Small Business Survival Conversations

Send us Fan Mail Your business is growing. So why does it feel like it's never enough? You hit the revenue goal. You celebrated for about five minutes. And then you started worrying about the next number. Sound familiar? This week's Monday Morning Motivation goes back to a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, The Fisherman and His Wife. A poor fisherman lets a magical fish go, and his wife sends h...

Send us Fan Mail What do you do when the world stops needing what you've always been good at? Maybe customers are buying differently. Maybe the service that used to pay your bills isn't as popular anymore. And a quiet voice keeps asking, "Am I falling behind? Is it too late to change?" This week's Monday Morning Motivation goes back to a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, The Brem...

Send us Fan Mail Who's really running your business? You? Or the last person who gave you an opinion? This week's Monday Morning Motivation is built on an old fable attributed to Aesop: a miller, his son, and a donkey on the way to market. Every group they pass has a different opinion. They try walking, riding, switching places, and finally... carrying the donkey. By the time they reach...

Send us Fan Mail Is there something in your business you know isn't working... but you keep doing it anyway? This week's Monday Morning Motivation goes back to a fairy tale you probably remember: The Emperor's New Clothes. An emperor, two clever weavers, a suit that doesn't exist, and a whole kingdom too afraid to say so. Until one child says what everyone has been thinking. Tu...

Send us Fan Mail Your competitor's success isn't taking anything from you. Comparing yourself to it might be. This week's Monday Morning Motivation goes back to a story you remember from childhood: the Evil Queen and her magic mirror. She had a castle, a fortune, and a whole kingdom. And the moment someone else had something she wanted, she lost her peace. Sound familiar? Today&apos...

Send us Fan Mail Peter Pan would make a terrible business owner. And a lot of small businesses are living in Neverland right now without realizing it. This week's Monday Morning Motivation revisits the story you loved as a kid: the boy who never grows up, a magical island full of adventure, and a girl named Wendy who quietly keeps everything running. Peter is great at starting things. Wendy i...

Send us Fan Mail Your price probably isn't the problem. How you presented the choice might be. This week's Monday Morning Motivation goes back to a story you haven't thought about since you were a kid — a little girl, a house in the woods, and three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks wasn't just picking porridge. She was comparing. And comparison changes how people decide, every tim...

Send us Fan Mail You didn't fail because you missed. You're stuck because you're still staring at the shot you already missed while the next one is already on its way. This week's Monday Morning Motivation compares two ways of running a business: like a racehorse with blinders on, charging down a track you already mapped out — or like a tennis player, prepared but never quite s...

Send us Fan Mail There are two words that got a little engine up a mountain nobody thought she could climb — and they're the same two words behind almost every small business that ever made it past its hardest season. A train breaks down at the bottom of a mountain, carrying toys meant for children on the other side. One by one, the big, powerful engines are asked to help — and one by one, th...

Send us Fan Mail Nobody's lazy. Nobody's sitting on the sidelines. Everyone is pulling their weight — and somehow, nothing is moving forward. If that sounds familiar, it's not an effort problem. It's a direction problem. This week's Monday Morning Motivation tells the story of the Swan, the Pike, and the Crab — an old fable about three strong, capable characters who all tr...

Send us Fan Mail Most small business owners start out chasing freedom — and accidentally build a business that can't function without them. Every decision goes through you. Every customer only trusts you. Every problem lands on your desk. Ten years in, the business has grown, but your freedom hasn't. In this week's Monday Morning Motivation, small business coach Anna Steinfest break...

Send us Fan Mail You call it research. Planning. Getting ready. Making sure everything is right. But sometimes perfectionism is just fear wearing a nice outfit — and it's the reason your business is still stuck on Version 1. This week's Monday Morning Motivation looks at the Three Little Pigs like you've never heard it before: not a story about hard work, but a story about three ver...

