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Keep your eyes on the prize by applying these 18 tips. While success is attainable at various levels in a person's career, it doesn't just happen overnight—you have to work for it. You may even hit some bumps in the road along your journey, but any thought leader who has been in the game for a long time knows that business challenges and even failures are simply a part of the learning process.  Here, 18 Fast Company Executive Board members offer their advice to other professionals who are trying to reach their short-term goals of the moment—both professional and personal.

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The following "strategic" patterns may push your company further away from its bottom-line business goals. If your brand's latest promotional strategy is entirely based on a trend that doesn't align with your company's core values and authenticity, then you should probably rethink your plans. You don't need to necessarily keep up with what the competition is doing.  Instead, turn your attention back to what your unique customers' biggest pain points are right now. These often change, so you need to be able to adapt to the specific needs of the people you want to serve. It also means taking your time to do the proper research and letting the data drive your decision-making process so you reach your desired results in the long run.  Many company marketers often struggle because they're wasting their company's time and money on the areas of advertising that don't resonate with their consumers at all. Here, 12 industry leaders from Fast Company Executive Board describe the nature of some of those pitfalls and why they should be avoided if you want to build a brand that is organically successful.

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Consider these areas you may have overlooked. Your business, like many other companies, may be struggling to get ahead in an uncertain economy, but there is hope. You don't have to stay stuck. Pivoting from a negative mindset about what's to come in the future for your business is the first step. Now, you must put a practical plan into place that will help you strengthen your trust with loyal customers and promote brand re-engagement at the same time.  Here, 17 Fast Company Executive Board members propose their best practices to help turn the situation around in no time, even during a slow economy.

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A book can be the greatest business card you’ve ever had, but in order for it to work for you instead of you working for it, understand that writing is only one part of the process.

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If you want to strengthen your professional network, skills and knowledge, making time to attend industry conferences can be a great strategy. As a business professional, attending an industry conference can be a valuable opportunity to learn from experts, network with peers and stay current with the latest industry trends and innovations. Whether attending in person or virtually, these events provide a unique chance to gather insights, ideas and best practices that can help you stay ahead of the competition. Below, 15 Fast Company Executive Board members share some of the big benefits you can gain from attending an annual industry conference, from creating new partnerships to learning new information about your industry. Consider their insights the next time you hear of an upcoming event you may want to attend.

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Create clear expectations and communication so your team will succeed. To avoid burnout in the workplace, it's essential for every leader to learn how to delegate their workload before they begin to feel overwhelmed and off-balanced. However, it takes some time to assess who you can really trust to meet the same expectations and execute your goal. But once you find your sweet spot of handing assignments over to the staff members with enough bandwidth, sometimes the problem is relying on others way too much. It's not always a good practice to let go of too much, too soon. If you are having issues with over-delegation, here is what 11 experts from Fast Company Executive Board have to say about what they've learned about the error of assuming that everything is being taken care of when the leader is away or focused on other tasks. 

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Don't be afraid to get out of your comfort zone and take the next step to increase your personal connections.  Whether you consider yourself an introverted or extroverted business person, it's always key to find a way to expand your network if you want to elevate your professional reputation and knowledge base. It can help you become more engaged in the industry or community you represent and share with others who are not inside your immediate circle. Below, 14 Fast Company Executive Board members discuss their ideas on how colleagues can become open to developing a new mindset and potentially provide resources for those in need through partnerships with other peers.

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Tune out the industry naysayers and lean into solving your target market's pain points. When you're a brand disruptor who aims to provide innovative solutions in an established "business as usual" marketplace, your company and its leadership are bound to ruffle some feathers. To overcome any negativity, continue to stay above the fray and let the data speak for itself. By proactively educating the underserved market of consumers and staying truthful about your business intentions, you'll mobilize a community of ambassadors in no time, who are willing to support your organization's potential and share their personal testimonials.  As you begin to strengthen your client base, remember to put their needs first. But it's also imperative to build bridges by keeping your competitors even closer. At the end of the day, feedback, whether good or bad, fuels inspiration and innovation. This puts your company in a much better position to address concerns, defend its own progress, and defeat the status quo mentality of other colleagues in the field. Below, 16 Fast Company Executive Board members share tips to maintain your clients' confidence in your new establishment and develop loyal partnerships that will last a lifetime.

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While email marketing can provide a great ROI, it has to be done the right way to make an impact. By 2025, the number of daily global emails sent is expected to surpass 376 billion. That's why a good email marketing campaign has to stand out from the noise and truly entice its recipient to open and click through. At the same time, it can't be too pushy or sales-oriented -- you don't want to scare off your customers. Mistakes are common in email marketing, especially for companies new to this marketing channel. Below, 15 Fast Company Executive Board members give examples of some of the biggest email marketing mistakes they've seen and how you can avoid them.

