Bruno Guicardi

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Here are key strategies to grow in confidence and strengthen business relationships.  Contrary to popular belief, a successful, savvy business person is not necessarily always the biggest extrovert in the room. Improving your active listening skills and post-meeting communication strategies also play a part in capturing the attention of peers or direct reports regularly. This is key to building stronger team relationships.  By leaning into what makes them a little different from their outspoken counterparts, introverts are likely to have a positive impact in their place of business. If you're an introvert in the workplace and unsure about how to leverage your "superpower" as a reserved business professional who wants to get ahead, below, 18 experts from Fast Company Executive Board offer their tips on how to build your comfort level in engaging with others and being an effective communicator.

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Whether you're building a small, medium, or large business, developing a credible company reputation that potential clients and customers can rely on is what truly matters at the end of the day. If you are just starting in business, it's oftentimes difficult to book and retain your first major client if they're not familiar with your work.  Below, 20 Fast Company Executive Board members weigh in on the best ways to exceed customer expectations and create long-lasting loyalty—giving you the boost in credibility you need to win over potential clients.

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Implement these tips to quiet the noisy holiday promo rush and bring attention back to your company.  “Keeping up with the Joneses” seems synonymous with the ability to maintain a successful brand among some of your biggest competitors in a tight economy. Pulling out all the stops, especially during the busy season of holiday advertising campaigns, company leaders are striving to compel consumers to pay closer attention to their business' latest products and services. Based on their own experiences, the experts from Fast Company Executive Board realize that if you're trying to build long-term customer loyalty and strengthen positive brand recognition, sometimes it's not about following the latest holiday trends at all. Instead, it's about understanding what your clients and potential customers need right now and how remaining authentic as a brand can better demonstrate a company's ability to deliver satisfying results that urge people to return throughout the year. Here are 18 suggestions they highly recommend other leaders to explore.

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Leaders discuss the rise and impact of online businesses. For small-business owners, e-commerce is a game changer—connecting startups with 24/7 access to ideal target markets at a rapid pace. If you want to be a standout, it's essential to differentiate your brand of products or services by offering a unique value proposition and a seamless online shopping experience to encourage return customers.  Knowing that a potential customer is just one click away, business leaders and their teams must also do a deeper dive to determine the underlined meaning of customer behavior patterns and tailor, as needed, to the individual e-commerce experience. Below, nine Fast Company Executive Board members explain how the pros of e-commerce (mainly) outweigh the cons and help businesses meet their bottom-line goals.  

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While specialization and standardization through mass production drove business success for 150 years, the same approach is unsuited to 2023's digitized economy.

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A successful webinar will engage, educate and possibly persuade its target audience and keep the host top of their mind for their future needs. Webinars have become an increasingly popular tool for businesses to engage with potential clients and customers. However, simply hosting a webinar is not enough to ensure success. To make a lasting impression and achieve desired outcomes, businesses must use best practices to create engaging and informative content that resonates with their audience. Whether it be educational or persuasive, effective webinars require careful planning, preparation, and execution. To that end, 15 Fast Company Executive Board members weigh in on some of their best practices for hosting webinars that are useful, relevant, and valuable for potential clients and customers.

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Here's how to write winning word copy that encourages a call to action. Creating compelling content is a lot easier if you're already developing quality products and services.  Standing confidently in what your brand represents and delivering an authentic copy message backed up by tangible results will make a difference to your target customer.  To engage your audience even further through a broader range of platforms, it's beneficial to speak directly to their needs and provide them with the expert information they are seeking to overcome business challenges and improve their client success rates. If you dread the copywriting aspects of your business, 14 Fast Company Executive Board members are here to help you get started, whether you're writing content for your website, social media platforms, email marketing, or advertising.

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Here's how employers can find a charitable organization to sponsor this holiday season and beyond. During the holidays, in particular, many company leaders often consider how their establishment can lean in to assist with funding or volunteer its time to support a charitable cause, in the spirit of giving.   But what is the best way to choose the right partnership with a reputable foundation that makes the most sense and enables your organization to do the most good? Below, 11 members from Fast Company Executive Board are sharing their tips to help you get started, whether you plan on giving back for a season or throughout the entire year. 

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Implementing these top strategies may help your business stand out during one of the most competitive selling cycles of the year.  The holiday season is the perfect time to nurture your established brand relationships with loyal customers and clients and possibly develop some new ones. Whether your company is targeting B2C or B2B, it's also a chance to come up with other creative concepts to grab people's attention, make them smile, and show them that you truly care.  If you focus on the humanization of your company, highlighting the effectiveness of your employees, you'll connect effectively with the community at large. Here are 14 ways that Fast Company Executive Board members are successfully keeping their organizations in the public eye not only in November and December but throughout the entire year.

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Carving out the time for self-improvement on the job can pay off big time. Whether you are a newcomer to the industry or a longtime go-to expert in your field, there is always something interesting to discover, so embark on being a consummate learner.  No matter what the subject, you're bound to find plenty of resources, you just have to know where to look. As you elevate your skill set, put it into practice so you can also begin to teach other colleagues. By doing so, you'll not only absorb a technique, you'll be a master.  Below, 13 Fast Company Executive Board members provide their best practices for approaching continued education opportunities—on the job, online, or on-site.

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15 company heads are sharing their best resources so you don't have to go it alone. Earning your first role in leadership may seem exciting in the beginning but it can be challenging once you dig a little deeper on the job. But if you learn how to build the right team to assist you with meeting the company's mission and goals, you'll be set up for success in no time with people who are willing to back each other up during the decision-making process. And that's a big win for all. In addition to having reliable staff to stand by your side, often what is most needed is the time to reflect inwardly by yourself—so you can think things through, or to seek knowledge from a close colleague, a mentor on paper, or through an established personal network that will keep you motivated when times get tough.  Below are some go-to leadership resources that a panel of Fast Company Executive Board members has found useful, whether you're a seasoned C-Suite executive, newly appointed team leader, or in the launching phase of building your own start-up.

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Prepare your team early so they'll be up to the task and expectations. Building a culture of adaptability, among leadership and staff, starts with clarity and transparency about the company's objectives if you want to get everyone on board from the top down.  As you train and encourage your team to be fearless about facing challenges, they will become much more resilient and willing to go the distance, implementing a new direction at the company that is positive and beneficial for all. Below, 15 members of Fast Company Executive Board present their best practices for introducing a new approach to the business process that makes employees feel confident about embracing a flexible mindset and becoming more involved as valuable company stakeholders in their role to move the organization forward.

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These crucial factors will contribute to the organization's ability to thrive and make the necessary improvements, year after year. Taking a mid-year stock of your company's latest goals, accomplishments and challenges in the industry is a typical process that every leader and their team must engage in to enable the establishment to survive.  But why wait until mid-year? Planning ahead of the assessment season to find innovative solutions that will push your company's growth—whether you're experiencing an economic downturn or the business is booming—is the best way to move forward!  Here are nine items that leaders from Fast Company Executive Board always like to consider in their efforts to help the company continue to meet its objectives.