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This study explores the recovery of failing SMEs. It focuses on CEOs, who we consider the main actors able to reverse the failure trajectory. The research aims to identify the actions taken by CEOs and their teams to recover their businesses, a topic often overlooked in the literature. We built a theoretical sample of thirteen SMEs encountering difficulties. We collected qualitative and longitudinal data over a period of three years. This research design enables us to identify and analyze thirty-five sequences of actions within these trajectories. Three main results are proposed and discussed. First, we identify four main types of actions that aim to recover the firm’s profitability and financial liquidity. One of these actions relates to communication activity, which is rarely discussed in the literature. The second result concerns the actions favored by CEOs: those that aim to restore turnover or diversify its sources. However, we do not identify any favored combinations of actions, nor any links between sequences of actions and results (recovery or not). Finally, the third result concerns the collective dimension of managing these trajectories. In these situations, CEOs build up a strategic core to handle the situation and to recover the business. The composition of the team varies over time according to the difficulties encountered. The deeper the SME is in the failure trajectory, the more the CEO modifies his or her strategic core.