appeared to be in high school. He said I seemed to be doing well for myself for being young.

It’s hard to sometimes differentiate by “young” do they think you’re a kid or something, or is it just the perception of how old you usually expect the owner of a company to be? I figure if someone actually thought you were actually really young, they might just ask you your age.

 

[evo]

I’ve tripped on this quite a bit and have came to some interesting conclusions and bias’s.

Starting off as ‘young’ I was judged and scrutinized more by prospective clients. Some essentially interrogating me to come to some conclusions of of why or why not to hire me. I found that if I was a little rough around the edges I won more jobs. Little things like if I didn’t shave clean and came with worn but clean work clothes I was taken more seriously.

After the years have gone by it’s flipped to some degree. If I’m less than polished I win less, than clean shaved and ‘outdoor casual’ in dress. Here’s the kicker though, is now the vetting is based on if I have a crew members to supervise to do the work. The latter isn’t that frequent yet I’ve noticed a pattern starting to develop, I have enough Northern European blood that my beard would have some red hues that have greyed early.

Saying all this though tree work tends to be a younger profession, where those that stay in it are less of the norm as they age. Be it accents or wear and tear there seems to be more 20/30 something’s than 50+ something’s on crews.