When an employee flipped off a key customer, this CEO realized his company had a culture problem. Here's how he fixed it. Many years ago, I received a call from an irate customer. "Your …
Getting (Big) Things Done
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com For too long you've served as Chief Fire Extinguisher. It's time to step back and start working on building your business. Are you …
The Tipping Point
Can you smell it? Can you feel it? Is it the way the light shifts or how the little events in your day change—traffic patterns, morning routines, a heavier jacket? Thoreau wrote in his first book, A …
Is Your Business Going Through Puberty?
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com You know those awkward growing pains? They happen to companies, too. Prepare for the inevitable changes with these tips. Change for a …
Why the Capital Gains Tax Hurts Entrepreneurs
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com The capital gains tax has been touted as the brass ring for business owners. But if you self-fund your growth, it's anything but. For …
5 Employee Morale Killers
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com I discovered my first lesson in how not to motivate people at the bottom of a kitchen sink. In 1986, when I was 16 years old, my …
Disruptive Innovation–One Pair of Glasses at a Time
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com Want to shake up an entire industry? Use this story as inspiration. Where do you look for disruptive change opportunities in your …
Method’s 4 Rules for Staying Innovative
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com Eric Ryan, co-founder of method home products, reveals the four things his company does to keep the creativity flowing. At 36,000 …
Competitors Who Bully — and How to Fight Them
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com Bigger, wealthier rivals can and will stack the deck against you. And they will involve lawyers. How will you respond? I recently …
The Stealthiest Start-up Killer
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com It's the threat you never see coming. In fact, even after you crash and burn you still might not recognize it. Sometimes the biggest …
How to Manage Entrepreneurial Personality Disorder
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt’s column Eureka on Inc.com One side of you loves risk; the other side of you can't stand it. Here's how to use your multiple personalities to your advantage. I …
Best Problem-Solving Tip: Don’t Be Afraid to Break Stuff
Reprinted from Chris Mittelstaedt's column Eureka on Inc.com Sometimes there are problems simply too thorny and overwhelming to solve the usual ways; they require you to think differently. But …
Hybrids vs. GMOs
Dear FruitFriends, In the following article, Heidi Lewis writes about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and more specifically what they are (and are not) relative to food. The FruitGuys has …
Take a Bite of a Pixie
Several years ago, I made the mistake of telling my young daughters that I had brought home Pixies for us to eat. They gasped in horror. It was during their Peter Pan phase, and I had been spreading …
Talking About The Weather
There’s a fast-paced, smart device game called “Fingerzilla” that lets you rain Godzilla-like destruction down upon virtual cityscapes and towns using only your finger. While being at the helm of such …
Red Navel Gazing
Citrus season is in full swing now, with all sorts of farm-fresh specialty fruit coming in. We see everything from Navel Oranges to Satsumas to Clementines to Ruby Red Grapefruits to Cara Caras. We’re …
Of Bananas
The 1878 edition of A Domestic Cyclopídia of Practical Information, published by Henry Holt & Company, explained to eager readers the uses for the banana: “It is eaten raw, either alone or cut in …
GoodWorks
The college application process was not an easy one for me. I didn’t know where I wanted to go to school, and I had no idea what to say to encapsulate myself in an essay. I finally settled on telling …
K is for Kiwi!
It’s hard to let go of things that were ingrained in my brain as a kid. I still feel nervous if I take food out of the kitchen to eat somewhere other than the table (“not on the rug, Chris!”), and …
You Say Hachiya, and I Say Fuyu!
My wife is on the East Coast for FruitGuys business, and I’m flying solo. My teen and preteen zombies, formerly known as my children, start rising at 5:45 every morning and usually grunt through the …
