Evan Duke Enterprises

In the for profit business world, the concept of in kind business deals is not as widely known or discussed as it should be. In my years in working with non profits, this led to many mutually beneficial arrangements that help both sides better achieve their goals. While obviously requiring some additional tweaks for the for profit sector, the concept in and of itself does hold a great deal of value, especially since it is able to put a great deal of additional negotiating chips onto the table. This article goes into greater detail about what in kind deals are and what they look like. If you would like to develop a strategy about how to best implement a concept like this into your business plan, please feel free to reach out and we will discuss. https://lnkd.in/e8VFd9Hj

Always be looking at success in terms of what you desire to accomplish, not what you have accomplished. That way, you will be guaranteed to be looking forward and attempting to achieve bigger and better things. Complacency will set in with the latter.

One of the biggest issues I have seen in businesses over the years is a fundamental lack of awareness. From not realizing that interpersonal issues are causing conflict to not fully understanding the competitive sphere of your business, lack of awareness can have catastrophic results. If you are in a business where the top lacks awareness, it is probably in your best interest to leave as soon as possible. Things will not improve, especially if the lack of awareness clearly is not going to be solved soon. This article gives ideas about how to resolve a lack of awareness, but what needs to be the fundamental goal in fixing awareness issues is the company mission and goals. If you don't keep your eyes on the target and get everyone else to focus on it, you will not succeed. https://lnkd.in/ewAjyuxH

Over the years, I have observed that the fastest way to destroy your network is to go to the same people repeatedly for things that they don't offer. Broaden your reach as much as possible.

AI is one of the most revolutionary developments in business. Having almost two decades of experience working in multiple industries, there are quite a few tasks that AI can do well, specifically when it comes to the first draft of documents that I may have little to no experience crafting. However, the limitations of AI are also rather substantial too. I have yet to see anything that AI has created that didn't require some level of revision and reworking. In some cases, AI got everything completely wrong. I would argue that we need to view AI as giving us a powerful tool. At the end of the day, it will help us to be more productive because it eliminates a lot of busywork, as well as is able to create documents that there is a large level of standardization with across the board; therefore, it can be viewed as an effective bench marking tool. However, if you want to go beyond benchmarks (which should be the goal of every business owner), you need to let AI take you as far as it can before continuing the journey according to your vision. This article will go into further detail about the strengths and weaknesses of AI. https://lnkd.in/e_qUpXpD

Success in business is difficult. Over the years, I have worked with many people who would let success go to their heads, even if the success was relatively minimal. Complacency is a very real enemy to success, and allowing past successes to lull us into a fall sense of security is an oft repeated cautionary tale. For the person attempting to create sustained success, the challenges will continue to appear. As you level up, you begin to lose competitors, but new, bigger competitors come onto the scene. You might think that if you have grown to be the biggest thing in your industry in the area that this is no longer a concern. Unfortunately, that is not the case, especially when you start broadening the definition of your industry. On this point, regularly updating your SWOT analysis to take into account the shifting competitor landscape is particularly helpful. At the end of the day, the most effective way to handle the shifting competitor landscape is to focus on internal excellence and strengthen your core offerings. This article discusses how you can do this. If you make this your regular goal, you will see sustained success, especially as your competitor landscape begins to shift over time. https://lnkd.in/ebePBpTf

Always encourage your employees to not dedicate their waking hours to your company. This not only prevents burnout, but also will help the to approach work with a fresh perspective.

Data is one of the most revolutionary aspects of 21st century business. With the ability to collect so much data as well as analyze it, the possibilities are endless. From using it to help improve your campaign marketing to creating income forecasts that can be used to develop budgets, the possibilities are almost endless. In order to develop all of this (as well as to identify your businesses KPIs), you need to first identify all of your data points. Not all data is created equal. Some pieces of data will be very valuable. Other pieces will help to further clarify the key data points and might serve as valuable variables to help further focus your results. Some pieces might have limited usefulness, but they could still serve as variables to help clarify things. Finally, some data points will clearly have no use for you. From all of this information, you can then use the data to create effective forecast models to developing focused marketing campaigns that will help target your key demographics. However, in order to achieve this, you need to very carefully sift through the data, as well as develop effective data collection methods to ensure that you are getting accurate information that is both complete and not skewed. For the newcomer to analytics, this article will go into more about the importance of data quality. This is the most important part of the equation, since poor data can give results that would be disastrous if followed. https://lnkd.in/gtiMt8yM

Feel like you have hit a wall with your business? Contact us today and we will see how a fractional executive can help you once again grow.

The Importance of Preparing for the Worst It is wonderful when things go right for us. The feeling of being on top of the world truly is exhilarating. You feel like there is nothing that is impossible to achieve, and the adrenaline rush helps you to attempt bigger things. On the flip side, when everything goes wrong, it feels like there is nothing that we can do right. It is almost as if every well laid out plan almost always finds some way to fall apart. In these settings, pessimism reigns supreme. In reality, much of life occurs somewhere in the middle. We have some successes and some notable failures. We feel at times like we might not be making progress, since our successes and failures tend to cancel each other out. What we need to do is to develop comprehensive and thorough planning. While things might not always be a success, at the same time, they will not always fail. Sometimes everything will go right, whereas in other cases, nothing will go according to plan. We need to have a plan in each case. The benefits of extreme planning are that you will be able to handle everything in the event that a worst case scenario arises. Of course, sometimes there are black swan events in which there is no level of planning that can adequately prepare you for what has happened. Thankfully, those are very rare. This article gives some ideas about ways to plan for an extreme disaster. Consider it as a starting point. https://lnkd.in/e4udrhgw.