Most people start up small businesses without the knowledge of effective management which is one of the major causes of the high rate of Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) failure and discontinuity in South Africa. The purpose of this study was to establish an effective management approach for enhancing the success of SMEs. This study adopts a quantitative method of data collection and analysis. The research instrument used for this study was a questionnaire, which was administered to 400 small business managers in the North West province of South Africa, and Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. It was found that only 41.5% of SMEs in the North West province are likely to be sustainable whereas the majority of 58.5% is likely not to be sustainable due to ineffective management. This is so because SMEs which are effectively managed are most likely to succeed and be sustainable while those that are poorly managed are most likely to fail and discontinued. It is imperative for small business managers to uphold the prescripts of strategic management to be visionary, dynamic, goal orientated, transformational and tactical in applying the effective management measures to manage SMEs for them to succeed and be sustainable.