Do you have constraints in your business? Most likely, the answer is yes you do…just like most all business owners out there today. Every business has something to overcome in order to grow to the next level.

Our favorite way to identify the constraints of a business, and how to overcome them is by developing a SWOT Analysis for the specific business.

If you are unsure what a SWOT Analysis is…here is the definition:

A SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning and strategic management technique used to help a person, as a Entrepreneur, Small Business Owner or Marketing Director of an organization to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats related to the business.

We use a SWOT analysis to get a better understanding to see how a business could perform better, it competes within the market, areas of opportunity and to see whats currently impacting the business internally and externally.

Begin your SWOT Analysis by asking yourself these questions…

Strengths:

1. What resources do we have?

2. What products are selling well? 

3. What is my competitive advantage?

Weakness:

1.What are some areas of improvement?

2.What products are underperformance? 

3. Where are you lacking resources?

Opportunities:

1.Is there away to add more product offerings to fulfill customer needs and wants?

2.Is there any cost friendly technology that would help?

3.Is the market I serve growing, can I explore new market segments?

Threats:

1. Are there any new regulations threatening the current business model?

2. What Consumer trends are impacting the business? 

3.What is my market share vs my competitors? 

Strengths and Weaknesses focus on the internal operations of a company while, Opportunities and Threats focus on external factors.

From here, we make a quadrant, pairing an internal strength with an opportunity and develop a strategy. And the same goes for pairing a weakness and opportunity together to give the business a better understanding that the internal weakness can inhibit business if they don’t find a way to over come that weakness.

Typically at the end of this analysis we have 12 strategies that the business owner can use to empower their way through their constraints. 

And instead of implementing all 12 at once, we pick the top two that will move the business towards its overarching goal.

We find that a SWOT Analysis is typically vital and part of the pre-work many businesses, consultants and marketing departments skip over. They want to get right into doing the fun stuff, making the content, and hosting events, that from the outer layer look like they’re producing results, but without a data driven plan, these tactics simply underperform and fail to drive results.

Like we always say… If you’re going to throw a party, then party with a purpose.. If you’re going to create hours of content, make sure there is a point besides trying to get “Likes”, and it leads the customer of what to do next.

Are you wondering more about a SWOT analysis for your own business?