Small to medium sized enterprises (SME) have long been noted as important economic engines of many countries and account for approximately half of GDP in the United States, yet this sector has continued to have mixed success and failure with such businesses having less than 50% chance of surviving five years! Despite this challenge most efforts to identify what leads to small firm success has been personal opinions or conjecture.

To gain a deeper real world understanding of what successful small businesses do to succeed I interviewed 29 owners and senior leaders of profitable and growing small firms that had been in business at least five years.…