The 6 BIGGEST advantages of being young in business

What's up you guys, it's Graham here.

So, one of the topics that gets brought up so much on my channel are comments along the lines of, "Am I too young to get into business? Am I too young to sell real estate?" People are telling me I should wait till I'm a lot older before I start. What do you recommend?

I personally believe that being young is probably one of your greatest assets that you have right now and how you should leverage that to become successful. Just a little bit of background information on me: I started selling real estate shortly after I turned 18 years old, and I had people telling me the same. They were telling that I was too young, that I was too inexperienced, that nobody was going to trust me to sell or purchase their home, and that I should wait until I'm older before I started.

What I found is that all of that is complete nonsense and that age didn't matter at all. It made absolutely no difference, and if anything, it really helped me succeed.

These are the ways that it's really helped me and what I've noticed. By the way, when I first started selling real estate, I looked really young. Even now, I'm 27 years old, and I can get mistaken all the time for like 20 or 21 years old. So when I started selling real estate at 18, I probably looked like I was 15 years old. Even now, all of this still applies for me because when people first see me, usually one of the first questions is, "Oh, how long have you been doing this for?" And then when I tell them like 9 years, they're like blown away.

So this is what I've noticed in terms of being young and being successful in business. The first thing I noticed is that you stand out. By standing out, you're extremely memorable. Just by being young, I would say you're entirely different from almost everybody else in the field. I know for me in real estate, most realtors that I worked with were probably like at least 30 years old, 35 years old. So me starting at 18, I was instantaneously different, and I really stood out. I made a positive impression on people.

As an example, when I first started at 18 years old, I would hold open houses every single Sunday. What I noticed is that when I was out around town or in random places, people would sometimes come up to me and say, "Hey, you're the one we saw at that open house the other day!" Actually being young really helped me, and that was really such a huge advantage.

If I were more in line with what everyone else looks like, or the average image of a realtor, chances are they'd be less likely to remember me in the future. Just me standing out from everybody else really helped me get recognized and helped people remember me. Even in my office, I really stood out from every single other realtor. I think the average age in the office I originally joined was probably like 45 to 55 years old. So me starting at 18, when they think of an agent or someone in the office, usually they remember you just because you're so much different from everybody else. I think it's a positive thing to stand out in that regard.

The second thing I noticed about being young is that it was very non-threatening to other people I was working with. Other agents didn't have to worry about me like stealing their listings or clients or like breaking into their neighborhoods. They stayed off the west side, so no one had their guard up, and there were no egos that had to get involved in trying to prove something to like some 18-year-old kid who was just starting. None of that, actually. Everyone was so nice and accommodating just because they didn't have to worry about those things or see me as competition.

The same thing with clients. Clients felt very comfortable working with me because they didn't feel like I was going to be sneaky or try to pull a fast one on them or do something slimey. They weren't worried about any of that because, frankly, you're just not capable of doing anything schemy as like some 18-year-old who just starting out. So clients felt very open and eager to work with me because they weren't worried about anything like that.

The third thing I noticed is that when you're young, brand new, and just starting out, people really just want to give you a chance. I've had so many people go out of their way to help me out and teach me what they've learned over decades of experience just because I was young and brand new in the business. Even my first sale, for an example, I think I was about 10 months into the business, I was almost 19 years old, and I ended up selling a house for 3.6 million in Beverly Hills. How I met that client was at an open house. They came in, they liked the fact that I was brand new, they liked the fact that I was young, and I think I reminded him of himself when he was younger. I think he was given a chance when he was younger, so he wanted to give me the same chance he had gotten. It ended up working out really well, and that was my first sale I ever did.

I think if I were a lot older and if I were on the same par with a lot of other agents, it would have been a lot harder to have gotten that sale. But it worked out really well just because I was young. I was really passionate about what I was doing. I was so eager to learn, and I wanted any business I could, and that really worked to my advantage.

The fourth advantage I see of being young is that chances are you have very little overhead. I'm guessing you probably don't have a mortgage. You probably don't have any kids or a wife, or like all these expenses building up. So that's the perfect time to start any sort of business or go into real estate or start like a riskier career because you basically have nothing to lose and very little to fall back on.

Especially if you start a business or if you start to sell real estate and it takes you like 6 months or even a year to really make any sort of income, that's okay because you don't have all these expenses. Chances are if it takes you a while to start earning money, you're not going to end up homeless on the streets because of it.

So exactly for that reason is why I recommend starting in real estate or starting in business while you're young, and you don't have all of these expenses. By not having all these expenses, it just takes the stress off immensely of having to close a sale or having to make money. Instead, you can really focus on learning and taking your time and developing your skills. Usually, when you do that, you just end up making more money anyway, so it all works out.

The fifth thing I noticed about being young is that you know social media really, really, really well. I shouldn't have to explain to you how to use Snapchat or Instagram or YouTube or Facebook or do any of those things. But when I first started, I was telling people and I was teaching them how to put attachments in their email. I had one dude ask, "How do you open up an Instagram page? I was told we need to have an Instagram." It's like, dude, all of you guys watching know how to do all of that already.

For a lot of these people who have been doing real estate for a very long time, they haven't been accustomed to doing anything like that because that just didn't exist 20 or 30 years ago. So the techniques that may have worked 30 years ago don't really work as well now when the internet is taking over and social media is dominating the field. Having a big social media presence online is crucial now, and all of you guys know how to do this. You have a huge leg up over everybody else who's been doing this for a long time who maybe isn't so savvy in setting all of these things up like you are.

The sixth thing I noticed about being young is you're pretty much just a clean slate and that you're very coachable and moldable. Now is the perfect time to build that foundation without any sort of habits or routines that maybe will work for someone else but don't work as well today. Once you get set in your ways, I mean it’s very hard to change and mold and adapt. When you're young, it's so easy to do that because everything you're doing right now is effective for today, and you can really build such a great business and foundation from that.

Now, with all that said, it's still a business, and you still have to treat it seriously and be a professional. Now you are competing with other people who have decades, sometimes, of life experience and business experience over you. So you have to keep that in mind because that's a huge advantage that they have over you. Still be a professional about it, still take it seriously, and remember that this is still a very important business.

So with all of that said, just remember that there are still going to be people out there that are going to be really discouraging, talking down, and giving you all of these excuses. The most important thing you can do is just tune it out. It's completely white noise.

What I've noticed too is that usually when people are that discouraging over something like that, it usually stems from their own insecurities about not being able to do something. Because of their own insecurities, they want other people to fail as well. For them, it's a lot easier to talk down to somebody to discourage somebody than it is to really realize and look within that maybe they have their own issues to deal with.

So if anybody is just overly discouraging to you and telling you not to do something, just try to figure out where it's coming from. If it's coming from a place of insecurity, tune it out and ignore it because it's completely worthless.

So with that said, I hope this video really helps. Thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it. If you haven't already, click subscribe. I'm going to be making a lot more videos coming up, and especially a lot more videos on the remodeling process of my new place. So if you want to stay a part of that, click subscribe. Also, feel free to add me on Snapchat and Instagram if you want to follow me there. Feel free, I post there pretty much daily, so go ahead and add me there.

Thank you again for watching. I really appreciate it. Until next time!