A few years back, I attended a convention of entrepreneurs with a respected business journalist who was looking for interesting rags-to-riches stories. Word of his pursuit quickly got out among the attendees, however, and the journalist soon had a posse of people following him around, desperate to share their sagas. So, if you're worried you're doing the self-promotion thing wrong, take some advice. Here are the tips I’ve learned on how to sell yourself without turning people off.

A few years back, I attended a convention of entrepreneurs with a respected business journalist who was looking for interesting rags-to-riches stories. Word of his pursuit quickly got out among the attendees, however, and the journalist soon had a posse of people following him around, desperate to share their sagas. So, if you're worried you're doing the self-promotion thing wrong, take some advice. Here are the tips I’ve learned on how to sell yourself without turning people off.

A few years back, I attended a convention of entrepreneurs with a respected business journalist who was looking for interesting rags-to-riches stories. Word of his pursuit quickly got out among the attendees, however, and the journalist soon had a posse of people following him around, desperate to share their sagas.

Financing tends to be at the top of the list of hurdles for entrepreneurs setting out to start their small business. But, when I started TerraCycle as a college freshman at Princeton University, our original business model of vermicomposting (converting garbage into worm poop fertilizer) came to me only after the Entrepreneurship Club’s annual Business Plan Competition caught my attention with a grand prize of $5,000. After placing fourth (just low enough to finish without prize money), we used the next year to scrape together the money to buy a worm gin and get started.

A few years back, I attended a convention of entrepreneurs with a respected business journalist who was looking for interesting rags-to-riches stories. Word of his pursuit quickly got out among the attendees, however, and the journalist soon had a posse of people following him around, desperate to share their sagas.

Believe it or not, until recently the United States—and a handful of other countries—were shipping a large portion of their recycling off to China. In his beginner's guide to recycling, Tom Szaky, the founder and CEO of recycling company TerraCycle, recommends first reading up on your town or city's recycling system so you don't accidentally recycle something that will clog the system.

Every entrepreneur has a white whale—a challenge or a fear or something that keeps them up at night. But at the same time, something that also keeps them going and striving to push forward. “I think an obstacle is finding time to take a step back. It's very easy to just keep plowing ahead, but sometimes it's important to step back and assess where you are, what progress you've made and where you need to go..."

TerraCycle, a much smaller company, views this as a positive too, because it operates in more than 20 countries. "When you repatriate profits from the foreign subsidiaries into a global company, the tax cut honestly makes it simpler and cleaner," CEO Tom Szaky told Waste Dive in a recent interview.

The drive down New York Avenue in Trenton is like any other drive down the back roads of one of Rider’s neighboring towns. Old, abandoned body shops line the streets and people linger, having conversations on front stoops. At the end of New York Avenue sits TerraCycle, a recycling company dedicated to making the earth a cleaner place by finding sustainable solutions for everyday products.

Each business has a story. No matter if the business is a Goliath like Wal-Mart, or a local business owned by a couple or family, the business has roots in an idea. For each business owner, the story of their journey can range from monetary needs or the passion for a unique project. Each story is different though the reasons may be the same. No matter the tale, the background behind each and every business is what fuels each and brand.