Send us Fan Mail What happens when your business is more than a business—when it's deeply connected to your purpose? In this episode of Small Business Survival Conversations , I sit down with Dr. Nicole Boyington, President and CEO of the Dyslexia Achievement Center , for a conversation about entrepreneurship, leadership, purpose, and the realities of building a mission-driven business. Nicol...

Send us Fan Mail Most small-business owners don’t have an information problem. They already know they should raise their prices, delegate more, make the difficult sales call, hire the right person—or finally let the wrong person go. So why don’t we do it? Ken Dombrowski returns to Small Business Survival Conversations to explore the hidden patterns that can keep business owners stuck, even when th...

Send us Fan Mail Most people will tell you to stay positive. Push through. Keep going. Nobody tells you what to actually do when everything falls apart. This Monday morning on Small Business Survival Conversations, Anna Steinfest delivers one of the most honest episodes she's ever recorded — not about how to avoid failure, but about what failure is actually trying to teach you, and how the en...

Send us Fan Mail He Bought Useless Land Full of Rattlesnakes. Here's What He Built Instead. What do you do when everything you've invested in looks like a complete failure? Most people complain. Most people quit. Most people spend years talking about the terrible hand they were dealt. This farmer did something nobody expected. This Monday morning on Small Business Survival Conversations,...

Send us Fan Mail Every business runs on trust — but trust isn't measured by your website, your logo, or your marketing. It's measured in hundreds of small, everyday moments. This week's Monday Morning Motivation tells the story of a farmer, a baker, and a pound of butter — and the surprising twist about who was really being weighed. If you've ever wondered what your business wo...

Send us Fan Mail Every entrepreneur knows the temptation to wait — for more money, more confidence, more perfect timing. This week's Monday Morning Motivation starts with one line from Arnold Schwarzenegger: "You can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets." From there, it's a story about two farmers, the hidden cost of "someday," and why gr...

Send us Fan Mail Every business owner has a crack in their story — the launch that flopped, the client who left, the year the numbers didn't work. This week's Monday Morning Motivation tells the story of kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, and what it teaches us about turning our business setbacks into our most valuable asset. If you're in the middle of...

Send us Fan Mail She had no money. No power. No influence with the farmer. Just a web — and she used it to save a life. In this week's Monday Morning Motivation, we're going back to a barn most of us know from childhood — Charlotte's Web — but looking at it through a business owner's eyes. What starts as a story about a spider and a pig turns into a masterclass on branding, men...

Send us Fan Mail What do a poor woodcutter from an ancient folktale and the founder of one of the world's most powerful companies have in common? More than you think. This Monday, Anna Steinfest takes you on a journey from the caves of Ali Baba to the global headquarters of Alibaba — and reveals the one truth that connects them both: the door only opens for those who keep searching. In this e...

Send us Fan Mail He wished that everything he touched would turn to gold. And for a moment, it felt like the greatest blessing any king could ask for — until he sat down for a meal and realized his gift had become a prison. This week on Small Business Survival Conversations, Anna Steinfest revisits the 2,500-year-old story of King Midas — but not the version you've heard before. This isn&apos...

Send us Fan Mail YouTube description Burn the boats: the Sun Tzu strategy every entrepreneur needs to hear In 1519, Hernán Cortés ordered his own ships destroyed on the shores of Mexico — removing any possibility of retreat for his men. Centuries earlier, Sun Tzu described a similar moment: a leader who climbs to a height, then kicks away the ladder behind him. In this episode, Anna Steinfest unpa...

Send us Fan Mail Why do so many small business owners quit—not because they lack talent, passion, or vision, but because the mountain in front of them feels too big to climb? In this inspiring Monday Morning Motivation episode of Small Business Survival Conversations , Anna Steinfest explores a powerful 2,000-year-old lesson from Confucius: “The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away sma...

Send us Fan Mail What separates businesses that survive from those that truly grow? In this powerful episode of Small Business Survival Conversations, Anna Steinfest sits down with executive coach and leadership expert Ken Dombrowski to discuss the three core principles behind every successful business. Together, they break down: Why mentorship can accelerate business growth The importance of foll...