Based upon the literature addressing small business failures, three general internal factors are identified: finance, management, and marketing. Within each of these three problematic areas, numerous specific difficulties are identified and examined. The external reasons for small business failures that are outside the owners control have been identified as inflation, economic conditions and union problems. The economic structure within which a firm must exist acts as a cause of failure that originates outside the business itself and is not a result of acts of management. A company cannot change the environment; it must be able to use it to its benefit. The objective of this book is to determine whether businesses exhibited symptoms of small business failure.