small.opinions Op-eds written by small business owners, sharing personal perspectives about the realities, challenges, and opportunities for small businesses globally. Whether you’re a small business owner or you know someone whose voice should be heard, we want to hear from you! Keys to Success: What a Piano Studio Taught Me About Building a Business When I was seven years old, I fell in love with the piano, and music quickly became the center of my life. I had a natural talent for it, and judges from the National Piano Guild often encouraged me to become a professional concert pianist—traveling the world and performing on grand stages.Read More → Do It Afraid: Lessons on Building a Small Business With Heart and AI My name is Latoyia Banks, owner and operator of Aaden & Addi Sweet Treats, a confectionery and dessert business located in Homestead, Florida. We started our brand approximately five years ago, and this journey has been nothing short of what many small-business owners experience.Read More → The Small Business Opinions That Made Us Stop and Think This Past Year Over the past year, small business owners have written candidly about the parts of business ownership that don’t make it into pitch decks.Read More → Amazon Is Not Just a Sales Channel: 3 Lessons I Learned Building DTOCS When I started selling DTOCS on Amazon, I thought the goal was simple: sell more. It took experience to realize that sales alone don’t tell you whether the business is healthy.Read More → The Solo-Founder Model Is Broken, My Team Proves It I used to think my work had to be carried mostly by me — the workshops, the coaching, the campaigns, the follow-up, the ideas, and every system behind those ideas. That belief is common among small business owners, and I think it is wrong.Read More → The Real Risk of Scaling Too Soon in a Small Business People love to talk about growth like it is always good news. More customers. More orders. More visibility. More locations. More staff. More sales. From the outside, it sounds like the dream. The business is growing. The market is responding. People want what you sell. The thing is working.Read More → What ‘It’ll Never Work’ Is Really Telling Your Small Business In 1976, I was a young employee at Walt Disney Productions. During a brainstorming session in Burbank, I suggested releasing our cartoons on a new format: videotape. The company’s president, Card Walker, looked at me and said:Read More → Stop Calling It Sustainability If It Doesn’t Make Your Business Better “I’m sorry, but we just don’t have the budget for sustainability.” I’ve heard some version of that sentence more times than I can count. Early in my journey as a small business owner, I used to leave those meetings frustrated. I had the data. I had the research. I could explain the environmental impact of…Read More → The Energy Mistake Every Small Business Owner Is Making Right Now As someone who has spent years supporting and building large complex technology systems, I’ve noticed something interesting: the energy industry is following the same trend wireless technology did 40 years ago. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, conversations around wireless technology were very different from what they are today.Read More → Being a Strong Woman Is Not a Business Strategy There is a kind of woman people love to praise. She gets things done. She handles pressure. She does not fall apart in public.Read More → An Opportunity I See in the Creator Economy Growing up in a musical family, I always knew I wanted to pursue music. When I graduated high school, I was set on becoming a charted musical artist, and to be candid, that plan has never left me.Read More → Stop Teaching Entrepreneurship, Start Building Infrastructure I’ve sat in rooms full of aspiring entrepreneurs, pens moving, heads nodding, notebooks filling with ideas. I’ve also watched many leave inspired but not equipped.Read More → Jerome Archer Shares Lessons from 27 Years in Business Keeping a small business alive for twenty-seven years is no small feat. It is a marathon that tests endurance, adaptability, and heart.Read More → Golf for the Small Business Professional Isn’t About Performance, It’s About Positioning When most people think about golf, they think about skill. Perfect swings. Beautiful scenery. Clean contact.Read More → Trust Is Your Business Strategy, You Don’t Know It Yet An invisible force shapes your business, your relationships, decisions, leadership, and results. It affects how your team performs, how customers choose, and how fast opportunities appear or disappear.Read More → 1 2 3 4 Next Page