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From freelance photographers for author photos to the perfect thank-you gift for those who provided endorsements, these low-cost tools can make your authorpreneur journey a snap.

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It's a new day in the workplace—with creative focus time increasing and mundane manual duties decreasing. As the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) in the marketplace continue to evolve, more and more organizations are finally starting to see the light.  Whether it's lightening the load for staff members who desire to focus on more meaningful assignments or it's developing a quicker strategy to turnaround data analysis results you're ready to discuss with the team, AI can serve a crucial purpose in helping the business to steadily move forward, improve customer satisfaction and revamp its image. Here, Fast Company Executive Board members weigh in on how their use of AI has help their companies spark innovation and improve business performance.

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Most of the pitches that podcast hosts receive are generic, publicist-written drivel that gets rejected. That’s why you’re much better off pitching yourself than having a publicist pitch you.

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These social media strategies can help your brand drive engagement that ultimately leads to a loyal following and more conversions from your online content. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter allow businesses and leaders to connect to prospective customers with the tap of a button or two. But using social media well has become a skill that leaders need to learn to meaningfully engage with customers. It's not enough to consistently post content; instead, your brand needs to take the time to respond to comments, create engaging posts that resonate with followers and learn more about the audience's needs. Here, 15 Fast Company Executive Board members explained the smartest ways to interact on social media to get the engagement you want. Follow their recommendations to drive more meaningful interactions with your online audience.

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If you're strapped for cash, you can still find practical ways to launch and grow your new establishment successfully. Building a start-up business on a small budget is never easy. But being new to the industry it's important to build the best track record and gain as much positive attention as possible to elevate and expand your company in no time. Below, 15 gurus from Fast Company Executive Board share their time and knowledge about low-cost ways to create a buzz factor of excitement about your product or service.

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Here's how implementing good advice can improve your bottom line in the business world. The success of a well-run business is not determined by its financial performance levels alone, and that is why leaders need to take a holistic approach and consider how each area of the establishment and decisions made about specific contributions to the company can build it up or weigh it down.  As you work towards achieving your financial goals, it's also important to find the right balance and prioritize how to maintain a steady cash flow and make wise choices about how and where to invest your time and money to elevate the organization.  Below are 16 members of Fast Company Executive Board to share some of the best practices they've received about how to manage their company finances.

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The work that went into your book shouldn’t only see the light of day within the pages.

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Follow these tips to attract the right people, gain credibility, and elevate your business. When you are just starting out in the market, it may be hard to achieve immediate recognition as the newest player on the field or compete for clients in a crowded space. To pique consumer interest in an oversaturated space, you can study behavior patterns to carve your niche, but it is going to take more than free product samples or a trial membership to get consumers to support your brand and stick with you for the long haul.  Below, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board offer their advice on how to boost your brand to appeal to clients in the marketplace. 

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When you're excited about your book, it's easy to assume everyone else is, too

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If you're going through a rough patch generating new ideas for your next big launch, consider these tried and true methods. It's no secret that coming up with an innovative solution to surpass the success of your last product or service rollout is never an easy feat, especially when there is always a chance of it flopping in the marketplace if current and prospective customers don't catch on quick enough.  In order to boost creativity in your leadership team and with employees across the entire company, CEOs and managers need to think outside the box to encourage their employees to share their ideas freely in an open work environment free of judgment where they feel safe and supported. And once you lift any mental constraints from their brainstorming process, an endless pipeline of propositions is likely to flow. Nine experts from Fast Company Executive Board weigh in on their approach to gathering employee-proposed projects with the most potential.

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Here are 12 tactics to help you remain level-headed in the heat of the moment. If you're worried about losing a client over an agreement gone wrong or miscommunication, before you go into a meeting reacting impulsively out of fear or frustration, remember to stop, rethink your approach to addressing the misunderstanding, and check your emotions at the door.  At the end of the day, it will strengthen your ability to handle conflict, you'll salvage a key client relationship that may have been in jeopardy, and be appreciated for your professionalism, empathy and willingness to represent your stakeholders in a positive light. A panel of experts from Fast Company Executive Board shares their advice on how to turn a bad situation into a good one and move forward in business.

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Always remind yourself that this isn’t about how many books you sell, but about the right people reading it.

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The business world demands constant innovation, but when is the right time to unveil your "latest and greatest" ideas? Company innovation is an important part of a company’s growth. Without innovation, sales may become stagnant and customers may lose interest in seeing the same products or services offered after a long period of time. To ensure your business seems relevant and continues to excite your customers, adding new products or services becomes imperative. But when is the right time to introduce a new product? When should you launch that new marketing campaign? Here, 15 experts from Fast Company Executive Board shared their best advice for gauging whether now is the right time.