Mark L. Goldberg
Almost any planning initiative, whether intended for launch, growth, maintenance, or termination, can apply the use of SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis to give planning depth. increase. This approach to planning is useful when launching a new product, rebranding, establishing a new direction, or expanding by acquiring a competitor. It’s an approach to planning that helps bring your company’s vision to life.
A good SWOT analysis is a roadmap because it shows what your business is working, what is not working, red flags, and possible new paths to take. This allows you to prioritize elements that appear equal until evaluated against each other. This process shows you how to improve your processes and procedures. It also shows you where the obstacles are that are holding you back from achieving your goals.
A useful feature of using SWOT as a signpost is that it presents a neutral analysis of what is considered “good, bad, and ugly.” Being an objective view of the business, it can be used by owners, employees, investors, stakeholders, partners, board members and even customers.
The advantage of using SWOT as part of your plan is that it’s less complex and reduced to a single sheet of paper. Building a SWOT analysis, if done properly, is a great team building exercise and promotes participation and belonging in an organization. There is real buy-in when your team works to develop objectives and action plans to address those objectives.
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The quadrants that define SWOT look inside an organization through strengths and weaknesses and outside through threats and opportunities. Let’s go through each quadrant by asking a focused question that ClickFunnels offers.
Strengths: Does your current vision align with what you rate yourself doing well? What makes your organization unique? What does it do well? What areas are you most successful in? What are your competitive advantages?
Weaknesses: What areas need improvement the most? What kind of negative customer comments do you receive? Why are your prospects not converting? What problems do you encounter most often? What are your limits to gender? What can your business do better to be more competitive? And is it hindered by what is not working today?
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chance: Where can you find more qualified customers? What external trends are positively impacting your business? What upcoming events will help sustain or grow your business? do you grow to
threat: What new competitors might you face in the near future? What trends could negatively affect you? Are your marketing efforts trending downward? Are there any recent external developments that could pose a challenge for us? As we begin the planning process, we are likely looking at where we are now, where we are going, and how we will get there. highest.
Some elements of planning look to external factors to predict the future. These elements of SWOT are opportunities and threats. Part of our plan deals with the here and now related to what’s working and what’s not. Strengths and weaknesses are the SWOT elements that exist today.
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Novuna Business Finance has some tips for conducting a SWOT analysis. This method prevents groupthink and helps organize your team’s ideas. Decide on three or four bullet points for each quadrant and organize your ideas under each header. Use a flip chart. Have at least one page for each SWOT element before posting so everyone can review previous posts as you work through each element. Post-it notes are pasted onto post-it pads. Allow past her SWOT elements to be added as the team does their overall analysis.
Honesty is very important and this is difficult. Because small businesses have an element of ownership and it’s hard to face the tough questions. Another tip is to give the planning team her SWOT structure and have them prepare their contributions in advance so they come to the meeting ready to contribute rather than thinking about each component of the SWOT. .
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A SWOT analysis is a great tool to add to your business plan because it looks both internally and externally to measure the environmental factors that affect your organization.
Contributed by Marc L. Goldberg, Certified Mentor of SCORE Cape Cod & the Islands. www.capecod.score, capecodscore@scorevolunteer.org, 508-775-4884Source: SWOT Analysis, ClickFunnels, Smart Business Planning, Novana Business Finance.
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