The statistics on small business survival are daunting: Only 50 percent of new companies will survive for more than five years in the U.S. marketplace. Before diving into entrepreneurship, wouldn’t it be ideal to tap into the knowledge of experienced, thriving business owners for advice on failure-proofing a new business?We asked members of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), a global, peer-to-peer network of 14,000-plus influential business owners, what lessons they wish they’d known to ensure ongoing success before starting their companies. 21009

Contributed by Angela Fernandez, vice president of community engagement, GS1 US. GS1 US, an information standards organization that helps brands identify their products for commerce, recently surveyed more than 500 entrepreneurs to identify best practices to achieve sustained success. The results are presented in “Charting the Growth Journey: From Product to Profitable Business.”Respondents were classified as “leaders,” those who achieved sales growth of more than 25 percent in the last year, or “laggards,” those whose sales declined in the past year.Explore the results to determine if your brand will lead the pack or stay in a holding pattern. 21000

Marcus Lethlean is the owner of Mediport, GoodBarTrade, 4Degrees Celcius, A2b Solutions and OneSevenOne. And with several businesses under his belt, you might think he’d mastered the entrepreneurial journey. Not so! Like many Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) members, he believes in continuous learning and improvement in order to take his businesses further and better serve the people that benefit from his services. He recently shared his story with EO Melbourne. When asked why he started his businesses, Lethlean admits that he couldn’t see himself in the corporate setting. He likes to start something from scratch as it gives him the freedom to create, set his own directions and strategize his next steps.“I have worked inside the corporate environment and there are some aspects of the hierarchical chain that can blunt people of their creativity. At other times, the system can teach people not to go out on a limb. And yet, every entrepreneur who I know went out on a limb, particularly founders. You don’t even think of the risk because you just feel like it’s going to work.” 20992

Sunny Lawrence is the wife of James “The Iron Cowboy” Lawrence. A Guinness World Record holder, James is well known for completing 50 Ironman races in 50 consecutive days, through all 50 US States. He has shared his story in several Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) speaking events. Sunny proudly considers herself the woman behind the Iron Man. She and James live in Utah with their five children. She shares her perspective as an entrepreneur’s partner. “You are like a puppy dog that just blindly follows James around. You have no backbone and he just walks all over you.”I’ve always had a very strong personality. I was definitely a loud-mouth and a self-proclaimed comedian growing up. It wasn’t until I was older that I realized that being funny, confident and strong really were personality traits that I was born with and never really needed to work for. 20978