Millennials already dominate the workforce.
They outnumbered the Baby Boomers in 2014, then surpassed members of Generation X early last year.
The world of technology is the only world millennials have ever known, so naturally, your job as an entrepreneur is to harness that technology and make it take you from idea to enactment.
Millennials who follow these nine life rules will be able to easily forge a path to success.
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1. Beware of Digital Permanence
Never has it been more crucial to tread cautiously online and maintain consciousness of your digital footprint.
The development of digital storage technologies establish a level of digital permanence previous generations didn't have to worry about.
Your online identity may inevitably be retained in a digital form for all eternity.
For example, Twitter donated its archive of tweets to the U.S. Library of Congress in 2010, while the Wayback Machine lets you browse old webpages, even for sites that no longer exist.
2. Build a Positive Media Presence
If you're trying to build a positive media presence, then your reputation is your most important asset.
Modern business technology enables you establish a presence in the media without spending excessive money and resources.
Services like LaunchCrew, MediaVantage and Mention offer real-time social media analytics and custom campaigns designed to enhance your brand.
Keep your social media profiles clean and respectable, as you never know when your business may, hopefully, launch you into the spotlight.
3. Follow Your Guiding Principles
Establishing core principles for your business directly leads to a strong company culture.
Your strongest company values should be illustrated in your mission statement, your customer service, and the way you act as a leader within your business.
When Johnson & Johnson recalled every Tylenol capsule from store shelves in the early 80s, it wasn't just one person that made the call, but rather thousands all at once.
According to the Harvard Business Review, the recall decision is best understood, "as the reflection of an organization's culture."
Exemplify the guiding principles your company stands for and engrain these notions into your company culture.
4. Diversify Your Workplace
Millennials are expected to make up about 75 percent of the United States workforce in 2025.
Though this doesn’t leave a lot of room for variation in age, it’s important to maintain a diverse workplace through areas like race, religion, gender, sexual identity and more.
Diversity correlates with lower turnover-related costs and more accurately reflects the society we live in.
The business owners of today and tomorrow must keep diversity in mind during hiring and team-building processes.
5. Collaborate with a Modern Workforce
Approximately one in every three United States workers are earning their income through freelancing. Called the “Industrial Revolution of our time,” this upheaval of nine-to-five jobs in turn for freelance positions is expected to expand over the next ten years.
Freelance workers offer more flexibility than traditional employees and provide attainable resources for entrepreneurs requiring certain skills for specific projects.
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They’re also, in most cases, more temporary, meaning you won’t have to pay for their services long-term.
As freelancers take over the American workforce, think about how you can incorporate them into your business and free up some of the management time and payroll wages you would otherwise spend on a normal employee.
6. Create a Psychologically Healthy Workplace
Millennials value a strong work-life balance. Whether you have no employees and work from home or have 30 employees in a small office, it’s obvious that a healthy workplace increases productivity, performance and personal well-being.
Being involved in your employees’ growth and development, while recognizing their achievements, exemplifies a healthy workplace with a higher likelihood for organizational success.
The American Psychological Association Center for Organizational Excellence offers a variety of best practices for creating a psychologically healthy workplace, but remember to tailor each method to your team specifically, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
7. Reward Healthy Lifestyles
Rewarding your employees for smart lifestyle choices shows you care about their well-being and enhances employee morale.
While the Surgeon General's Vision for a Healthy and Fit Nation calls for prevention and decrease of the obesity epidemic on a national level, many small business owners are taking the fight to the workplace.
According to Harvard University, employer health incentives come in many forms, including gym membership reimbursements, health coaching and insurance premium discounts.
You can even partner with fitness tracking services, such as FitBit and Welltok, to create engaging incentive programs for healthy lifestyles.
8. Monitor Your Finances
The impact of the recession has been engrained into the minds and budgets of most millennials.
If you're starting your own business, you must demonstrate a certain level of financial security and responsibility.
The Small Business Administration offers a variety of public resources to help you manage the financial and accounting needs of your business.
If your business accepts credit card payments, be sure to migrate to the new EMV chip card technology to avoid being held liable for fraudulent transactions.
9. Never Stop Learning
Continuing education may not be as financially lucrative for millennials as their baby-booming parents; however, the value of education is increasingly important to this generation.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 68 percent of today’s high school graduates enroll in college. If you want to stand out from the competition, you should continuously increase the knowledge you hold for your industry.
Tuition-free universities, such Arizona State University's free MBA program or the online University of People, enable you to expand your education with zero out-of-pocket expenses.
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Providing workforce training to employees gives them the skills they need to achieve greater success within your organization.
As your business grows, each of these lessons will play an important role in its continued success.
Above all else, millennials have a symbiotic relationship with technology, which is the greatest resource for this generation.
Follow these life rules to keep your ideas afloat in the ever-evolving world of small business.
What important rules do you live by that have impacted your path to success?